An-Najah Staff

Reuse-recycling and solid waste separation options for municipal solid waste at Zahrat A-Finjan (ZF) landfill are evaluated in this thesis; these are separation at source through curbside collection and drop-off centers; separation at transfer station; and separation at ZF landfill. Different evaluation criteria have been applied including technical; social and environmental; and financial. ZF service area was divided into five zones according to population, waste generation, distance to landfill, waste source, topography, and methods of solid waste collection and transfer. The study covered those by ZF landfill served local communities up to 31 July 2008. The solid waste composition has been examined via pilot separation, where the percentage of waste components in different study zones has been identified. The compositions are organic and food wastes; cartoon and paper; plastic; glass; metals; textile; and others. The average percentage of the organic fraction from the total waste in the different zones is 53.73%, whereas the percent of the other different components is 46.27%. The technical criteria were applied to evaluate the management of the separation options and to identify the technical requirements for each. These options have been managed taking into consideration the available solid waste collection, transfer and disposal systems. The separation at source has been managed through the curbside collection and drop-off centers. A weekly separation scheme was established to collect the separated waste as two fractions; wet and dry. Four transfer stations were considered in evaluating the separation at transfer station, among which is the mechanical separation of the wastes (recycling plant) applied at Al-Syrafi transfer station of Nablus. Manual separation is considered at the other three transfer stations. Separation at ZF landfill was considered as the recycling plant, where the organic wastes are assumed to be recycled and converted to compost and other solid waste fractions. The social and environmental criteria were applied to evaluate the recycling options as to their social and environmental impacts. Positive and negative impacts of the options and their potential significance are ranked as high, medium or minimal. The financial criteria were covered by conducting cost analysis for the next 11 years (up to 2020) for all SWRR options. The analysis included the capital and operational costs and the revenues. The B/C ratio has been estimated assuming the JSC approved fees; based on this study estimated fees; and/or zero benefits. The prolong time for ZF landfill is due to applying SWRR. The results show that if the percentage of the separated waste is 41%, the life time of ZF landfill will be prolonged nine years. The total lifetime of ZF landfill will be then 22 years, taking into consideration the annual increase of the population and the solid waste production.