25-10-2017, 11:01 AM
Handling solid waste collecting, treating and disposing of solid material that is discarded because it has served its purpose or is no longer useful. Inadequate disposal of municipal solid waste can create unhealthy conditions, and these conditions in turn can lead to environmental contamination and outbreaks of vector-borne diseases, ie diseases spread by rodents and insects. Solid waste management tasks present complex technical challenges. They also pose a wide variety of administrative, economic and social problems that must be handled and resolved.
In ancient cities, waste was thrown into the streets and unpaved roads, where they accumulated. It was not until 320 BC. C. in Athens that established the first known law that prohibits this practice. At that time, a system for the disposal of waste in Greece and in the eastern Mediterranean cities dominated by the Greeks began to be developed. In ancient Rome, the owners were responsible for cleaning the streets in front of their property. But organized waste collection was associated only with state-sponsored events, such as parades. The disposal methods were very crude, involving open pits located outside the city walls. As populations increased, efforts were made to transport debris further away from cities.
After the fall of Rome, the collection of waste and municipal sanitation began a decline that lasted throughout the Middle Ages. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, scavengers were entrusted with the task of transporting the wastes to landfills outside the city walls. But this was not the case in smaller cities, where most people still littered the streets. It was not until 1714 that all the cities of England were required to have an official scavenger. Towards the end of the eighteenth century in the United States, municipal garbage collection began in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. However, waste disposal methods were still very crude. Garbage collected in Philadelphia, for example, was simply dumped into the Delaware River downstream from the city.