METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS OF A SOLID WASTE QUANTIFICATION AND CHARACTERISATION STUDY IN DAR ES SALAAM CITY, TANZANIA.

Quantification and characterization of waste are a pre-requisite for any planning and design for solid waste management. This paper reports on lessons from a research and pilot scale demonstration project on community level solid waste management in Dar es Salaam City, Tanzania. As part of the project, a study area was selected, and waste collection routes and service schedules were designed using the Heuristic-Deterministic approach. Households in the study area were given storage bags of different colours to facilitate on-site sorting and storage of the waste. The collected waste was transported and re-sorted so as to quantify it and determine its composition. The per capita waste generation rate (WG) was found to be between 300 and 450g per day and organic waste made up more than 78% of the total amount of waste. The moisture content of the waste was found to be 65% - 75% while the bulk density was 310 kgm.³. The study demonstrated among other things, that composting of solid waste could greatly alleviate solid waste management problems in Dar es Salaam City. It also showed that it was possible to manage waste at community level on cost- recovery basis. A further observation was that, the project improved greatly the environmental sanitation of the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]