A Quantitative and Qualitative Investigation of Tehran Solid Waste Recycling Potential

The amount and composition of municipal waste comprise the basic information needed for the planning operation and optimization of waste management systems. The final goal of this study was a quantitative and qualitative investigation of recycling potential of solid wastes in 22 regions of Tehran. This study was conducted in the last 9 months of 2007 in 22 regions of Tehran municipality. Systematic sampling method was use in the study. The solid parts of wastes were segregated and the data were analyzed by Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for determination of the normality of mean distribution of the data and then for determination of the significance of differences between parametric data the One-way ANOVA and the Independent-sample T-test methods were used and for non-parametric data the Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis methods were applied. The solid parts of studied waste were paper and cardboard (37%) plastic (25%) metal (13%) textile (8%) and glass (4%). The maximum amounts of paper and cardboard were in Azar plastic and metal in Ordibehesht textile and glass in Aban and residuals in Khordad. Also there was a significant difference between the mean of studied solid wastes in autumn and summer months (P-value