Solid Waste

Background In 1999, U.S. residents, businesses, and institutions produced more than 230 million tons of MSW, which is approximately 4.6 pounds of waste per person per day, up from 2.7 pounds per person per day in 1960.

Definitions Ordinary household and commercial waste is called refuse or municipal solid waste (MSW) Refuse is made up of garbage (food waste) and rubbish (just about everything else you put into your garbage can) Larger items like old refrigerators, tree limbs, mattresses, etc. that is collected with household refuse is called trash Hazardous waste is a subcategory of solid waste which will be discussed later on

Three Steps for Solid Waste Management Collection and transportation of household , commercial, and industrial waste Recovery of useful fractions from this material Disposal of the residues into the environment

Refuse Collection Packers

Route Optimization With three-man packers the objective is to take a unicoursal route, that is to travel on each street only once With mechanized collection vehicles it is often necessary to travel down each side of the street. The development of efficient routes can significantly reduce collection costs.

In addition to only traveling down a minimum number of times several considerations are made when designing collection routes. For example: Design routes to make right hand turns, particularly at busy intersections Design routes with long straight sections Route design based on common sense rules such as these is called heuristic routing.