Understanding Waste Characterisation
Waste characterisation is done in municipalities to gain a better understanding of the types and quantities of waste a municipality generates. It forms part of a key component that is associated with information management, which can then equip municipalities to devise strategies for waste diversion including contributing to Climate Change mitigation, Integrated Waste Management Planning and the National Waste Management Strategy implementation.
Waste characterisation follows a process that includes these four steps:
● Waste is randomly selected as it comes into the landfill site from the various settlement types (municipalities are encouraged to ensure that waste from the different settlement types should be sampled). Key to note is that a sample is made up of 100 kg and that a municipality’s sample is made up of 32 samples in total.
● Once the 100 kg has been set aside, waste should be mixed and re-separated into various waste streams, for example, paper, glass, cardboard, etc.
● A hand-held scale is used to weigh the various waste streams.
● These are recorded and graphs including tables are generated to determine the quantities and types of waste that are generated in that municipality.
It is important to note that certain factors must be borne in mind, for example, seasonality, geographical areas and waste quantities from a weigh bridge, as these can influence the results of waste characterisation.
The Municipal Waste Support Directorate in the Integrated Waste Management & Strategic Support Chief Directorate is tasked with providing capacity building and training in order for municipalities to meet their waste service delivery mandate. It was established in order to act as an interface between the National Department of Environmental Affairs, provinces and most importantly municipalities. The promulgation of the Waste Act in 2009 and the development of the National Waste Management Strategy revolutionised the waste sector. For the first time a waste sector specific legislation was developed. This meant that various provisions which were not previously a requirement were to be put in place and thus space and a constant flow of information and capacity building was recognised as being a key ingredient if the waste sector was to achieve success.
The Directorate: Municipal Waste Support has in the past three years been running training modules targeting municipal officials and councillors on an array of waste or chemicals management topics in order to capacitate them, clarify and simplify requirements and thus meet them half-way in ensuring that they will go on to ensure that communities are provided with effective and efficient waste management services.
Ms Thandeka Mandigora is a Control Environmental Officer within Municipal Waste Support. She has an Honours degree in Environmental Science and w12 years’ experience in the industry.