ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It gives me immense pleasure to express my gratitude
towards our Course Instructors for Environmental Studies,
Dr. Madhumita Ghosh Datta her guidance, support and
encouragement throughout the duration of the project.
Without her help and motivation, the successful
completion of this project would not have been possible. I
would also like to thank my family members without
whose support, it would have been impossible to
complete the project.
Mohammad Aarif
Roll No. CSB20055
Bachelor of technology, 3rd sem
Department of CSE
Tezpur University
CONTENTS
SI. NO. Page No.
1 Introduction 1
2 Methodology 1
3 Results 2
4 Review of Literature 7
and discussion
5 Conclusion 8
1. INRTODUCTION
Solid waste can be defined as the unwanted or useless materials generated
from human activities in residential, industrial or commercial areas. Improper
disposal and management of municipal solid wastes causes all types of
pollution (air, soil, and water), apart from contaminating surface and ground
water supplies.
Direct health risks from improper handling of solid wastes mainly concern
the waste workers, who come in contact with the wastes. There are specific
risks in handling wastes from hospitals and clinics. For the general public, the
main risks to health are indirect and arise from the breeding of disease
vectors, primarily flies and rats. Leakage from landfill sites may also
contaminate the water supply, resulting in serious health hazards, like cancer,
congenital malformations, low birth weight, etc. A major environmental
concern with improper waste handling is gas release by decomposing garbage,
which leads to air pollution and global warming. Disposal of hazardous and
toxic wastes into water bodies also affect the aquatic lives, along with
contaminating the water
2. METHODOLOGY
• The study attempts to find out solid waste disposal and management in
the greater Dergaon area. Dergaon (latitude 26°41´60.00 N, longitude
93°58´12.00 E) is a municipal town in the Golaghat District of Assam. For
the present study, Dergaon and its adjoining areas were taken into
consideration. The quantitative part of the study was done through
Google Forms, which was circulated randomly among 12 households of
the area mainly via WhatsApp. The responses were collected between the
period of 26th September, 2021 and 29th September, 2021. The collected
data was then analysed and presented.
3. RESULTS
A total of 13 people responded the survey. The results on various aspects are discussed below:
100% of the respondents belonged to the age
group of ‘18-25 years’
Out of the 13 respondents, 8 were male and 5
were female.
Out of 13 respondents, 8 were 12th pass, 5
were pursuing an undergraduate degree
92.3% of the respondents were students, 7.7%
were having a service.
61.5% of the respondents had 1-4 members in
their family while 38.5% of them had between
5-10
Out of the total respondents, 7.7% had an
Assam type house, 23.1% lived in an RCC,
38.5% had flat while 30.8% live in other house
Of the 13 respondents, 76.9% had heard about
solid waste management, while others either
didn’t knew or they were in confution
61.5% of the respondents stored solid wastes
in drums/bins, 30.8% of them stored in
polythene/plastic bags, while 7.7% store the
solid wastes in card box.
Out of the total number of respondents, 30.8%
of them considered plastic (bags, bottles) to be
the most common solid waste generated from
their household, 46.2% considered food waste,
while 7.7% considered paper, tins, electronics,
others waste as the common waste generated
23.1% of the respondents rated the
municipality services of their area as poor,
53.8% of them rated it as fair, while 23.1%
rated them as good.
4. Review of Literature and Discussion
Despite so much of effort being put on the effective disposal and management of solid wastes,
very little have actually been realised. The municipality services have failed to meet the
expectations of the general people, with most areas still lacking adequate number of public
dustbins for waste disposal. According to Sharma and Jain (2019), the solid waste collection
efficiency of the municipal authorities is well below 50% in relatively smaller places of India,
which very well supports the findings of the survey. According to the survey, majority of the
people opt for open dumping of the solid wastes in their backyard and more than half of them
still do not practice the 3 R’s, i.e., reduce, reuse and recycle, for the solid wastes. However,
most people categorise and separate their solid wastes, apart from practicing the composting
of kitchen wastes. One of the possible reasons for such a behaviour could lie in the fact that
majority of the people live in Assam-type houses and that too in a sub-urban area, which are
generally categorised with ample spaces in the backyard.
As pointed out by some of the respondents, the COVID-19 pandemic has opened several new
dimensions in the solid waste disposal and management practices of the country. Wastes,
especially the biomedical wastes like masks, gloves, etc., are now to be handled with more care,
considering the infectious nature of the disease. According to Rohan (2021), the average survival
period of the virus in plastics ranges from 2 to 3 days. Since the survey also pointed towards the
increasing generation of plastic wastes from the households, it is inevitably necessary for the
people to adopt effective and efficient techniques for their disposal.
5. Conclusion
Effective and efficient solid waste management, even with varied perspectives, is important for
the sustainable implementation of every human activity. Population explosion, along with the
evergrowing demands of the people has led to the rise in the supply side of goods, which is in
turn contributing to the volume of solid wastes. The inefficiency showcased by the Government
and municipal authorities in managing the proper disposal of solid wastes, as indicated by the
general public, has further added to the concerns. It is, therefore, more or less dependent on
the general public to raise awareness towards the problems associated with solid-wastes and
thereby, on their activities towards the proper management of the generated wastes. Following
are some of the suggestions given by the respondents of the survey regarding the effective solid
waste management in their locality:
1) “According to me, proper policies should be implemented by the local municipality board
regarding waste management and disposal. There is a lack of dustbins in my locality, which is
a display of unawareness with respect to management and environment. On our part, we
should actively try to implement the 3Rs in our waste management process.”
2) 2) “There should be two public dustbins in our locality and it should be the duty of
municipality to collect both biodegradable and non-biodegradable trash separately so that
the reusable products can be send for further processing.”
