CHARACTERISATION OF WASTE
UNIT – II
Lecture - 1

UNIT 2
• Waste characterization
• Waste disposal on land
• Site selection
• Leachate and Gas Generation
• Waste containment principles
• Contact hours: 08 hours

SOLID WASTE
• Solid in state (may also be liquid or gaseous
but stored/contained in a container)
• The refused material which has no further use
• Waste can be characterized on the basis of
1. TYPE OF WASTE
2. SOURCE OF WASTE
3. QUANTITY OF WASTE
4. COMPOSITION OF WASTE

BASED ON TYPE OF WASTE
• Discard: Can be used after treatment (Plastic
and glass bottles, newspaper, metal)
• Garbage: biodegradable fraction (food waste)
• Rubbish: waste excluding garbage
• Trash: Inert fraction of waste (glass/metal)
• Combustibles: waste which can be burnt easily
(paper, packaging material, wood etc.)

SOURCE OF WASTE
• Domestic (food waste, ash, earth, paper, polythene)
• Commercial (paper, polythene, packaging material, glass, metal)
• Agricultural (plant based waste)
• Industrial (sludge, ash, slag etc.)
• Construction & Demolition (masonry, sand etc.)
• Automobile (discarded vehicles)

QUANTITY OF WASTE

COMPOSITION OF WASTE
• Material Flow Methodology
• Direct Field study
1. Collect samples from source
2. Collect samples from treatment facility
• Samples should be representative; sufficient in
number; and precise
• ASTM D 5231: defined protocol for sample collection
• Grab sampling; Composite sampling; Coning and
Quartering; Column sampling are different types of
sampling methods

ANALYSIS OF SAMPLES
PROXIMATE ANALYSIS
• Moisture Content (%):Heat at 105˚C for 1 hour
• Volatile Organic Carbon (%): Heat at 950˚C for
10 minutes in the absence of oxygen
• Ash Content (%): Heat at 950˚C for 10 minutes
in the presence of oxygen
• Fixed Carbon (%) = 100 – MC – VOC – AC

PROXIMATE ANALYSIS

ANALYSIS OF SAMPLES
ULTIMATE ANALYSIS
• Moisture Content (%):Heat at 105˚C for 1 hour
• Ash Content (%): Heat at 950˚C for 10 minutes
in the presence of oxygen
• Elemental Analyis (%) for C, H, N, S, O, Cl, P
For waste from natural origin
• Carbon ≥ 6*Hydrogen;
• Oxygen > 30%;
• Nitrogen/Sulphur/Chlorine < 1%

ULTIMATE ANALYSIS

31 March 2023
FDP on Environmental Geotechnology,
SBSSTC, Ferozepur, Punjab
13

31 March 2023 15