TRAINING WORKSHOP ON PUBLIC-PRIVATE SECTOR DRIVEN APPROACH TO WASTE MANAGEMENT

PRESENTED BY

Moses O. Irubor

Chairman/President Colony Waste Management Services

Houston, TX USA

History of Garbage

During the Middle Ages, European city dwellers threw their garbage out the door and onto the street. The people of the time didn't understand that many diseases are caused by filthy environmental conditions.

In the late 1700s, a report in England finally linked disease to unsanitary waste disposal. The age of sanitation began. Cities began collecting waste to get it off the streets and out of public waterways. By the late 1800s, Europeans were even burning their waste and using the energy from it to produce electricity.

MILESTONES IN THE HISTORY OF GARBAGE

• 500: B.C. First city dump opened in Athens, Greece.
• 1388: English Parliament bans waste disposal in public waterways and ditches.
• 1400: Garbage piles up so high outside Paris gates that it interferes with the city defenses.
• 1690: Paper is made from recycled fibers at a mill near Philadelphia.
• 1842: A report in England links disease to filthy environmental conditions.
• 1874: In Nottingham, England, the "destructor" burns garbage and produces electricity. Eleven years later, the first American incinerator opens in New York.
• 1898: The first energy recovery from garbage incineration in the United States started in New York City.
• 1900's: Pigs are used to help get rid of garbage in several cities.
• One expert said 75 pigs could consume one ton of garbage a day.
• 1904: First major aluminum recycling plants open in U.S.
• 1920's: Land filling becomes most popular way to get rid of garbage.
• 1965: U.S. Congress passes the first set of solid waste management laws.

Comprehensive Waste Management Strategy

• Efficient Collection of Trash from Source
• Safe disposal without harm to the environment.
• Recycling of re-usable material in trash.
• Use existing technology to convert the energy and matter in trash to produce other valuable products such as Electricity, Organic fertilizer, purified water, steam for heating and industrial uses

Types of Waste

Waste can be categorized into three broad types as follows:

(1) Recyclable waste: plastic materials, glass, furniture, metals, etc.

(2) Chemical waste (Toxic) : This type includes, medical, toxic industrial and hazardous materials.

(3) Organic Waste: Examples Of organic Waste.

• In Cities, Towns and villages --- residential and cafeteria food waste, trimmings from flowers and trees from residential and city parks, newspapers, food residues from waste water.
• On Farms and Ranches ---- manure, animal carcasses, sawdust, chopped cardboard, unusable hay and vegetables, cotton-gin trash, slaughter waste.
• In Offices and Businesses ---- paper, cardboard, landscape trimmings.
• At Institutions ---- leftover or unusable cafeteria food, newspapers, cotton scraps, landscape trimmings.
• At Industries ---- outdated liquids (beer, wine, soft drinks, milk).

• The Organic waste materials are very suitable for the manufacturing of Organic fertilizer.

Re-use recyclable Materials

Recycling: Using old products to make new products. Example: Using old newspapers to make paper packing bags and egg cartons.

Sort, Recycle, Recover, and Dispose of rest of Trash in a Sanitary Landfill

• Sort the trash to recover recyclable materials, process them and sell to Market
• Convert some of the trash to other useful products - for example convert the organic waste to compost or manure for sale to local farmers at subsidized prices, process the recovered manure further to convert them into organic fertilizer granules or pellets as the local demand may dictate
• Incinerate the toxic and hazardous materials in specially equipped incinerators to destroy dangerous chemicals and pathogens. The gases and residue from incineration is further processed to render any combustion gases harmless before release to the atmosphere
• Use the rest of the trash for generating electricity by burning in specially equipped furnaces equipped with water tubes. The generated steam is passed through steam turbines to produce Electricity

Compacting Trash for better handling

Burn trash at high temperature to kill disease causing agents, reduce waste volumes and landfill the residue

Economics of Waste-to-Energy Plants

• One ton of trash is capable of producing approximately 600 KwH of Electricity per hour as demonstrated by currently operating plants in the USA
• Electricity can be sold to Electricity Distributing Companies at prices that range from Naira 4.50 per KwH to Naira 10.50 per KwH in Nigeria
• Cost of producing Electricity at a Waste-to-Energy Facility ranges from Naira 2.50 per KwH to Naira 3.25 per kwH
• Burn trash at high temperatures (up to 800 degree centigrade)- to produce steam that can be used to generate electricity (This facility burns up to 2000 tons per day of solid waste to produce about 50,000 kwH of Electricity per hour - enough to meet the electric needs of 60,000 homes)

Waste to Organic Fertilizer

One of the key deliverables from this workshop is to offer solution on how the current heaps of Waste on the streets could be properly harnessed and turned into Organic fertilizer simply known as Compost or manure.

To achieve this goal there are several steps that must be taken:

(1) License a private sector participant to handle the collection of waste throughout the State in order to have enough waste for Organic Fertilizer manufacture.

(2) The collection of waste should include residential, commercial and Governmental institutional customers.

(3) A suitable landfill with easy transportation access should be provided by

(4) An organic fertilizer processing plant should be established within or at close proximity to the waste processing facility.

COLONY WASTE MANAGEMENT SERVICES possesses the skills and technology to achieve this mandate which will serve as a boost to the Environment and Agriculture in Delta state. It will also keep Delta State at the forefront of Industrializing waste management in Nigeria.

Mass Production Of Organic Fertilizer

Due to the length of time involved in the natural decomposition process of compostable materials it becomes necessary to employ other means to accelerate the decomposition process in order to ensure continuity in commercial production of organic fertilizer.

Agitated Bay Composting

This is the finest Composting equipment in the market today.

Composting is a natural process of aerobic, microbial degradation of organic matter. The Agitated Bay Composting Systems combine controlled aeration and moisture addition, with frequent mixing to provide the highest level of process control. This approach delivers the highest rates of microbial activity and the most thorough stabilization of waste material of any composting system available.

Aeration controlled with temperature feedback ensures that temperatures are maintained within the optimal range for microbial activity. Frequent agitation is the key to sustaining higher degradation rates by redistributing material to break up temperature stratification, preventing airflow channeling due to compaction and consolidation, thoroughly distributing added moisture, and exposing new surfaces for degradation.

SYSTEM OPERATION: A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS

Agitated bay composting reactors are long concrete channels or bays with an aerated plenum floor and rails on top of the walls. Aeration is provided in multiple zones along the length of the bays. Each zone is aerated by a dedicated blower located in the aisles along the side of the channels. The blowers are controlled based on temperature readings from sensors for each zone in the bays, and by a baseline timer.

The compost turner is a machine that rides on the bay rails, and begins processing at the finished end of the channel. As the machine processes the bay, it mixes, aerates, shears and moves the compost mix approximately 4.3-m (14 feet) towards the discharge end with each pass. Typically, the compost turning machine makes one pass per day through each bay. This creates loading space at the feed end of the channels for additional compost feedstock. Finished compost IS discharged out the end of the bays with each pass.

Benefits Derived From The Use Of Our System

By using the Agitated Bay Composting systems, high quality grade of Organic fertilizer will be produced in a matter of days.

By maximizing the rate of stabilization, agitated bay systems also minimize the potential for problem odor generation. The regular turning of the compost feed mechanically breaks down the materials into smaller particle sizes. This agitation exposes new surfaces for degradation and minimizes the occurrence of micro-sites with anaerobic conditions, which are responsible for odor generation.

The frequent mixing provided by the agitated bay system facilitates the use of a wide range of amendments and is critical with Biowaste. Use of alternative amendments can significantly reduce operating expenses, while making use of other waste products, such as yard waste, wood waste, or grades of recycled paper that have limited markets. The frequent mixing ensures that more heterogeneous feedstock, like Biowaste, are broken up, stabilized, and thoroughly mixed in the composting reactor.

Agitated bay systems also provide the most effective composting moisture control. Feedstock materials with high energy density, like Biowaste, will experience significant drying in any high-rate composting system.
Moisture control is a critical part of process control. Moisture control in agitated bay systems is significantly better than static pile types of composting systems. In static pile systems, there 26 is no ability to distribute water applied to the surface of the pile. In agitated bay systems, the frequent turning distributes the moisture throughout the pile.

BENEFITS OF ORGANIC FERTILIZER

Minimizes the need to use Chemical Fertilizers

Yes to Compost and Organic Soil Enrichment

Unusable Trash will end up in a Modern Landfill 

How Landfill differs from a Dump Site

A typical landfill consists of subsystems such as the:

Landfill liner 

Leachate collection and management system.

Landfill gas management system.

Landfill gas monitoring & leachate monitoring systems.

Road network.

Drainage system.

Final landfill cap.

Their function is to secure the normal landfill operations and to control the anticipated emissions generated mainly by the decomposition of Organic matter, such as leachate and landfill gas.

Recommended Approach for Delta State

• Immediately partner with a private sector operator to collect and dispose of trash on a Statewide basis in order to have enough trash for the manufacture of Organic fertilizer and in the near future for use in a Waste to energy Plant.
• Delta State should provide two sites for Waste processing facility and landfill in the North and South regions of the State.
• The State should enact or enforce laws banning indiscriminate dumping of trash on streets, waterways, gutters, etc.
• State should embark on public awareness and education campaigns on waste management initiatives
• The private sector partner will plan, finance, and build processing Plants for converting collected trash into electricity, organic fertilizer, Steam, etc. and sell the products to the market place
• State should enter into a long term partnership with the private sector operator in order to provide an incentive for the private sector company to make the massive financial investment required
• Private Sector company will charge an appropriate fee (regulated by the State) to residents, commercial, and governmental customers for the safe disposal and management of solid waste in the State.

Benefits of this Approach to Delta State

(a) By partnering with private sector Company and investors, the State will solve the solid waste disposal problem on a sustainable basis without massive additional expenditures.

(b) The strategy creates good secure jobs for all cadres of workers in the State from sanitation workers to high level management.

(c) The strategy will create Contract and sub-contracting opportunities for Deltans. Suppliers, distributors, and extension workers will be required to service the WTE operations

(d) Rural employment opportunities will improve as some of the trash containers will be made of local materials such as hand-weaved baskets, etc.

(e) Small scale local manufacturing of customized trash containers (both metal and elastic) will be encouraged to be set up in Delta State further enhancing economic benefits of the strategy

(f) Comprehensive waste management greatly improves our environment and health thereby reducing air and water-born diseases such as typhoid fever, dysentery.

(g) Delta State will set the pace as the cleanest State in Nigeria and create tl'1e most dynamic Waste Management industry in the country.

(h) Waste-to-energy systems produce clean, reliable, and renewable electric energy without damage to the environment.

(i) WTE will reduce the need for dumping waste into landfills, thus eliminating the pollution of our land, water and air.

(j) The Electricity produced does not release new or additional greenhouse gases into the environment and does not cause damage to our natural fishing and wildlife habitats.

(k) The strategy, is capable of processing, disposing of and recycling all types of waste including hazardous, medical and other types of waste that are damaging to our environment.

(I) The Waste processing facility will be clean and aesthetic, is odor-free, eliminates unsightly dump sites and frees up land for more productive use.

(m) The organic fertilizer produced is rich and biodegradable, helping Delta's farmers produce more food and economic crops while reducing the long term harmful effects of chemical fertilizers.

Action Items for various Stakeholders

Top State Government functionaries should adopt the proposed private sector and Government initiative and provide an enabling environment for its implementation

The Ministry of Environment, the Waste Management Board, the Beatification Committee should lead the effort to enlighten and educate the populace on the goals of the initiative

The top Local Government functionaries should embark on further sensitization of the populace to the need for clean environment, provide strong enforcement of sanitation laws and bye-laws

Conclusion

Given the many benefits already enumerated, it will be very wise for Delta State Government to embrace the Comprehensive Waste Management System as a lasting solution to the State's waste problem.

Thanks for your time!!