Effective Factors in Municipal Solid Waste Minimization and Recovery by Making Use of Citizens' Participation; Case Study of a District in Tehran City

The purpose of this research is to quantify the potential of waste recycling in the form of participatory scenarios for separation from the source and to study the factors of minimization (reduction) of waste production in a district of Tehran. Amount of waste minimization was determined with considering a couple of citizens' participation scenarios. Source separation of valuable wastes including paper and cardboard, plastic, plastic bags, aluminum cans, bread, PET, waste metal and glass were considered in this procedure. Among 250 tons of generated dry waste within the district, 150 tons (60%) goes directly to landfill instead of getting recycled. Considering the successful experiences regarding the use of reverse vending machine (RVM) in recycling of beverage containers, this research takes RVM as a reasonable method to promote the recycling activities by citizens. In the 10% scenario, the participation for the separation of the total amount of daily materials is about 4,300 USD per day and in the 25% scenario, 10,800 USD of added value have been calculated. Also, for the participation of 10 and 25 percent during a month, 15 and 30 waste disposal services to the disposal and processing complex could get less.