Seasonal characterization of municipal solid waste in the city of Jammu, India

Increasing municipal solid waste (MSW) of different forms on account of rise in population has demonstrated the need of studying the seasonal characterization of municipal solid waste in residential area of Jammu city, India. This work analyses the characteristics of MSW for three diverse periods of a year (winter, spring and summer) collected directly from the families at three diverse economic levels of selected residential area. Weighing machine was used to weight the waste material separated in tarpaulin sheet. For all the three socioeconomic levels, the average measure of waste produced was 2.96 kg/capita/day. The lowest income groups generated about 2.36 to 2.71 kg/capita/day of waste while the highest income groups generated about 2.4 to 3.7 kg/capita/day of waste. We found that summer season has the highest of waste generation whereas winter has the lowest. The characterization values of the weighed municipal solid waste shows organic fraction of 82.73% followed by the plastic waste with 6.78% and then the combination of paper and cardboard with 6.78%. Other wastes viz metals, glass etc. were found to be 2.51 % in total.