Sizing of a Composting Plant and a Reception and Storage Center for an Ecological Park in Mexico

The management of the 86,388.00 tons of solid wastes generated every day in Mexico is a complicated matter. In order to help solve this problem, sustainable buildings that include solid waste management plants and community awareness programs are being constructed. The objective of this research is to propose the building of a reception and storage center for storing the economically valuable wastes as well as a composting plant for treating the organic fraction within the installations of a sustainable park. The methodology is based on Laws, Regulations and Standards related to sustainable buildings, reception and storage centers and composting plants. From a generation study conducted in an ecological park, the volumetric weights of the generated wastes were obtained, the most abundant ones being polyethylene terephthalate (better known as PET), 38.75 kg/m3; food wastes, 110.5 kg/m3; and gardening wastes, 2443 kg/m3. PET wastes and plastics were added and a volume of 7.8 m3 in three months was obtained. This volume was used to design the four specific areas into which the reception and storage center was divided, each area being 2 meters long, 1.5 meters wide and 2 meters high, plus one meter for ventilation purposes. A movable partition was proposed in order to accommodate the eventual need of a larger space for a given type of wastes. As regard to the composting plant the method applied in the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) workshop - composting techniques was used, in which compost density is established at 250 kg/m3 and the daily volume of organic wastes (2.25 m3) was obtained to design a weekly mound being 1.5 meters long, 0.8 meter wide and 1.2 meters high, forming a 16-meter-long pile in three months. These areas will help promote awareness among the visitors.