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Abstract
Since the solid waste national campaign of 1996, no wide campaign of waste characterization
has been performed in Tunisia. Therefore, this study allowed the identification of the nature and the
composition of the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in four cities (Kairouan, Menzel Bourguiba,
Medenine and Djerba) and during two seasons (winter, December 2009/ January 2010 and summer,
July 2010). Eight samples of 500 kg MSW were characterized by size and sorted into categories.
Moisture, volatile solids contents and oxidizable organic matter content allowed to evaluate the
characteristics of Tunisian waste. Unlike European MSW characteristics that have no significant
variability related to cities Tunisian MSW showed a great variability from one city to another, due to
the differences of the socio-economic context of the cities. Seasonal variability was also recorded
although less pronounced. When comparing findings from this study to MSW data from the national
campaign of MSW characterization of 1996, it was revalued that the solid waste generation rate had
increased in each studied city (from 0.5 to 0.8 kg capita-1 day-1) while the organic and the moisture
contents had decreased from 68% to 53% and from 65% to 50% respectively. Those results can be
explained by improvements in living standards in Tunisia which induced changes in the consumption
habits.
1. ..Introduction
Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) represents all wastes generated in a municipal area. It includes
predominantly household wastes in addition to some commercial wastes collected by municipalities
within a given area. In Tunisia, MSW were commonly generated with a rate of 0.5 kg.capita-1.day-1
according to the last national campaign established performed in 1996 (Hafid et al., 2002). However,
this rate has changed because of the development of many factors such as the Tunisian population
growth, the rapid economic growth and improved living standards. These factors were expected to
affect the generation rate and the composition of municipal solid waste as many previous studies have
reported that MSW quality and quantity in cities in developing countries is highly dependent on the
population’s socio-economic level (Parizeau et al., 2006; Sujauddin et al., 2008; Yousuf and Rahman,
2007).
Determining the composition and generation rate of MSW is not an easy task and it is necessary
to have an optimized MSW Management (MSWM). Particularly in developing countries, where
changes in waste are significant, the characterization is essential to provide a useful basis for the
decision-makers to make rational choices at all levels of the MSWM: legislation, collection, recycling
and treatment technologies, etc.
In fact, the lack of knowledge of the waste characteristics in developing countries, such as
Tunisia, appears to be the source of many failures. This is mainly caused by (Ben Ammar., 2006):
- The undeveloped consciousness of the need for an accurate MSW characterization as the basis
of MSWM,
- The absence of rigorous methods of characterization, adapted to the special conditions of the
developing countries,
- The administrative and financial difficulties,
- The lack of standardized norms, which allow for the implementation of appropriate methods
and analyses.
As the generation rates depend on the income levels, it is interesting to compare the rate of
solid waste generation in Tunisia to the one determined in other countries. From the data presented in
Table 1, it is clear that the Tunisian generation rate is lower than the one of industrialized countries
while it is more similar to the rate of developing countries. MSW generation rates of industrialized
countries do not vary a lot while the levels determined for developing countries show a great variability
and span from 0.21 kg capita-1 .day-1 in Nouakchott to 0.89 kg capita-1 day-1 in Casablanca. This
large variation is caused by the differences in living standards between developing countries. Similar
living standards in different industrialized countries, in this case the European ones, explain similar
consumption behaviors and, as a consequence, similar MSW generation rates and compositions (Chung
and Poon, 1998; Daskalopoulos et al., 1998, Gomez et al., 2009; Naresh, 2008).
MSW management aims to provide sustainable solutions such as waste minimization, reusing,
recycling, energy recovering strategies and sanitary disposal. To ensure an adequate application of
these options, a good knowledge of the characteristics of the waste generated is imperative (Abu Qdais
et al., 1997). In Tunisia, 93% of the MSW is dumped in controlled sanitary landfills while the
uncontrolled dumping sites are closed for rehabilitation (MEDD, 2005). However, the use of outdated
data has caused problems related to the design and construction of landfills.
In order to assist municipalities in creating appropriate management plans for waste
management, National Agency for Waste Management (ANGED) asked for a new campaign of MSW
characterization. Four cities have been identified and characterization of waste was carried out in two
seasons.
Various methodologies have been employed for waste characterization. The method applied in
this study is based on the French standard method, MODECOM, (ADEME, 2009). It should be noted
that the waste collected in the residential areas predominantly originated from households, but
depending on the kind of surroundings it also includes waste from small businesses, services and
institutions.
The present paper aims to describe results of the research including the quantification and
composition analyses of the characterized MSW.
2. Methodology
2.1. Selection of the neighborhoods for the MSW sampling
The purpose of this study was to characterize the MSW generated in households in four cities,
Kairouan, Medenine, Djerba and Menzel Bourguiba. The main characteristics of the neighborhood
chosen for MSW sampling in each city are listed in Table 2. Population statistics were based on the last
population census conducted in the year of 2004.
Industrial and clinical wastes were not considered in this study. However, it is often difficult to
keep MSW separated from waste from commercial activities collected with the household waste. In
order to minimize the amount of commercial waste in the waste collected for the characterization,
neighborhoods with a maximum of 20% of commercial activities were chosen. The study areas were
restricted to neighbourhoods that are considered as representative of the majority of the population to
ensure that they represent the major part of Tunisian citizens. However such a study does not allow the
identification of the waste generation and composition variations in relation with the socio-economic
levels.
Assessments of the particle size distribution and the composition of the waste were based
mainly on the AFNOR Norm, XP X 30-408. The following procedure was used:
- Waste size sorting: the particle size distribution was investigated by using a two meshes table
that allowed to obtain three circular size fractions: big > 100 mm; - middle: 20 < X < 100 mm and –
fine : < 20 mm.
- Waste composition: MSW was classified into thirteen categories: organic (food and yard
waste), paper, cardboard, composite, synthetic fiber, textile, plastic packaging, plastic, miscellaneous
combustible material (Misc.C), glass, metal, miscellaneous inerts (Misc.I), hazardous and fines (<20
mm).
At the end of the whole sorting process, the fractions were weighed separately without any
drying using an analogical balance.
3.1. Determination of the MSW generation rates and of the moisture contents
The percentage range of error is calculated according to the Bernoulli's distribution to verify the
representativity of the sample compared to the original volume (table 3). Winter and summer in this
MSW characterization campaign are represented by January and July.
Table 3: Sampling margin of error.
MSW generation rates were calculated with two types of data (table 4) : the quantities of the
collected waste the days of the characterization and the data of the received MSW in landfills
generated from the municipalities peryear (2010).
City Rate (kg capita-1 day-1) Rate (kg capita-1 day-1) Moisture (%Wet Matter)
Data of 2010 (the characterization days) (this study)
Winter* Summer* Annual** Winter Summer Annual Winter Summer Annual
Kairouan 0.70 0.81 0.75 0.63 0.69 0.66 54 52 53
Menzel Bourguiba 0.89 0.96 0.91 1.04 1.43 1.23 65 62 63.5
Medenine 0.56 0.62 0.59 1.24 1.26 1.25 29 40 34.5
Djerba 0.66 0.99 0.82 1.04 1.33 1.18 52 42 47.0
Averages*** 0.69 0.69 0.75 1.01 1.27 1.14 51 48 49
* : winter and summer correspond respectively to December, January, February and June, July, August.
** : rates calculated on the base of data of the year 2010.
***: averages calculated on the base of the results by taking in account the cities’ populations.
Winter Summer
Djerba Djerba
Medenine Medenine
M.bourguiba M.bourguiba
Kairouan Kairouan
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Paper 7.2 3.5 1.2 2.7 4.4 8.7 1.5 0.9 5.6 1.3 2.6 10.0 21.5
Cardboard 8.0 1.5 2.9 4.0 9.0 5.5 5.3 5.0 6.5 12.7 6.5
Composite 3.1 0.8 1.1 2.2 1.3 2.2 2.9 2.2 1.9 2.4 1.8
s
Textile a)Textile 4.0 2.9 6.9 1.4 5.5 3.5 14.1 4.2 4.2 7.1 6.3 2.0
b)Synthetic 6.0 12.7 7.2 7.6 3.7 6.0 6.0 8.3 6.0 4.4 6.6 10.6
fiber
Plastics a)bottle 3.9 7.8 8.5 6.8 12.3 4.2 10.6 7.7 10.8 12.6 10.0 11.0
b)film 1.1 0.9 1.6 3.9 2.3 2.5 3.2 6.2 3.0 11.2
Misc.C 1.68 0.7 2.6 1.4 1.9 3.3 3.2 2.0 1.7 1.5 1.8 2.0
Misc.I 4.00 1.0 1.1 3.4 1.0 8.5 1.8 3.1 4.3 3.9 2.3 3.0 8.9
Hazardous 1.21 0.6 0.4 0.7 0.4 0.6 0.2 1.0 0.3 2.3 0.8
Glass 2.05 0.4 1.4 0.6 1.6 1.7 1.2 1.0 1.2 2.5 3.5 12.7
Metals 2.8 1.5 3.3 2.9 3.4 2.6 2.1 2.7 2.2 5.5 3.0 4.0 3
Fines Nd 7.0 11.2 46.0 22.5 nd 9.4 5.0 25.3 18.0 17.1 Nd nd
Total 100.0 100.1 100.0 100.0 100.1 99.9 100.2 100.0 100.0 100.1 101.0 100.0 100.1
a: Ben Ammar, 2006; b: this study; *: this average was calculated according to the results found in the four cities of the study with taking into
account the part of each population.
- MSW composition in Tunisian cities:
According to the results presented in Table 5, MSW composition in Tunisia vary from one city
to another contrary to developed countries, such as France, where the waste composition barely varies
between departments, cities and neighborhoods.
The content of putrescibles did not significantly increase or decrease from winter to summer.
However, this category makes up the largest amount in almost all cities for both periods except for
Medenine in winter time. In this rural city, putrescibles made by kitchen and garden waste are usually
used as animal food which explains the abundance of fines (<20 mm) mostly generated by animal
husbandry.
The relatively low amounts of plastic are due to the recovery system that was introduced in
Tunisia in 1998. Significant variations are determined between winter and summer (a higher plastic
containers amount of plastic containers in summer than in winter in all cities). This is probably because
of the higher consumption of beverages. Such a finding stresses the necessity of seasonal
characterization in countries having climate similar to the one of Tunisia.
Metals, glass and hazardous waste are a minority and they do not significantly differ between
cities. Textile is a category that has clearly changed in the MSW composition as it increased from
about 2% in 1996 to between 10 and 15% for the cities studied.
The highest amount of waste from the organic categories (putrescibles and fines) (65%) and the
lowest amount of recyclable (paper, cardboard, composite and plastics) (17%) are produced in
Kairouan while the lowest amount of organic categories (38%) and the highest amount of recyclable
(43%) correspond to Djerba MSW. These compositions are related to the socioeconomic conditions in
these cities. Djerba is a touristic island where consumption of packed food and drinks is very frequent
while Kairouan is an agricultural city with traditional nutritional habits. Such variability is
characteristic of developing countries where socioeconomic conditions and therefore consumption
habits could be very different from one city to another.
Variations in TOM from one city to another and from winter to summer are small. The mean
values range between 56% and 69%. In spite of the larger organic content in Tunisian waste, its TOM
amounts are similar to TOM average determined for France (66%). This could be explained by the
presence of minerals in the fines (<20 mm) that constitute an important part of the MSW, due to the
sandy winds. Indeed, according to Fig. 3 (b), fines do not contain a large amount of OOM for three
cities among four. The only city where fines contain almost 46% of OOM is Medenine probably
because of the presence of animal husbandry waste. These wastes are very degradable and have a fine
particle size that allows to them to be included to the fine fraction which is sieved on 20 mm mesh.
The BOM average varies between 34 and 48%. The highest BOM amount is measured in
Medenine MSW because of the high amount of fines (<20 mm) in the waste composition (31%).
However, the OM average of the fines in Medenine MSW is about 48% which is low compared
to the content of OOM. This can be justified by the increase of the mineral fraction outcoming from
sandy winds in the south.
In the other cities and for both periods, the values of OOM in fines (<20 mm) vary between 8.5
and 14.5%. The rest of the fine fraction is composed of different categories: Misc.C, Misc.I,
paper/cardboard, glass, metal, plastic and wood with variable amounts.
Acknowledgement
This study is supported by the German development cooperation (GIZ) and the National Agency for
Waste Management (ANGed) in Tunisia.
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