Municipal Solid Waste and Leachate Characterization in the Cairo Metropolitan Area

Maged A. Hussieny, Mohamed S. Morsy, Mostafa Ahmed, Sherien Elagroudy () and Mohamed H. Abdelrazik
Additional contact information
Maged A. Hussieny: Public Works Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, 1 El-Sarayat Street, Cairo 11535, Egypt
Mohamed S. Morsy: Soil Mechanics & Foundation Engineering Group, Structural Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, 1 El-Sarayat Street, Cairo 11535, Egypt
Mostafa Ahmed: Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Higher Technological Institute, Tenth of Ramadan City 44629, Egypt
Sherien Elagroudy: Egypt Solid Waste Management Center of Excellence, Ain Shams University, 1 El-Sarayat Street, Cairo 11535, Egypt
Mohamed H. Abdelrazik: Public Works Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, 1 El-Sarayat Street, Cairo 11535, Egypt

Resources, 2022, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-21

Abstract: The composition of municipal solid waste (MSW) in the Cairo metropolitan area is investigated. The outputs of MSW sorting analysis at various locations in Cairo with different waste management schemes are presented. Organics (58–75%) and plastic waste (19–28%) are the main components of MSW in Cairo with a higher percentage of organics in landfills compared to dumpsites. The leachate quality is analyzed, and the analysis results indicate that the concentration of macro inorganic pollutants (NH 4+ , Na + , Ca 2+ , and Cl − ) and heavy metals (e.g., Cd 2+ and Zn 2+ ) are exceeding the majority of values reported in the literature in various cities all over the world. There was no evidence of an effect of the recycling process on chloride concentration in leachate, while the concentration of iron was reduced. The variation of leachate quality with time for two samples collected from the same municipal solid waste landfill is presented. The first leachate sample is a two-year-old, and the second sample is a sixteen-year-old. There was a significant increase in the concentration of chloride, sodium, chromium, calcium, and magnesium. The implications of the leachate quality in Cairo on the longevity of barrier systems in an MSW landfill are discussed.

Keywords: municipal solid waste; waste stream; landfills; municipal solid waste leachate; leachate age; barrier systems; geomembranes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/11/11/102/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/11/11/102/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jresou:v:11:y:2022:i:11:p:102-:d:960316

Access Statistics for this article

Resources is currently edited by Ms. Donchian Ma

More articles in Resources from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().