Sustainable Municipal Solid Wastes Management in Babylon Province, Iraq

Municipal solid waste (MSW) management worldwide represents environmental and economic challenges being a source of recycling and recovering of various materials that conserve and rescue different environmental resources and at the same time most of these wastes can be utilized as energy source. This study was designed to assess the process of collecting and disposing of municipal solid wastes generated in various city and countryside districts within Babylon province-Iraq. A total of 20 residential districts were selected, consisting of 15 and 5 districts in Al-Hilla city and countryside, respectively and daily generated MSW per capita/day covering food residues, plastic, paper, can and glass wastes were considered. It was found that the mean capita/day of Al-Hilla city districts was significantly higher than that of countryside ones which were 0.644 ± 0.16 and 0.416 ± 0.12 kg/capita/day, respectively. Also, all generated municipal solid waste components of towns have been recorded as being similarly greater than of the countryside giving a higher percentage of food residues, plastic, paper, can and glass wastes than those of countryside. In both districts, food residues formed the highest percentage of solid waste components followed by plastic and wastes while the lowest percentage was metal can waste and paper waste for town areas. In the countryside areas, the lowest solid wastes component was paper waste followed by aluminum can wastes. Theoretical calculation of these values has shown that expected means of both daily and annually MSW generated in Babylon province were 1,243,089 and 453,727,485 tons, respectively.