Vol. 11, Special Issue 10 (2022)

Author(s):
Naware RA, Mohod AG, Khandetod YP, Dhande KG and Dharaskar RM

Abstract:
Management of solid waste and it’s discarding now has become a global challenge. Although, today we can perceive the rapid urbanization taking place around us, about 45% of world’s population and 64.61% of India’s population resides in rural areas. Nonetheless, survey on characterization, quantification and management of rural communities’ household solid waste is rare in both advanced as well as emerging countries. Thus, discovering some facts about the quantity and quality of household solid waste of rural communities in Konkan region was the chief objective of the present study. The results showed that the average daily per capita of household waste generation was 0.0314 kg/cap-day. About 54.89% of the total engendered waste in the studied villages was organic and food waste, while paper, cardboard, plastics, metals/glass, textiles and ash/dirt constituted 9.28, 8.04, 16.4, 1.34, 8.62, 1.41% respectively. Bulk density of the waste was determined as 166.67 kg/m³. Furthermore, the average moisture content, carbon content, nitrogen content, phosphor content, ash content and C/N ratio (kitchen waste and organic part) of the waste was found to be 60.65%, 51.43%, 2.16% and 0.33% and 33.43% and 23.8:1 respectively. According to the results of the study and the study in the available related literature, it could be inferred that solid waste generation in rural communities is less than that in urban areas and the density of the waste generated in rural areas vary not only with the urban areas but also with different communities residing in diverse topographical, financial, social and public surroundings etc.