Bahir Dar City Municipal Solid Waste Potential Assessment for Clean Energy

Abstract

Nowadays, Carbon-rich fuels are the principal energy supply utilized for powering human society, and it will be continued for the next some decades. Connecting with this, modern energy technologies are very essential to convert the available limited carbon-rich fuels and other green alternative energies into useful energy efficiently with an insignificant environmental impression. Therefore, the main objectives of this study are assessing the potential of municipal biomass solid waste for briquette production in Bahir Dar city, Ethiopia. To conduct this research, various data collection instrument tools were used to achieve the intended objectives for instance questionnaire, direct measurement, field observation and related literature based on necessity. Moreover, to confirm the reliability of the information obtained through a questionnaire, a focus group discussion was conducted with different concerned bodies. The main finding of this study shows that Bahir Dar city has the potential to generate 50.19 tons of municipal biomass solid waste per day. The collected waste was characterized as 82.5% of them is organic waste that may be converted in to clean energy (briquette and biogas) based on their sized whereas the remaining 17.5% of them were inorganic (plastics, glass, and metals) that can be resent for recycling and reuse to their original sources. Biomass-related solid municipal waste is a promising potential to utilize as a feedstock for briquette production. Besides, it has a prodigious role to reduce deforestation, land degradation, save foreign currency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is because the demands of household’s energy that was fulfilled with wood charcoals and fossil fuels are substituted with locally available renewable energy sources. The experimental results confirmed that all the physicochemical properties of briquette charcoal that are produced from municipal solid biomass waste were acceptable. Besides, the burning efficiency of the briquette, fanning time and carbon content determination were measured and obtained as adequate results based on the standards. Hence, it will be a possible alternative fuel for household energy using a special design stove that is available in the market. It has also played a great role in waste management and treatment system to achieve sustainable clean city developments.