Study of Solid Waste Management in Industrial Estate of Rasht

Industrial Estate of Rasht is one of the oldest Industrial Estate of Iran in Guilan province. It was established before the Islamic republic of Iran's revolution in 1974. The Industrial Estate of Rasht that is the greatest active Industrial Estate in the province is located at 18- kilometer of western south side of Rasht city. In this article, solid waste management has been studied as one of the problems of this Industrial Estate. The method of this article has been on the basis of observation and completion of subjective questionnaires distributed among 61% of the active industrial units. Study of finding show that majority of industries, have a passive approach toward remarks of environment protection, absorption of environment experts and scientific management of Solid wastes. In this regard, only 13.4% of the units have environment experts, 14.9% of industrial units have taken an action for studying their solid wastes. For this reason, two industrial units have been able to selected as Green unit in Guilan province. Metal and nonmetal mineral Industries groups have the most amount of industrial solid waste with 26.80% and 20.72% respectively, and Metal Industrial groups with 19% and textile industries with 15.23% have the most weight of House-hold solid wastes. About 4.45% of the units have recycled their solid wastes and 21.20% of them do the recycling together with other management activities such as source reduction, incineration and Sanitary Land fill. About 1.51% of industrial units have incinerated their Solid Wastes but no precise control is made on air pollution. In summary the industrial units under study in Industrial Estate of Rasht produce 3903.8 tons of industrial solid wastes per year and 217.2 tons of House-hold solid wastes per year. According to the obtained results, upon development of industrial activities in factories and increase of the number of staffs, the volume of produced solid wastes will increase in future. Accumulation of these wastes in the Industrial Estate will create undesirable environmental effects and more consumption of resources. By applying an integrated solid waste management system in Industrial Estate of Rasht, production of solid waste is decreased and increasing industrial development will be maintained.