Experimental Study on the Compaction of Waste

The daily compaction of waste is a well established process in waste industry because it increases the capacity of landfills. The paper presents an experimental research aimed to introduce a practical maximum unit weight which could be used to define “Relative Compaction” of municipal solid waste. It is the ratio of in-situ unit weight to the maximum unit weight. Laboratory compaction of waste was undertaken in a cylindrical steel mold. Each layer of waste was compacted using a hand operated drop rammer. The thickness of waste layers and also the number of blows were varied in the tests and the unit weight of compacted waste is reported in respect to compaction energy. It was observed that the unit weight of waste compacted in 7 layers in the steel cylindrical mold using 60 blows of drop rammer could be practically considered as maximum unit weight density at natural moisture content. Field compaction tests were also undertaken on waste using a D-6 bulldozer and the in-situ compaction was measured. The paper suggests that 4 to 6 passes of bulldozers could achieve an optimum field compaction.