Municipal solid waste analysis in Iran

In the recent years Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) has been one of the most important environmental concerns to throughout regions of Iran. Sound MSW management for any area needs to the reliable data in which present the actual MSW condition in that area. The aim of this study is express of integrated view of MSW in Iran.

In this study we collect the data from various municipal regions of Iran, to represent the roughly integrated view of MSW management situation in Iran. In this paper quantity, average generation rate, physical composition, and types of disposal methods in all of municipal regions of Iran also were investigated.

Results from this study has shown that the amount of MSW generated in all of the municipal regions of Iran was 10370798 tons per year, and the average generation rate of MSW was 0.64 kg/capita/day. Results showed that only 6% of MSW was recycled, 10% was treated at organic waste (composting) plants, and about 84% was disposed of in landfill.

According to obtained results from this study and compare MSW composition of Iran to some countries, its found that MSW properties in Iran is near to MSW properties in Low-income countries. Since the most of MSW in Iran contain organic fraction, there is a high potential to develop of composting industry.