The initial information we were able to obtain approximately from the municipality of Samarra shows that the amount of solid wastes produced in Samarra City is 115 tons a day, i.e. 0.929 kg per a person daily. This information is taken approximately by the concerned institutions in the city, where it has no precise statistics. This concerns the residential areas in the city. Information about the wastes that concern the industrial, commercial and medical areas has never been obtained yet. The municipality of Samarra cleans the city and disposes of wastes from the streets, public squares
and residential areas, and takes them away to the waste dump. The way used in waste disposal is the direct performance; either by using the municipality’s dump-trucks or by renting dump-trucks. Because the municipality is not able to use its own trucks (shown in table IV-12) in the current cleaning work for security reasons, the trucks have been kept in places near a military base to be
protected from being stolen. These trucks are not only used for cleaning, but also for all other municipal purposes The estimated population of Samarra within study area is about (109 000) people. Because of the security situation and the extraordinary status of the city, big amount of city habitants had left the city to its surroundings, which stay a part of Samarra district. Thus no changes of statistical importance happened within Samarra district. The amount of wastes produced in the city is measured according
to a measuring standard reliable to the public municipalities – 600 g per person. This standard is no longer acceptable according to the current measures, where the amount of wastes per person exceeds (1 kg) – this is true during the absence of process of isolating house-wastes from other wastes, especially construction remains and other debris resulted from the military operations, which are left in the streets to increase the burdens of municipality, and increase the amount of wastes. Waste disposal is conducted by taking wastes away to the waste dump site without any processing (isolating the components); they are put then into holes made for this purpose, and covered with dust,
with no paying attention to the requirements like the amount of wastes in one place or the thickness of dust to cover them.
All sectors of the city are a source of solid waste, but the volume of such waste depends on the density
of population. The existing waste can be classified as follows (Source: Directorate of Samarra
municipality):
• Waste of residential areas.
• Waste of industrial zones.
• Waste of hospitals and health care centers.
• Waste of pharmaceutical factories in Samarra.
• Agricultural waste.
• Wastes harmful and dangerous for environment.
Samarra is among three cities containing the shrines of imams (peace be upon them), in addition to Baghdad. It has to be preferred in the allocation of cleaning machines.