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04.

The new Age Municipal Solid Waste Management System

The proposed system is a basic infrastructure system that satisfies all of the  above  principles and guidelines. The description below is the initial one and be optimized  based  on  the structure of the city and the waste  separation  at source  level. The  system  is ideal for a new city but can be studied and used into existing cities provided that the local situation allows.

Urban Landscape

General Description / Concept

The proposed Municipal Solid Waste Management System is based on a pneumatic waste collection system.

The system consists of the following components:

  • The collection points and pneumatic system [source point to collection station]

  • The Collection Transfer Station

  • The unmanned rail system from collection points to main facility

  • The Main Municipal Solid Waste Treatment Facility

 

The individuals use separate color biodegradable bags to separate [for this initial stage] two types of waste i.e. Organic waste and other mixed waste.

 

Collection inlets are installed on the residential plots one very two villas or one every villa [depending on the expected capacity] and  at the  basement  of  every commercial  facility. Inlets can be ground, or wall mounted, internal or external, designed for easy-of-use,  safety and cleanliness and at least of two different colors [organic and mixed].

 

Each set of inlets are connected to the Collection Transfer Station through a pipe network that vacuums the bags to the Collection Transfer Station. The different bags end up in different bins that are designed to compact the waste.

 

The Collection Transfer  Station  are connected thru an underground unmanned rail system to the Main Municipal Solid Waste Treatment Facility. When the big bins are full [or once a day] they are moved to the Main Facility.

 

At the Main Municipal Solid Waste Treatment Facility there are five functional areas.

  • Optical segregation,

  • Physical segregation to recyclables [for mixed waste bags]

  • Organics Waste composting

  • The Plastic  to Oil plant  creating biofuel

  • Baling and  warehousing   of recyclables

The facility is totally underground at a maximum depth of  13  meters [6 without  the  Plastic  to Oil reactor].

 

All operations can be powered by renewable systems that are a combination of solar and solar thermal systems individually placed throughout the City.

BENEFITS

  • Public-health protection

  • There are no waste collection trucks used [only one for emergency cases]

  • no relative traffic hazards created, no local air emissions, noise, congestion.

  • headcount significantly lower than traditional systems,

  • Very low to zero carbon greenhouse gases emissions

  • no pests' problems due to the sealed type of operations,

  • no visual of waste,

  • no smell problems,

  • zero human error system on the collection process

  • fully monitored at all supply chain components

  • very fast system to collect waste to main treatment facility [minutes against days]

  • very low level of operational expenses [OPEX]

  • Being underground the system is not affected by extreme outside conditions or disasters

  • Modular as it grows as the City is growing as new plots are added

  • The system produces reusable, sellable products like aluminum, wood, glass, metals, fertilizer, recyclable plastic, biofuel, electricity, heat  and less  than  0.4%  materials than need further treatment.

  • 100% sustainable.

THE COMPONENTS

The collection points

Inlets will be of various sizes and types in order to cover all residential and commercial facilities' needs. Will be installed in high rise buildings, outside residential buildings/ villas. Special Waste like Medical Waste could be serviced by separate streams.

The pneumatic system [source point to collection station]

The systems use pneumatic technology and automation  to  vacuum  bags for the  inlet point to the Collection Transfer Station(s).

Once the inlets are full – or at pre-programmed times as specified by the system's owner – powerful fans situated in the collection station are activated by control platform,  which creates negative airflow that sucks the bagged waste from each inlet to  large containers  – one for each stream.

Each collection cycle can take only minutes compared with traditional waste collection methods, as a result of the 70kph speeds at which the waste travels through the underground pipe network. Furthermore, the power of the fans enables each inlet to be located up to a minimum km away from the collection station, which means that each collection station has a minimum km radius in which as many inlets as required can be installed.

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The Main Municipal Solid Waste Treatment Facility

 

The facility has five operating areas and their relevant machinery:

  1. Optical segregation. The place where the initial segregation of the mixed waste is done. The section can also service [manually or automated] the separation of different types of waste if those are disposed in different colors.

  2. Physical segregation to recyclables [for mixed waste bags] Manual operation that includes several types of machinery that separate the various types of recyclable waste and plastic to forward to P-T-O treatment.

  3. Organics Waste composting. The high speed closed type composters are used to eliminate organics and produce fertilizer. The  most  efficient system  is a combination of units that handle 1.5 tones  of  organic  waste  per  day every day.  Approximately 20% of this tonnage is transformed into fertilizer. The total capacity can grow with additional units as the City is growing. The fertilizer can be used to enrich the City's ground in gardens or even agriculture.

  4. The Plastic to Oil plant creating biofuel. The plant can treat plastic waste [not PVC] and some medical to produce highly efficient biofuel. The unit can handle approximately 20tones of plastic waste per day delivering around 15 tones of biofuel. The reactor need limited space, can be operational underground but a height of clear 10 meters is needed.

  5. Baling and warehousing of recyclables. The baling unit can be used to bale all kinds of waste or recyclable materials. The unit is mobile and use various colors of wrapping to bale from plastic to tires to cans to glass to mixed waste and provide movable compacted bales. Can be also used to move mixed waste that has been overproduced and can be transferred easily to other facilities like waste to energy factories located in other areas.

  6. Special Waste Treatment. A containerized e-waste treatment solution can be used to reclaim precious metals from mobiles, etc.

 

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Renewables & Power

 

A distributed solar thermal solution will be implemented in various places in order to  power  the MSW Management System while  providing  thermal power  to heat  water  for residential or commercial use.

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Control System & maintenance

 

The complete system is centrally monitored and will be supported by:

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  • A control center for monitoring operations

  • An Asset management software to plan maintenance and proper handling of the complete infrastructure. Very important as the system consist of various units from various vendors.

  • An information management system to provide continuous information regarding  the performance of the facilities and compliance with KPI

cp 5 - municipal waste management_edited
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