Construction of a Glass Crusher and Evaluation of Waste Valorization Pathways for Cape Maclear, Malawi

This thesis, conducted in support of Sustainable Cape Maclear’s solid waste management strategy for Cape Maclear, Malawi, addressed the village’s informal glass dumpsites through three linked subtasks: designing and building a glass crusher, proposing waste valorization pathways, and characterizing dumpsites. A manually operated roller-mill crusher was designed, but its drivetrain lacked sufficient structural strength to crush intact bottles; a simpler pre-crusher was therefore built to break bottles into shards before roller-mill processing, together producing particle sizes from powder to several centimeters within an acceptable processing time. Several glass valorization pathways were identified, differing in economic potential, particle-size suitability, and throughput capacity, for Sustainable Cape Maclear to select from. Dumpsite quantification and characterization were dropped due to time constraints, yielding only a map of dumpsite locations.