Question 5 Explain how the system concept can be used in explaining the

terms waste, waste management and wastivity.

Introduction

Waste

Wastivity

Waste Management

Introduction
Waste management is a multi disciplinary activities involving engineering
principles economic urban and regional planning, management techniques and
social sciences to minimize over all wastivity of the system under consideration,
A systematic approach to waste management encompassing the waste of all
kinds of resources at all stages should be adopted, however as the material
constituents a major fraction of the total product cost, Material wasted are of
critical importance.

Waste
Waste can be defined as any unnecessary input to or any undesirable output
from any system encompassing all types of resources
In todays industrial and economic scenario and progressing world, no. of
industries is increasing day by day, with increase in no. of industries, it increases
production of unnecessary products which can be called as waste, which needs
to be classified and managed accordingly, and Waste is directly linked to the
human development, both technologically and socially. The compositions of
different wastes have varied over time and location, with industrial development
and innovation being directly linked to waste materials. Examples of this include
plastics and nuclear technology. Some components of waste have economical
value and can be recycled once correctly recovered. Waste can be classified as
follow :Question 5/MS-5/2009

a) On the Basis of the resource wasted: - Various types of resources are

wasted at various stages in the system. Taking the resource as a basis of
classification of waste is shown in below figure.

Question 5/MS-5/2009

Waste

Utilitie
s and
Service

b) The Source of origin may serve as an efficient and practical way of

classifying waste e.g.
1) Agriculture
2) Industrial
3) Municipal
4) Residential or Domestic
5) Commercial
6) Office
7) Construction and demolition etc
c) On basis of property :- This classification is meant for material wastes
only depending upon the property of that effects environment waste may
be of two types
1) Hazardous :- example Hospital wastage
2) Non Hazardous :- example:- used paper
d) On basis of recoverability :- As per the characteristics of resource the
waste may be :
1) Recoverable :- The waste that can be converted into some useful
resource, e.g. material waste , energy waste

reused in other

process
2) Non- Recoverable :-This includes the resources that are lost with
time and cannot be regained afterwards e.g. Man power , energy,
capacity, services etc

Question 5/MS-5/2009

Wastivity:Most of productivity measures at present compare the total output to an

individual inputs, viz material, energy, manpower, capital. While they usually fail
to directly compared the fraction of a particular input that goes into output further
it is difficult to measure the output of various individual inputs invested in various
finished products, whereas it is comparatively easier to asses the waste of
various inputs, hence the new concept of Wastivity is proposed, which can be
serve as an adequate measure of performance of any system and hence is easy
to measure waste.
Wastivity of any system is defined as the ratio of the waste to the input,

Waste
Wastivity =

---------------Input

Depending upon the level of waste under consideration wastivity may be

categorised as gross wastivity and net wastivity.
Wastivity as a performance measure
An ideal or perfect system will be one that consumes just the right amount of
resources, leaving no idle unutilised or lost resources or any undesirable output.
The presently known laws of nature obviate the existence of any such idea
system indicating that the occurrence of waste is inevitable. The concept of
wastivity which is yet in the rudimentary stages may prove to be a good
measure of performance both at macro and micro level and will be helpful in the
sound planning and monitoring of various systems at different levels of hierarchy.

Question 5/MS-5/2009

Wastivity and productivity

Waste can indirectly serves as good measure of productivity productivity of any
system has been defined as ratio of desired output to input Most of the
productivity measures at present compare to the total output to individual inputs
labour, material, energy, capital , while they usually fail to directly compare the
fraction of a particular input that goes output.
Hence a new concept of wastivity had been propounded, which can serve as an
adequate measure of performance of any system and is rather easy to measure.
The wastivity for each type of input thus indirectly assesses the productivity for
each type of input. Both productivity and wastivity are complementary to each
other which bear in it the inherent cause effect phenomenon. If the cause i.e.
wastivity is checked, the effect, i.e. productivity, will automatically be improved.

Waste Management
The problem associated with the management of waste in todays world has
become very complex and diverse in nature, In order to do efficient and orderly
waste management, the fundamental aspects and relationships must be
identified and clearly understood.
Waste management can be classified into five basic elements viz Generation,
reduction, collection, recycling and disposal.
Generation of Waste:In the management of waste it is very essential to know the causes of the waste,
Some of the causes can be critical and thus strategies can be made to reduce
the waste with that particular cause, If the amount waste generated by each

Question 5/MS-5/2009

cause is accountable then the most critical cause will be one that contributes to
the highest aggregate cost of waste.
The cause of generation of waste, waste rate and composition provides a basis
for the design and operation of various waste control programmes, recycling and
processing plants, waste disposal projects, and the choice of most effective
disposal alternative.

Reduction of Waste: A systematic concept is being used in order to minimize the production of waste
at individual stages in conjunction with other stages, It provides a scientific and
systematic method of waste reduction at individual stages and finally for whole
system. The basic steps of approach is as follow
1) Identifying waste for whole system
2) Recognising the stages at which waste is generated/caused
3) Analyse different stages which cause generation of waste and make an
accountability of waste at different stages
4) Apply systematic approach of waste reduction at each stage separately
i.e.

Recognise the waste

Identify cause

Plan corrective action

Eliminate the cause

5) Find the correlation of various stages to asses the effect of waste

generation at one stage due to waste reduction at other stages
6) Try to obtain a break even of wastes at the related stages so as to
minimise the total aggregate waste at all the stages
7) Establish controls to prevent recurrence of cause of waste generation

Question 5/MS-5/2009

Waste collection system:Waste collection has got significant effect on related functional elements, as
collection and transportation plays a vital role in waste management, proper
planning and streamlining of collection techniques can greatly improve
efficiency and effect a significant saving in overall cost of waste management.
Following strategy is used for collection of waste:a) Design of economic basis to facilitate separation at source
b) There should be separate chamber for each type of waste generated,
mainly depending upon recycled waste and non recycled, hazardous and
non hazardous.
c) Design of appropriate collection systems by private and government in
order to regular collection of waste
d) Incentives to people collecting and segregation of waste at source
e) Development of appropriate collection systems for the collection of
miscellaneous organic and inorganic waste
Recycling of waste:Recycling is generally refers to use of undesirable outputs or wastes as input
to the same process or system, The conversion of damaged , rejected and
undesirable outputs into desirable outputs by repair or processing is termed
as reclamation.
Disposal of waste:Disposal of waste is one of the most important and vital part of

waste

management, the last stage of waste which is the most critical in the whole waste
management process , it is very necessary to identify the waste type, basically at
the disposal of waste stage, waste is classified in two types viz Salvable waste
and Non-Salvable waste.
Question 5/MS-5/2009

Salvable waste: - The wastes that have got some salvage value are termed as
salvable waste. The scrap, rejected goods, surplus or obsolete items falls under
this category. The well designed disposal system for salvable wastes may
provide best return to the organisation; contribute to cost reduction and higher
profits and aid to material conservation.
Non- Salvable waste: - Waste which do not have any salvage value, but need
further processing and treatment for disposal are termed as non salvable waste.
The non salvable waste is more responsible for environmental hazards. Proper
management of salvable wastes may amount to resource recovery and reduced
environment and other social costs.

Question 5/MS-5/2009