Handling a Municipal Waste in Edinburgh City Council

Question: In a hypothetical situation Edinburgh City Council is considering investing in new waste disposal facilities. Discuss the relative merits of disposing of Municipal Solid Waste via Engineered Landfill and Incineration in the Edinburgh area? Answer: Introduction Agamuthu and Narayanan (2013) argued that Municipal Solid Waste including residential as well as commercial waste generated the solid or semi solid form without hazardous waste of industrials. However, Municipal Solid Waste treated the bio-medical waste in one area. This particular study focus on examine the activities of Municipal Solid Waste disposal via engineered landfill and incineration technologies. Apart from that, this study considers the technological, environmental and political factors of recycling and energy from waste. 1. Discussion of relative merits of Municipal Solid Waste Disposal via Incineration and Engineered Landfill in Edinburgh City 1.1 Institutional Framework of Edinburgh City Figure 1: Community Chart of Edinburgh City of Municipal Solid Waste (Source: Thomanetz, 2012, pp- 411) 1.2 Types of Disposal Figure 2: Types of disposal of Municipal Solid Waste (Source: Stanic-Maruna and Fellner, 2012, pp- 831) 1.3 Engineered Landfill Gases Landfill: In order to landfill the gases and Leachates, the local government of Edinburgh city uses different types of technologies such as micro turbines, gas turbines, internal combustion of engine, external combustion engine, etc (Pariatamby and Tanaka, 2014). Therefore, the CHP applications of LFG energy need to create within the Edinburgh City. The several technologies that has wide range of advantages in order to landfill the gas within the region of Edinburgh such as Boiler: This technology helps in utilizing the maximum amount of gas flow when it recovered. Apart from that, Boiler also allows in removing the limited condensate and treats the rest of solid waste with filtration. Infrared Heater: It is one of the easiest technologies that install quickly and manages the Municipal Solid Waste (Burnley, 2014). The control process of this technology is simple and also the construct time is much shorter rather than other technologies. However, the expense rate of Infrared Heater is low rather than other technologies. Gas Turbine: This technology is most popular in municipal solid waste management because this efficient technology increase heats during recover the solid waste products. Bio Metric production: This is also a simple technology n handling and also the construction is easy. Majority of government in the world uses this system in order to manage their solid waste materials. Sanitary Landfill: According to Grilli et al. (2012), for sanitary landfill in the community of Edinburgh, need to add lining materials. It helps in bringing the site to reduce leakage of leachtes from the core of the site. The following diagram shows the technologies that have to use by the local government of Edinburgh City in order to manage the solid sate of their municipal. The used technologies allows in preventing the contamination of drinking water via the groundwater monitoring. Figure 3: Technology for Sanitary Landfill (Source: ) 1.4 Incineration Grate Technologies: This techniques allows in developing combustion system for the Municipal Solid Waste in the Edinburgh City. Through the combustion chamber, this technology slowly propelled with the use of accurate mechanical grate. In the furnace of Edinburgh City, it continuously enters and discharges the materials such as ash. However, Guerrero et al. (2013) suggested that this technology complete the combustion of the feed via optimizing the waste combustion. In order to manage the Municipal Solid Waste, this technology has three other sub categories such as the roller grate, stepped inclined grate and inclined counter rotating grates. Fluidised Bed (FB): The FB technique involves in pre-sorting of Municipal Solid Waste in order to remove the inert objects and heavy objects such as processing in the furnace, metals, plastics, etc. The two main sub categories of fluidised bed combustion such as Bubbling FB and Circulating FB are most effective technology for removing Municipal Solid Waste. Bubbling FB helping in mobilizing the bed and make the good contacts with the waste materials. On the other hand, Circulating FB carried out the combustion of chamber through use of flue gas (Tonini and Astrup, 2012). Thus, this technology carried out the practical and higher airflow of combustion chamber. Rotary Kiln: Hamidul Bari et al. (2012) presumed that the technology of rotary kiln has wide range of applications. On the other hand, MacRae (2011) argued that Rotary Kiln is the complete package of rotation vessels. In order to incinerate for Municipal Solid Waste, there are two major technologies are available of rotary kiln such as separate secondary combustion chamber and consisting of kiln. In the feed of entry point of municipal solid waste, rotary kiln creates primary chamber. Thus, this technology moves the waste with a tumbling action through the kiln. Thus, it exposed the waste to oxygen and heat. 2. Recycling Technical Factor: In order to recycling the Municipal Solid Waste in the Edinburgh City Council, need to use the collection technologies like buy back centres, drop off centres, etc; sorting technologies like single stream recycling; disassembly technologies, materials technologies such as alloys, joints, glues, composites, etc; end use technologies, EFW technologies like competitions, etc. Environmental Factor: For recycling the Municipal Solid Waste, Edinburgh City Council has to reserve oil or peak oil and require to landfill availability. Both this environmental factor helps in recycling the solid waste within the region of Edinburgh City. Apart from that, exploitation affects such as mining damage to ecosystems that also allows in mitigating problems in recycling (Epa.gov, 2015). Moreover, during recycling, climate changes is the big issue because due to rises of temperature or decrease of temperature of the external climate has potential impacts on recycling. Moreover, Marshall and Farahbakhsh (2013) cited that virgin materials and carbon balance recyclate is also one of the key environmental factor for recycling. Political Factor: It has been often seen that government of the country control the overall process of recycling. Therefore, governmental will or the file of Local Political party may effect on the recycling process of Edinburgh City. Apart from that Landfill tax, carbon targets as well as landfill targets also major political issues in recycling. 3. Energy from Waste Technological Factor: The major technological factors that effect on the energy from waste within the Edinburgh City Council will be technology like operation, technical support, maintenance, etc; composition of waste such as quantity, characteristics, type, etc; existing practice such as transport, recycling process, collection, etc (Milke, 2008). Environmental Factor: Climate will be the key factors in developing the mechanism of energy from waste. External climate has major impact on these types of process generation within the country (Cdn.intechopen.com, 2015). Availability of virgin resources are also the important environmental factor in Energy from waste. Political Factor: Innovative approaches of country government such as nudge strategies will be affecting positively in the energy from waste process of Edinburgh City. Furthermore, incentives like waste to energy credits will also affect on this particular process for Edinburgh City Council. Conclusion This study discussed the technologies of landfill and incineration of Municipal Solid Waste disposal that may helps in conducting the process or mechanism of Solid Waste management in the region of Edinburgh City Council. Several technologies are described with the proper examples in this study that helps in understanding the advantages of engineered landfill and incineration in the process of Municipal Solid Waste Management. In the next part of this study, analysis discussed about the political, environmental and technological factors of Recycling and Energy from Waste within the region of Edinburgh City Council. After discussion of Municipal Solid Waste disposal, it has recommended to Edinburgh City Council for conducting effective Solid Waste Management process. These are as follows Reference List Agamuthu, P. and Narayanan, K. (2013). Persistent organic pollutants in solid waste management. Waste Management Research, 31(10), pp.967-968. Epa.gov, (2015). [online] Available at: https://www.epa.gov/solidwaste/inforesources/pubs/training/mswlf05.pdf [Accessed 27 Feb. 2015]. Cdn.intechopen.com, (2015). [online] Available at: https://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs-wm/9679.pdf [Accessed 27 Feb. 2015]. Burnley, S. (2014). Solid wastes management. Chichester: Wiley. Grilli, S., Giordano, A. and Spagni, A. (2012). Stabilisation of biodried municipal solid waste fine fraction in landfill bioreactor. 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