Sample File On Plastic Waste Management

1.
0 Brief Overview of Paper

Nigeria is considered in the developing countries and also facing municipal solid waste management issues. In the
study, first they briefly mention how the waste management issue becomes severe with the passage of time and
what solutions were proposed in the past, which is surely beneficial as a literature for the upcoming research.
They gave us a global overview of waste plastics, and waste plastics in Nigeria, in which the developed countries
like Europe, Japan, China etc. manage their waste management very well while developing countries in South Asia
and Sub-Saharan Africa lack waste management.
In this study, they proposed two strategies, one is incentive based, in which scavenging, and recycling should be
encouraged because it involves stakeholders such as consumers/scavengers, middleman, and manufactures.
Figure 1 Global Plastic waste generation per annum
And another is Extended Producer’s Responsibility (EPR) for the collection of plastic waste from the environment
by involving the government to implement a law that allows packing companies to give employment to small
enterprises to help them to recover their waste. (Aderoju)
The purpose of both the approaches is to separate the plastic waste from the municipal solid waste and manage
this plastic waste to produce energy. Furthermore, they performed ultimate analysis on the waste plastics in the
municipal solid waste stream to estimate the higher heating value and lower heating value which determine the
power generation potential of waste plastics in
They concluded that the quantity of waste plastics in Nigeria is a sustainable solution to produce enough electricity
which helps out the existing source of power supply if we manage the waste efficiently.
2.0 Innovation Proposed by Nigeria and its Today’s Relevancy

In the past, many studies have been done on waste management and their focused area where such as specific
location/sites for waste disposal, outreach and education on plastic waste management, energy recovery from
waste, and effect of poor waste management etc.
The previous studies show that the plastics are the most difficult constituents of municipal solid waste because it
cannot decompose naturally.
The methodology is applied are as follows:
With the help of both approaches, the creation of plastic collection points (PSP) will be specified, where only waste
plastic is actively collected in bins. In these approaches, the main part is played by plastics product manufacturers,
the consumers, and the collection firms/individuals(scavengers).
1
Figure 2 Waste Plastics Collection Strategy
The characterization of these waste streams was carried out in each of the landfills 3 times a week for 4 weeks
during the wet and dry seasons of the year. The mean weight ratio in the result of characterization exercise for
each of the landfills for both dry and wet seasons was estimated as shown in diagram below.
Figure 3 Abuja (research location) landfill composition
Then, in the next step they use the proximate analysis to find out the moisture, particulates matter, fixed carbon,
and ash content of the plastic waste sample. Below the equations are given to find proximate analysis.
(1)
(2)
(3)
Then, they use the ultimate analysis to find the elemental content and the value was found by the below
equation.
(4)
Energy output estimation from the waste plastics and power generation potential from the waste plastics was
calculated by the equations (5), (6) respectively.
(5)
(6)
Previously, it was discussed that the annual plastic waste production in Nigeria is about 5.96 million tons and 81%
of plastics are mismanaged and waste in the environment. Meanwhile, 81% of 5.96 million tons was estimated to
be 4.83 million tons of waste plastics. Using 4.83 million tons to calculate the potential of power generation and
estimated that 28,910 MW of energy would be produced if they managed the waste plastics well.
2
The innovation they proposed, actually a need of every developing country because of the two major reasons:
global warming and energy shortage issue.
From the innovation they proposed, we concluded that waste plastic has a huge potential of power generation and
the approaches they used to separate plastic waste from the municipal solid waste and collection of waste plastic
is easily applicable in every country.
3.0 Proposed Technology Relevance to Pakistan

Before answering whether this technology will be implemented in Pakistan or not, we must have a little knowledge
about the plastic waste management scenario in Pakistan.
Pakistan has the highest percentage of mismanaged plastic in South Asia. Annually, more than 3.3 million tons of
plastics are wasted. Till now, the only solution we are seeing by the government is a permanent ban on single use
plastics which results in a lot of unemployment issues.
UNDP Innovation-AccLab Pakistan has created a learning space to test effective and meaningful development
approaches. The approach which they concluded as seen in the figure below. (Gul)
Figure 4 Portfolio of experiments
In Pakistan, awareness campaigns on waste management are the basic need of today's life and youth and
government collectively working on this problem.
In the present, it was difficult to implement innovation proposed by Nigeria, in which one of the reasons may be
included that Pakistan has less focused on the power potential from waste plastic and more focused on renewable
resources like solar, wind, biomass energy etc. Firstly, they need to better their management plan and then they
move towards the next step of efficient use of the waste plastics to produce energy.
4.0 Research Gaps

When it comes to gaps in the research of waste management systems, combine experience, historical data and
support with meticulous planning and innovation together can generate the desired results. By behaving
3
appropriately in these areas can make for absolute and efficient strategy that solves problems and helps to make
the world a better place. This paper shows that the practice of separating waste plastics might be complex initially.
Therefore, it is recommended that the government should invest in capital projects such as WTE through public
private partnership (PPP) and attract foreign investors in this sector in order to attain a sustainable economy
likewise reduce the burden of waste plastics in the society. (Peck)
5.0 Innovation Proposed by Us

If this topic is included in our thesis work, we would like to involve technological change in the process. Because
overall the chemistry of the process remains same somehow whatever strategy we will use for waste
management, but technological change will increase in the efficiency of a product or process that results in an
increase in output, without an increase in input. In other words, if we will invent or improve a product or process,
which is then used to get a bigger reward for the same amount of work. These may be:
 Robot Recyclers
 Self-Driving Trucks
 Robotic Trash Cans and more.
Overall, we must say this is one of our interest topics to study and we are still studying different techniques and
technologies in order to resolve this global issue.
Bibliography
Aderoju, B. Oke, Agbaje, Dias. "A CASE STUDY IN NIGERIA." PLASTIC WASTE FOR ELECTRICAL POWER
GENERATION (2019).
Gul, Ehsan. "The good, the bad and the ugly of plastics in Pakistan." Sustainable Development Goal 04 March
2020.
Peck, Devin. "Waste to Energy." Perspectives on Energy Recovery from U.S. Plastic Waste 02 08 2021: 3-4.

Sample File On Plastic Waste Management

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Sample File On Plastic Waste Management

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Sample File On Plastic Waste Management

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

1.

0 Brief Overview of Paper

Figure 1 Global Plastic waste generation per annum

2.0 Innovation Proposed by Nigeria and its Today’s Relevancy

Figure 3 Abuja (research location) landfill composition

3.0 Proposed Technology Relevance to Pakistan

Figure 4 Portfolio of experiments

4.0 Research Gaps

5.0 Innovation Proposed by Us

You might also like