Solid waste management in Alexandria city: Current situation and proposals for improvement

ABSTRACT

Solid waste management in Alexandria has become one of the urgent environmental health problems. The street and domestic solid waste management systems were evaluated by calculating the present and proposed manpower, equipment, and procedures. Comparison was based on annual running and maintenance cost, and the net present cost. Street cleansing by manual sweeping suffered from severe shortage. Much time is wasted in collecting and direct transporting of street solid wastes to far disposal sites. There are too many collection vehicles' brands. Consequently, enough spare parts cannot be stocked. Scheduled maintenance is not achieved and hence emergency repairs are dominant .As a result, 38% of the vehicles are serviceable. Small quantity of the wastes is composted while the rest is open dumped in and on the banks of water bodies. Domestic solid waste management has been severely degraded due to the vast shortage of collectors. Residents are obliged to throw their wastes into streets and/or communal containers overburdening the public cleansing departments. This is the crux of solid waste problems in Alexandria. To achieve sanitary and efficient solid waste management, the following recommendations are worthwhile mechanical sweeping of main streets, bridges, tunnels, and public places; keeping a reasonable number of collection vehicles' brands; indirect transfer of street solid wastes direct transfer of domestic solid wastes; sanitary landfill of solid wastes; and recycling of the savable items in industries