Evaluation of Solid Waste Management in Rural Areas of Udupi, Including an Adaptation Strategy

Rural India faces a massive waste disposal problem that will worsen in the coming years. With increasing population and economic inflation, the lifestyle of rural residents/households is changing. Thus, Solid Waste collection, disposal, and management have become a major rural problem, especially in populated cities. Three Gram panchayats (GP) were selected as study areas. The characterization study in these three villages is either non-existent or insufficient, with steps carried out in engineering ways from the collection, segregation at the source, transportation, and final disposal. Daily segregated waste collection, dry waste sorting, and wet waste processing data were captured in 3 g Panchayat for 3 months, based on the average of different data captured for 3-month average waste generation from households and commercials in the Gram Panchayat were calculated. All incoming unsorted waste will be stored temporarily at the unloading area near the SWM unit. EPR products like Tetra Pak and PET bottles will be moved immediately from the unloading area to their respective storage area. A segregated fraction of the waste like colored paper, tissue paper, cartons, plastic, and road waste will be stored. Reject waste will be stored in HDPE containers. Once the baling operation starts, items like Tetra Pak, PET, color paper, tissue paper, cartons, plastic, and road waste will be fed to the balers from their respective temporary storage location. The baled and un-baled segregated waste items will be stored at their respective allocated area. The result showed that the percentage of visual cleanliness will be drastically altered with the management of SW and inturn effects in the economic environmental aspects of the villages.