Journal of Environmental Research And Development Vol. 6 No.

1, July-September 2011

MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

OF WARANGAL CITY, INDIA
Shashidhar* and Ajit Kumar O.M.

Department of Civil Engineering, Water and Environmental Engineering Division,

National Institute of Technology, Warangal, Andhra Pradesh (INDIA)

Received April 29, 2011 Accepted July 16, 2011

ABSTRACT
The Warangal city generates about 300 tons of garbage daily which is dumped at Urusgutta by
Warangal Municipal Corporation (WMC), India. From the physical analysis of waste it was found
that about 40% can be composted and 20% can be recycled or reused and remaining may be landfilled.
A sanitary landfill with single liner system was recommended for unsegregated and segregated waste
dumping as per the specifications given in the Manual on Municipal Solid Waste Management,
Government of India. Groundwater modeling was also developed by using MODFLOW software.
The results showed that the movement of pollutant is in the northern direction and the conservative
pollutant spread to a distance of 200m around the dump yard. It was also found that due to unscientific
dumping at Urusgutta, groundwater around the dump yard was polluted and sanitary landfill may be
the remedy for this problem.
Key Words : Solid waste, Sanitary landfill, Unsegregated dumping, Dumpyard, Groundwater

INTRODUCTION
Solid waste management is gaining importance recover. In many developing countries, there is a
all over the developed and developing nations as lack of organization and planning in MSW
the nuisance, pollution potential, unsightly, management due to insufficient information about
unhygienic conditions and the resources it is regulations and due to financial restrictions. In the
associated with are demanding more and more short term, the best policy might be to leave
attention. In India increasing population levels, disposal methods without any controls, and use
rapid economic growth and rise in community living the resources available to upgrade them with
standard accelerates the generation rate of environmental protection systems. In the long
Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)1. The inefficient term, the construction of new sanitary landfill
and improper methods of disposal of solid waste areas, composting, and incineration facilities could
create serious hazards to the public health, cause be planned. Public participation and awareness
pollution of air and water resources, lead to are also important issues in achieving the goals of
accident hazards and increase in rodent and insect the suggested management system, but it is
vectors of diseases which interfere with difficult and takes a long time to make people
community life and development. The adverse aware of the importance and of the principles of
effect of solid waste on environment emphasises the proposed management system and to affect
the need to develop new and improved methods their participation2.
for proper and economic solid waste management, Solid waste management practices in Kolkata,
including studies directed towards the India showed that lack of suitable facilities and
conservation of natural resources by reducing the underestimates of waste generation rates,
amount of waste and unsalvageable materials and inadequate management and technical skills,
by utilisation of potential resources in solid waste improper bin collection, and route planning are
*Author for correspondence responsible for poor collection and transportation
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Journal of Environmental Research And Development Vol. 6 No. 1, July-September 2011
3
of municipal solid wastes . Increase in population generation potential and biodegradation rate
and changes in lifestyle, the quantity and quality obtained are very close to those measured in the
of MSW, Lack of resources, infrastructure, field9. The contribution of existing municipal solid
suitable planning, leadership, and public awareness waste management to emission of greenhouse
are the main challenges of MSW management4. gases and the alternative scenarios to reduce
Some of the most critical issues that must be dealt emissions were analyzed for Data Ganj Bukhsh
with to improve the solid waste services in these Town in Lahore, Pakistan using the life cycle
communities include: capacity building, continuity assessment methodology. A life cycle inventory
of personnel, adequate financial management, and of the six scenarios along with the baseline
scenario was completed; this helped to quantify
public education5. The study on composition and
the CO2 equivalents, emitted and avoided, for
quantity of solid waste generated by family
energy consumption, production, fuel consumption,
typology and by socioeconomic stratum showed and methane emission10.
that the per capita and the average family waste
The water flow and the pollutant transport
generation varied according to the family typology characteristics of the Ano Liosia Landfill site in
and to the socioeconomic stratum where the Athens were simulated by creating a model of
family belongs. In contrast waste composition did groundwater flows and contaminant transport.
not show any difference, except for some of the The model was then integrated into the Ecosim
categories such as garden waste, newspaper, system which is a prototype funded by the EU.
textiles and disposable diapers, these wastes This integrated environmental monitoring and
explain the lifestyles of the generators6. modeling system, which supports the management
The quality of groundwater around a municipal of environmental planning in urban areas 11 .
solid waste disposal site in Chennai was Warangal Municipal Corporation dumping solid
investigated and the effects of dumping activity waste unscientifically at Ursugutta and needs
on groundwater obser ved clearly as high urgent solid waste management. In this regard
concentrations of total dissolved solids, electrical the study was carried out to characterize, quantify
conductivity, total hardness, chlorides, chemical solid waste and design landfill.12
oxygen demand, nitrates and sulphates. The study AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
indicates that landfills in densely populated cities
The various objectives of this study are :
should have the groundwater monitored on regular
i) To analyze the physical composition of the
basis. Indiscriminate dumping of wastes in
waste;
developed areas without proper solid waste
ii) To design a sanitary landfill; and
management practices should be stopped7.
iii) To study the impacts on ground water at
The compressible components of the MSW Urusgutta due to open dumping
decreased with an increase in the fill age. The in
situ void ratio of the MSW was shown to decrease
STUDY AREA
with depth into the landfill. The compression index, Warangal city is one of the historical places in
India. The city was planned around Badhrakali
Cc, was observed to decrease from 1.0 to 0.3
tank as a central place in grid pattern. The city is
with depth into the landfill. Settlement analyses
situated at an altitude of +274.3 m above Mean
were performed on the existing landfill, Sea Level at latitude of 18° north and at longitude
demonstrating that the variation of MSW of 79°35´ east. Warangal was developed as a fifth
compressibility with fill age or depth should be city in Andhra Pradesh and second city in
taken into account in the settlement prediction8. Telangana region. The Warangal city is growing
Methane recovery data obtained on site as part at a rapid rate with a population of 2 lakhs in 1971
of a research program being carried out at the to 9 lakhs in 2009. Warangal city has become
Metropolitan Landfill, Salvador, Brazil, is analyzed Municipal Corporation in 1995. The growth of the
and used to obtain field methane generation over city reached its peak after the formation of
time. It was demonstrated that despite the selection grade municipality.
assumptions and the simplicity of the adopted The city falls from West to East. It is surrounded
laboratory procedures, the values methane with hillocks on the Southern, Eastern and
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Journal of Environmental Research And Development Vol. 6 No. 1, July-September 2011
Northern sides. An irrigation canal named expressed in terms of percentages. Micro balance
Kakatiya canal skirts through Northern and was used for the constituents of solid waste that
Eastern parts of the city. The area of the city is weigh very less while routine lab balance was used
65km2. The city has general slope from West to for other parameters. The material passing through
East with level varying from 280.5 to 250 meters. the sieve is considered as soil and weight of this
The waste dumping site is at Urusgutta with an soil also is carried out as given in the previous
area of 8 acres on the way to Khammam between step. After the physical analysis of the solid waste
Hunter road and Jayaprakash Narayan road at is complete in all these aspect, the waste is lifted
latitude of 17°58´ and at longitude of 79°35´. The up from the sites and is disposed off safely. This
habitations are located nearly at a distance of step is vital as the waste handled in total is
more than half a kilometer from the site. This considerable15,16.
site has been chosen since there were no Migration of leachet in groundwater
objections from the people living nearby. A field Currently Warangal Municipal Corporation is open
visit was carried out to study the site conditions dumping the daily generated waste of 300 tons
and it was observed that the site was previously (on an average) at the dump yard which is located
a quarry and right now its empty so waste at Urusgutta. Due to this ground water and air
dumping is done by Warangal Municipal are polluted nearby areas. In this study ground
Corporation. water flow and chlorides were modeled by using
MODFLOW, which is simulation software for
MATERIAL AND METHODS modeling groundwater flow and transport
The design of landfill requires the data such as processes.
rainfall data, soil profile, groundwater level, solid
An essential pre-requisite for an accurate
waste generation and population details. The
simulation of transport is an accurate description
historical data was collected from the concern
of the flow obtained by applying Darcy’s law and
departments. Analysis of solid waste has been
law of conservation of mass to a control volume.
carried to understand the characteristics of solid
A unit volume of porous media is called an
waste and migration of leachate in groundwater
elemental control volume. The law of
due to open dumping was modeled by using Visual
conservation of mass for steady state flow through
MODFLOW.
porous medial requires that the rate of fluid mass
Analysis of solid waste flow into any elemental control volume be equal
Following are the steps of physical analysis that to the rate of fluid mass flow out of any elemental
are adopted in analysis the municipal solid waste: control volume. The equation of continuity that
The solid waste collected was seen to weigh more translates this in to mathematical form can be
than 50 kg as the literature shows that minimum written as
solid waste that is to be analyzed is 49.2 kg. In   h    h    h  h
fact in most of the cases, the waste was more  kx  ky    kz   Ss  w( x , y , z ,t )
x  x  y  y  z  z  t
than 70 kg, to be on safer side for accounting
losses if any. The solid waste thus collected is whereas,
spread and allowed for drying. The solid waste is Ss is the specific storage [L-1],
then sieved through 8 mm sieve which is the size h is the hydraulic head [L], t is the time [T],
specified for the soil content of solid waste in IS kx, ky are the hydraulic conductivity in the principal
10158-198213,14. horizontal directions [LT-1],
The material retained in the sieve is physically kz is the hydraulic conductivity in the vertical
separated in to following 12 categories as glass, directions [LT-1],
leather, metals, organic matter, paper, plastic, W (x, y, z, t) is the rate of ground water discharge/
rubber, soil, stones, textiles, wood and recharge per unit area [LT-1], and
miscellaneous. Each material thus separated is x,y,z are the Cartesian coordinates directions.
weighed for its dry weight and the same is
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Journal of Environmental Research And Development Vol. 6 No. 1, July-September 2011
The satellite imagery of study area was imported 300 tons is taken as the average quantity of MSW
to MODFLOW to fix the boundaries and input per day for the design of sanitary landfill in Fig.1.
the data. The elevations of various locations as
Fig. 3 to Fig. 9 shows the day wise physical
well as well locations were collected using
composition of municipal solid waste and Table 1
Differential Global Positioning System and
shows the average physical composition of
imported in the model. The groundwater levels in
municipal solid waste.
the field were measured and gave input as initial
hydraulic head in the model development. Based From Table 1, it is observed that about 40% of
on the lithology aquifer was conceptualized single the waste is organic and can be composted. About
layered unconfined aquifer. North, South, South- 19% of the waste can be reused or recycled and
west sides of the dump yard have lakes; hence the remaining 41% of waste can be dumped in a
these sides general head boundary was specified landfill. Landfill was designed based on Manual
and other boundaries were specified as flow on MSW Management, published by Government
boundaries. The model was calibrated for of India and tabulated below in Table 2.
transient state condition for one and a half years. From Table 3 of ground water quality analysis, it
The model parameter s such as hydraulic was observed that the chlorides concentration near
conductivity and specific yield were assumed dump yard showed higher than surrounding area.
based on Ground Water Estimation Committee-
The migration of conservative pollutant (chloride)
1997 norms, Government of India. Horizontal
hydraulic conductivity and specific yield were was forecasted for the years 2009, 2013 and 2018
assumed as 1 m/day and 0.015 respectively. and results were shown in Fig. 10 to Fig. 12
Rainfall data for the years 2008 and 2009 was respectively. These figure shows spread of the
collected from the nearest rain gauge at NIT conservative pollutant about 200 meters around
Warangal Campus and used to estimate rainfall dump yard for these three cases with change in
recharge by using rainfall infiltration factor. Based pollutant concentration.
on the geology of the area rainfall infiltration factor The rainfall recharge by rainfall infiltration factor
was assumed as 0.12. Daily pumping rate was method was estimated as 105 mm/year. The
estimated based on the consumption of residents chloride concentration of solid waste dump yard
of the area and corresponding pumping rates was found to be 800 mg/l. These value were given
were distributed spatially. The water samples as input in the model and simulations were carried
collected in and around the dump yard were out for the year 2009, 2013 and 2018. Initial
analysed for chlorides and used as input to background concentration of chloride in the
forecast the migration of pollutant. After giving
groundwater assumed as 185 mg/l, as the
input relevant for the study the MODFLOW
groundwater surrounding the dump yard had this
software was executed by implicit upstream finite
value. The r esults of the movement of
difference method solver and output was obtained.
conservative pollutant in the observation wells are
The output for the ground water flow and the
shown in Table 4.
concentration of pollutant (chloride) near the
observation wells were obtained. These values are low when compared to
laboratory results because, the actually pumping
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION rate of water at the site couldn’t be found and the
Physical analysis of solid waste was carried out initial chloride concentration was also not known.
for the study area and the results are discussed Finally it could be seen from the results that the
along with design of sanitary landfill. The quality movement of pollutant (chloride) is more towards
of ground water is also depicted. Fig. 1 and well1 in northern direction as the ground water
Fig. 2 shows the average quantity of municipal movement is also in the same northern direction.
solid waste generated per day in Warangal city.
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320 314 309

309
310 304

Weight of MSW in tons

299 295 300
300
290
280

13.3.09

14.3.09
11.3.09
10.3.09

12.3.09
09.3.09

AVG
MSW on various dates

Fig. 1 : Average quantity of MSW during March 2009

320 310
302 300
Weight of MSW in tons

300 293 294

278 282
280

260

MSW on various dates

Fig. 2 : Average quantity of MSW during April 2009

% of dry weight

43.87
36.63

2.30 2.28 5.54 2.33 5.38 1.77

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Te s

er
ic

d
s

l
ss

er
Ru c

er
eta
il

ile

oo
pe

ath
an

on
ti
la

bb

So

th
W
as

xt

M
Pa
rg
G

Le
St

O
Pl
O

Fig. 3 : Physical composition of MSW of Warangal city on 23.12.08

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% of dry weight
37.74
31.27

10.34 9.23
1.85 2.46 5.54
0.92 0.46 0.18 0.00 0.00

er
Te s

er
s
ic

d
er
ss

Ru c

eta
ile
il

ath

oo
pe
an

on
ti

th
la

bb

So
as

xt

W
M
Pa

Le

O
rg
G

St
Pl
O

Fig. 4 : Physical composition of MSW of Warangal city on 26.12.08

% of dry weight

42.60
25.75
0.50 5.01 4.51 6.01 6.26 8.02 0.50 0.23 0.40 0.20

er
Te s

er
s
ic

d
ss

er
Ru c

eta
ile

ath
il
pe

oo
an

on

th
ti
la

bb

So
as

xt

W
M
Pa

Le

O
rg
G

St
Pl
O

Fig. 5 : Physical composition of MSW of Warangal city on 31.12.08

% of dry weight

38.12
21.34
7.28 8.32 3.47 9.70 7.62
2.08 1.39 0.69 0.00 0.00
Te s

er
ic

er

d
s

l
er
ss

Ru c

eta
il

ile

oo
pe
an

ath
on
ti

th
la

bb

So

W
as

xt

M
Pa

O
rg
G

St

Le
Pl
O

Fig. 6 : Physical composition of MSW of Warangal city on 25.02.09

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% of dry weight

37.96
34.51

10.50
3.00 3.15 3.00 1.05 3.38 1.88
1.13 0.45 0.00

Te s

er
er
ic

d
s

l
ss

er
Ru c

eta
il

ile

oo
pe

ath
an

on
ti

th
la

bb

So

W
as

xt

M
Pa

O
rg
G

Le
St
Pl
O

Fig. 7 : Physical composition of MSW of Warangal city on 07.03.09

% of dry weight

35.32 33.99

15.86

4.34 3.21 2.64

0.94 1.42 1.32 0.00 0.00 0.94
Te s

er
ic

er

d
s
er

l
ss

Ru c

eta
il

ile

oo
pe
an

ath
on
ti

th
la

bb

So

W
as

xt

M
Pa

O
rg
G

St

Le
Pl
O

Fig. 8 : Physical composition of MSW of Warangal city on 25.03.09

% of dry weight

4061 37.90

7.61 5.92
2.88 2.20 0.00 0.51 0.17 0.85 0.00 1.35
Te s

er

er
ic

d
s

l
ss

er
Ru c

eta
il

ile

oo
pe

ath
an

on
ti

th
la

bb

So

W
as

xt

M
Pa

O
rg
G

Le
St
Pl
O

Fig. 9 : Physical composition of MSW of Warangal city on 07.04.09

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Table 1 : Physical characteristics of Municipal Solid Waste

S/N Item Average % (dry weight)

1 Organic matter 39.46
2 Soil 31.61
3 Paper 8.41
4 Plastic 5.33
5 Textiles 4.57
6 Stones 3.25
7 Rubber 2.40
8 Glass 1.93
9 Leather 1.75
10 Metal 0.60
11 Other 0.36
12 Wood 0.33

Table 2 : Landfill design details

S/N Landfillings Area required % Landfilled Life of landfill

1. All waste without 26 Hectares 100 % of 300 tons 15 years
segregation
2. Non-Decomposable 11 Hectares 42% of 300 tons 15 years
waste

Table 3 : Water quality of surface and groundwater

Parameter Openwell W1 (mg/l) Openwell W2 (mg/l) Surface water (mg/l)

Mineral acidity 0 0 0

CO2 acidity 140 146 0

Bicarbonates alkalinity 320 360 68

Carbonates alkalinity 0 0 48

Chlorides 650 379 185

Permanent hardness 1080 430 200

Temporary hardness 40 170 20

COD 160 216 200

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Fig. 10 : Migration of conservative pollutant (chlorides) at Urusgutta for the year 2009

Fig. 11 : Movement of conservative pollutant (chloride) at Urusgutta for the year 2013

Table 4 : Results of conservative pollutant concentrations in wells

S/N Year Well 1(mg/l) Well 2 (mg/l)

1. 2009 (May) 375 - 380 400 – 420

2. 2013 400 380 – 400

3. 2018 420 – 440 380 - 385

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Fig. 12 : Migration of conservative pollutant (chloride) at Urusgutta for the year 2018

CONCLUSION pollution problems in the surrounding residential

The following conclusions were made based on area if necessary action is not taken against solid
the above results. Physical composition of solid waste management.
waste shows that about 40% of waste can be
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