Waste Management as Economic Industry Towards Circular Economy by Sadhan Kumar Ghosh

Author:Sadhan Kumar Ghosh
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811516207
Publisher: Springer Singapore

1 Introduction

Worldwide, nearly more than 2 billion tonnes of solid waste are generated annually, with projections to reach 3.4 billion tonnes by 2050 (Kaza et al. 2018). Population growth, development, and urbanization have increased the quantities of municipal solid waste generation to levels raising considerable management challenges (Gundupalli et al. 2017). The 3R (reuse, recycle, and recovery) concept has been evolving to become most effective in partially facing these challenges. This concept is extrapolated from the waste management hierarchy, which was developed by the European Commission and was long recognized in the EU legislation as a fundamental component of integrated waste management (Council Directive 1991). In this context, separation of waste material at source is a critical factor influencing the successful implementation of this concept. Several studies (Boonrod et al. 2015; Sukholthaman and Sharp 2016) have also demonstrated the effectiveness of waste separation at source in reducing the amount of waste to be landfilled and increasing the amount of recyclable materials. Accordingly, it has been widely applied in developed economies (Rousta et al. 2015; Di Maria and Micale 2014) towards a sustainable integrated waste management system. Developing economies have witnessed a lack of public participation in waste separation at source with limited applications in pilot cities (Kaza et al. 2018; Tai et al. 2011). This can be attributed to several factors such as the lack of awareness about the importance of waste separation at source (Kaza et al. 2018; Boonrod et al. 2015), outdated legislation or lack of services and infrastructure (Sukholthaman et al. 2017), unavailability of market for recyclables (Belton et al. 1994), and inconsistent waste separation campaigns (Miller Associates 1999). In turn, waste collection of source-separated material can affect its quality and consequently can impact the effectiveness and efficiency of the 3R process. The waste collection process in developing economies shares the highest cost among the other urban services whereby local authorities spend between 20 and 50% of their budget on this service (UN Habitat 2010).

Past efforts evaluated the impact of source separation on waste collection and identified influencing factors affecting the application of this concept (Sukholthaman and Sharp 2016; Vassanadumrongdee and Kittipongvises 2018; Boonrod et al. 2015). Other studies examined aspects related to source segregation intensity, fuel consumption, as well as economic and environmental impacts (De Oliveiera and Borenstein 2007; Di Maria et al. 2013; Everett et al. 1998a, b; Iriarte et al. 2009; Johansson 2006). For instance, Sukholthaman and Sharp (2016) demonstrated that the higher source separation rate, the less amount of waste left to be landfilled, the less the total management cost waste to be collected, and eventually the higher the efficiency of the waste collection service. However, the authors did not consider additional costs from collecting source-separated waste.

While economic implications of implementing separate waste collection schemes have been recognized particularly in developed economies (Di Maria and Micale 2013), limited to no study identified the differentiating factors influencing the practical implementation of this concept in a developing context. These factors may include the amount and

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