Waste can be of varied types: household, commercial, biological and industrial. The unwanted materials produced from these sources are referred to as waste. Waste can be in liquid, solid, and gaseous forms, and each form has its method of management.
Waste management refers to all the processes from the point that the waste is collected until it’s recycled and managed.
The need for waste management has increased, and it is being needed more and more every day; huge amounts of waste are produced worldwide, becoming environmental hazard.
Waste Management has 5 Rs: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose and Recycle.
Elements of Waste Management:
- Identifying all the waste materials, collecting those that can be unusable, and sending them for systematic disposal.
- Proper handling and storage of the waste being produced
- Collecting the stored waste and sending it to its assigned location
- Processing the waste and separating the materials that can be recycled. It increases the effectiveness of waste management.
- Finally, systematic disposal of the waste.
There are different methods of disposing of waste. Some include using landfills, incinerating the waste, using plasma gasification to turn liquid and solid waste into gas, composting, and finally, recycling.
How do Waste Management Companies Process Waste?
Waste Management Companies help individuals and big organizations responsibly manage the waste produced by taking care of the waste safely and efficiently and, in turn, help make the environment more sustainable.
Waste Management Companies are present worldwide, and each work slightly differently, depending on the different regulations of the states or countries. But the basic work of all Waste Management Companies is as follows:
- The first step of processing waste is its collection. After collecting, waste needs to be separated since there are different types of waste, and depending on the type, it either gets recycled or converted into renewable energy or destroyed. Hence, after collecting the waste, waste management companies separate the waste accordingly.
- Wastes that can be recycled are- paper (old boxes, newspapers, mixed papers, office papers, etc.), plastic (heavy and light plastics are separated), glass, and metals. After separating these from other types of waste, waste management companies send them to different facilities. For example, paper wastes are sent to paper mills, plastics are shipped to plastic plants, glass is sent to glass plants, and metals are melted down to be reused.
- Those wastes that cannot be recycled are turned into energy. Since countries are becoming more environmentally conscious, they are building facilities that can turn waste into energy. So, waste management companies are tasked with bringing such wastes into these facilities. They dump the waste into the facility’s refuse pit. Then these facilities transfer the trash from the put into hoppers and then use hydraulic rams to place the waste into boilers. These boiler units then transfer the waste into fuel. When the trash is being combusted in the boiler, the heat from the combustion turns the waste into steam, which is used as a clean energy source.
- Waste that cannot be turned into a clean source of energy or be recycled is delivered by waste management companies to landfills. The point of landfills is that the waste will eventually break down and get buried in the ground. Some wastes that end up in landfills, especially organic waste, produce methane and carbon dioxide as they decompose. If the waste management company dumps the waste into an Eco-friendly landfill, this landfill will collect the gas by drilling wells in the landfills. This recovered gas can be used as a gas-based fuel for generating various equipment.
So, the main task of Waste Management Companies is to collect the waste, separate them according to their type and then deliver these wastes to the correct facilities.
Large organizations hire Waste Management Companies to collect their waste, so they don’t have to worry about disposing of their waste. These Companies not only collect waste but also provide other services as well.
Large organizations often hire various waste management equipment from the waste management companies in order to lessen the cost of hiring such companies; they process or store their waste themselves. Businesses can hire equipment like skip hire, waste compactor, waste containers, hazardous waste drums, as well recycling services.
Hiring this equipment allows big businesses to properly collect their wastes before they can transfer them to some facility. For example, hiring a waste compactor allows an organization that produces large amounts of waste on a daily basis to compress the wastes being produced into small bales, thus saving money for the business. Otherwise, they would have to transfer their waste to a waste facility on a daily basis.
Starting a Waste Management Company is becoming profitable as more and more countries are becoming environmentally aware, and it allows them to contribute to the environment in a meaningful manner.