Characterizing and quantifying solid waste of rural communities

Solid waste management and disposal are a global challenge. Also, in spite of rapid urbanization over recent decades, about 47 % (3.31 billion) of the world's population and 31 % (23.59 million) of Iran's population are still living in rural areas. Nevertheless, survey on characterization, quantification, and management of rural communities' household solid waste is rare in both developed and developing countries. Therefore, determining the quantity and quality (composition) of household solid waste of rural communities in the northwest of Iran was the main objective of the present work. The result showed that the average daily per capita of household waste generation was 0.259 kg/cap-day. About 50.98 % of total generated waste in the studied villages was organic and food waste, while paper and cardboard, plastics, metals, rubber, textiles, glass, woods, and other waste materials constituted 6.07, 13.58, 0.47, 1.57, 12.53, 2.09, 0.44, and 12.27 %, respectively. Bulk density of the waste was determined as 211.31 kg/m(3). In addition, moisture content and chemical characteristics (food and organic fraction) of the generated waste including the amount of carbon, nitrogen, phosphor, and ash were 57.05, 54.02, 1.74, 0.34, and 34.07 %, respectively. According to the results of this study and the survey in the available related literature, it could be concluded that solid waste generation rates in rural communities are less than that in urban areas and the composition and density of generated waste vary not only between rural and urban areas, but also between different rural communities with various geographical, economic, cultural, social, etc., conditions.