Abstract
Waste is a continually growing problem at global and
regional as well as at local levels. Solid wastes, from all the
waste-generating sectors (municipal, construction and demolition, industrial,
urban agriculture, and healthcare facilities) and involving all the
stakeholders (waste generators,service providers, regulators, government, and
community/neighborhoods), has the potential to pollute all the vital components
of living environment at local and at global levels.The rapid increase in
production and consumption has resulted in the scarcity of infinite resources.
So it is obligatory to enter a new dimension of resource
conservation and resource recovery.
The 3R
(Reduce,Reuse and Recycle) approach is becoming a guiding factor for Integrated Solid Waste Management (ISWM).
On one hand, 3R helps to minimize the amount of waste from generation to
disposal, thus managing the waste more effectively and minimizing the
publichealth and environmental risks associated with it. On the other hand,
resource recovery is maximized at all stages of ISWM.
This new concept has been introduced to streamline all
the stages of waste management, i.e.,source separation, collection and
transportation, transfer-stations and material recovery, treatment and
resource, recovery, and final disposal.The process includes a baseline study on the characterization and
quantification of waste for all waste generating sectors within a city,
assessment of current waste management systems and practices, target setting
for ISWM, identification of issues of concern and suggestionsfrom stakeholders,
development of a draft ISWM plan,preparation of an implementation strategy, and
establishment of a monitoring and feedback system.
This umbrella approach is useful to generate sufficient
volumes of recycling materials required to make recycling industries feasible.
United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is assisting cities to develop and implement ISWM based on the 3R
approach.These experiences could be useful for other countries to develop and implementISWM
to achieve improved public health, better environmental protection, and resource
conservation and resource recovery.
CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Categories of Solid Waste
3. Evolving Concept
i. Concept of ISWM based on 3R
ii. Advantages of ISWM based on 3R
iii. Concept of Extended Producer Responsibility
iv. Polluter Pay Principle
4. Implementation of ISWM
5. Waste Characterization and Quantification
6. Assessment of Waste Management System
i. Target Setting
7. Management System
8. ISWM Plan
9. Conclusion
INTRODUCTION
Starting from the last
century’s mid-eighties, the “3R” Principle: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle became
increasingly implemented in many countries. In the decade to follow, this
principle became even more relevant through the strong increase of waste
quantities due to the significant economic growth (higher living standards,
more throw-away-products etc.). This increase leads to a shortage of disposal
capacity. This situation was compounded by the rise of the NIMBY (not in my
backyard) syndrome which frequently leads to stiff opposition to proposed new
waste disposal infrastructure. Concurrently, more and more advanced countries
recognised a need to preserve resources and reduce environmental impacts throughout
the life cycle of products. Communities developed a growing awareness that significant
environmental improvements could be achieved by reducing landfill disposal and
recovering resources from ‘waste’ streams.
Nowadays, proper management of solid waste is a central
pillar of far-sighted, sustainable environmental policies. Inadequate
management of municipal waste results in considerable public health hazards and
additional costs in both the short and the long term.
Integrated solid waste management (ISWM) and 3R (reduce,
reuse, and recycle) have become common terminologies for policy makers and
practitioners in the field of solid waste management
However, in many countries ISMW is taken as being synonymous
with traditional municipal solid waste management (MSWM). In some countries,
ISWM is understood to be an integrated approach for managing municipal waste to
optimize the efficiency of services and to achieve the objectives of the 3R
approach.
This seminar discusses the concept of ISWM and argues that
ISWM may go beyond municipal waste management alone and may cover all the waste
generating sectors to optimize the efficiency of the services at each stage of
waste management and to increase the amount of recoverable materials and energy
to make it attractive for the private sector.
Stages of the ISWM chain include source
separation, collection and transportation, transfer stations and material recovery,
treatment and resource recovery, and final disposal.
Waste management services include the technology and
human resources to facilitate the flow of waste and recovery at each stage.
Furthermore, it is suggested that 3R is inherently integrated within ISWM.
This article also highlights the process of developing
and implementing ISWM in cities/towns. This process includes establishing
baseline waste data and assessment of current waste management systems, target
setting, identification of stakeholders’ issues of concern for ISWM, and
development of an ISWM plan with its implementation strategy.
CATEGORIES OF SOLID WASTE
Solid wastes are all
materials arising from human activities that are normally solid and are discarded
as unwanted. Solid waste can be categorized based on source as shown in table:-
|
Source
|
Typical Facilities and Activities
of Waste Generation
|
Types of solid waste
|
|
Agricultural
|
Field and row
crops, orchards, farms
vineyards, etc
|
Spoiled food
wastes, agricultural wastes, hazardous wastes.
|
|
Industrial
|
Light and heavy
manufacturing,
refineries,
chemical plants, power
plants,
construction, demolition, etc.
|
Industrial process
waste, scrap
materials, ashes, demolition and
construction
wastes, special wastes and hazardous waste, etc.
|
|
Commercial
and
Institutional
|
Stores,
restaurants, markets, hotels
office
buildings, auto repair shops
|
Paper, cardboard,
plastics, wood,
food wastes, glass,
metal wastes,
ashes, special
wastes etc.
|
|
Municipal
solid waste
|
Includes
residential, commercial and institutions
|
Special waste,
rubbish, general waste, paper, plastics, metals, food waste, hazardous waste
etc.
|
EVOLVING CONCEPT
ISWM is a system based on the
3R approach at the city/town level covering all waste generating sectors and
all stages of the waste management chain, including segregation at source for
reuse and recycling, collection and transportation, sorting for material recovery,
treatment and resource recovery, and final disposal.
Concept
of Integrated Solid Waste Management based on 3R
The conventional
integrated waste management system was sector specific and had little emphasis
on resource recovery for reuse and recycling. The major challenge is that most
of the funds were being consumed by collection of waste and it was almost
impossible for many countries to support proper treatment and disposal without
external funding. The international agencies realized that improvements in
waste management could not be achieved through a piecemeal approach. An
integrated approach was required to reduce the increasing amount of waste that
requires proper collection, treatment, and disposal. However, efforts to
minimize waste through awareness-raising and policy could result in substantial
reductions in volumes of waste. In addition to that, it was also realized that
waste contains precious resources that could be recovered in terms of materials
for recycling as well as in terms of energy to be used as a substitute for
fossil fuels. This realization completes the concept of 3R to reduce the final
amount of waste as well as to divert most of the waste for reuse and resource recovery.
The reduced amounts of waste could substantially decrease the costs for waste
management. Resource augmentation by converting waste into material or energy could
broaden the revenue base to support expenditures for SWM.
Initially, this 3R approach was promoted in each waste
sector individually, mainly due to the institutional framework in most
countries where local government is responsible for municipal waste and
construction and demolition waste, and national government is responsible for
industrial waste and agricultural waste. However, it was realized that by
integrating various sectors under the ISWM concept of umbrella management,
there would be various gains.
Some waste
management experts have recently incorporated a “fourth R”: “Re-think”, with the
implied meaning that the present system may have fundamental flaws, and that a thoroughly
effective system of waste management may need an entirely new way of looking at
waste. Source reduction involves efforts to reduce hazardous waste and other materials
by modifying industrial production. Source reduction methods involve changes in
manufacturing technology, raw material inputs and product formulation.
Advantages
of ISWM based on 3R
1. First,
the available resources for waste collection, material recovery, treatment and
resource recovery, and disposal could be used efficiently with better
scheduling and higher resource use
efficiency.
1. There
would be substantial amounts of recovered materials and energy available to facilitate
the establishment of industries that could use these resources for production
2.
There
would be savings in waste management costs as the overall amount of final waste
that requires disposal would be reduced considerably through diversion of waste
for material and resource recovery.
3.
There
would be active coordination among various stakeholders that could lead them to
work on other development projects such as water and sanitation.
4.
The
outcome of ISWM in terms of cleaner and safe neighborhoods would lead to
improved quality of life, better economic activity, and higher property values.
5.
Governments
can build trust among the public as ISWM brings tangible outcomes in terms of
public health, and economic gains from recycling industry, cleanliness, and
active interactions among stakeholders.
Hence, the ISWM concept can optimize the gains of 3R on
one hand, and improve the waste management system on the other hand.
Concept
of Integrated Solid Waste Management (ISWM) based on 3R approach
Concept
of Extended Producer Responsibility
Extended producer
responsibility is a strategy designed to promote the integration of all costs
associated with products throughout their life cycle (including end-of-life
disposal costs) into the market price of the product (OECD, 1999). Extended
producer responsibility is meant to impose accountability over the entire
lifecycle of products and packaging introduced to the market. This means that
firms which manufacture, import and/or sell products are required to be
responsible for the products after their useful life as well as during manufacture.
Extended producer responsibility promotes that producers (usually brand owners)
have the greatest control over product design and marketing and therefore have
the greatest ability and responsibility to reduce toxicity and waste.
This can take the form of a reuse, buy-back (act of
rebuying something that one previously sold), or recycling program, or in
energy production. The producer may also choose to delegate this responsibility
to a third party, a so-called producer responsibility organization, which is
paid by the producer for spent-product management. In this way, extended producer
responsibility shifts responsibility for waste from government to private
industry, obliging producers, importers and/or sellers to internalise waste
management costs in their product prices.
The term of “producer responsibility” became an integral
part of European Union environment policy, bringing this concept to life, being
possible with the help of industry representatives which have implemented an
efficient recovery and recycling packaging waste system (international
recognized):
The organisations
conducting their activity based on the principles of “Der Grüne Punkt” system coordinate
the collecting, sorting and recovering of packaging and packaging waste on
behalf of their customers. These organisations establish partnerships with
local authorities, private or municipal sanitation companies and companies that
will recover or recycle the collected and sorted packages.
Polluter Pays Principle
In environmental law, the
polluter pays principle is enacted to make the polluting party responsible for paying
for the damage done to the natural environment.
Polluter pays is also known as extended polluter responsibility.
Extended
polluter responsibility seeks to shift the responsibility dealing with waste
from governments (and thus, taxpayers and society at large) to the entities
producing it. In effect, it internalises the cost of waste disposal
into the cost of the product, theoretically meaning that the producers will
improve the waste profile of their products, thus decreasing waste and
increasing possibilities for reuse and recycling
The polluter pays principle underpins environmental
policy such as an ecotax, which, if enacted by government, deters and
essentially reduces the emitting of greenhouse gas emissions.
Extended polluter responsibility may also be defined as-“
a
concept where manufacturers and importers of products should bear a significant
degree of responsibility for the environmental impacts of their products
throughout the product life-cycle, including upstream impacts inherent in the
selection of materials for the products, impacts from manufacturers’ production
process itself, and downstream impacts from the use and disposal of the
products. Producers accept their responsibility when designing their products
to minimise life-cycle environmental impacts, and when accepting legal,
physical or socio-economic responsibility for environmental impacts that cannot
be eliminated by design.”
IMPLEMENTATION OF ISWM
An ISWM system based on the
3R approach can be optimally designed and implemented at the town/city level due
to the basic role of local government in providing waste collection and
management services. However, the regional/provincial and national governments
have to play very important roles, especially in terms of enacting appropriate
policies and regulations as well as strengthening the institutions to create an
enabling environment for ISWM.
In many cities of under-developed countries, waste
management was considered as the collection of garbage and the dumping of that garbage
outside the city. Even for waste collection, a systematic approach was not
adopted as the operational plan and the number of collection trucks was not
designed based on waste generation rates.
There is a clear difference in the new ISWM approach that
requires a logical system based on reliable baseline data to cover collection
as well as all the other stages of the waste management chain. Hence the designing
and implementation of ISWM for a given city requires various steps, involving
all the major stakeholders.
These steps include:
1. Data
collection and analysis to develop baseline data on the characterization and
quantification of waste from various sources and future projections.
2. Information
collection and analysis to develop baseline data on the current waste
management system and gaps therein.
3. Setting
of targets by local government in consensus with local stakeholders for ISWM.
4. Identification
of issues of concern of local stakeholders covering financial, technical,
environmental, and social aspects of ISWM.
5. Development
of an ISWM plan.
6. Development
of an implementation strategy for ISWM.
7.
Development of a monitoring and feedback
system for ISWM.
jWASTE CHARACTERIZATION AND
QUANTIFICATION
To prepare an ISWM plan, the
most important step is to collect substantial and accurate information on the
quantity of waste and its composition as well as to project waste data for
future scenarios. For waste characterization and quantification, primary data
collection is essential. However, prior to starting the collection of primary
data, proper groundwork should be carried out. This includes defining the
administrative and geographical boundaries of the targeted city, identifying
the waste generating sectors within the city, collecting maps showing zoning, and collecting basic
information regarding city and secondary data if available. Based on this
groundwork, a proper plan for data collection and analysis should be formulated
and resources, including human resources and equipment, should be organized.
The most important decision for data collection
is the number, location, and timing of samples. Sample collection and analysis
is a costly activity, hence, excessive data collection and analysis could
jeopardize the resources
allocated for this activity. Samples could be collected at the generation
level, at transfer stations, or at disposal sites. This depends on the coverage
of the existing collection system. If all the waste is collected and
transferred properly, then samples at transfer stations and/or disposal sites
may provide reliable information. Sometimes, data collection is completed
within a few months and this may not capture seasonal variations in waste
quantity and characterization. In this case, based on local knowledge,
adjustments could be made and these adjustments should be verified during the
following season by collecting and analyzing representative samples. The
samples collected at the generation level or at transfer/disposal sites should
be analyzed to ascertain the quantity of overall waste as well as quantities
from each source and at each district/street level. The different components, including
biodegradable (kitchen and yard) waste, plastic, paper, textiles, glass,
metals, and others, should also be quantified for designing material and
resource recovery systems. Waste samples should also be analyzed to assess the
moisture content and calorific value to assist identification of appropriate
technologies for
collection, treatment, and disposal. Furthermore, based
on relevant factors such as population growth and economic development, projections
of waste quantities and changes in waste composition should be calculated for
the future. A time period of 30years, divided into 5-year sub-periods, could be
very helpful in designing an ISWM system and related infrastructure. All this
information would be compiled to develop a baseline report on waste data.
This set of detailed data on waste quantity
and characterization, with projections for the future, is essential to design
an ISWM system (policies, technologies/infrastructure, financial mechanisms,
and roles and responsibilities of stakeholders) to promote 3R. Some policies
and technologies could be applied upstream, before the generation of
waste, to minimize waste generation. However,
most policies, technologies, and roles are targeted to promote reuse and
recycling of waste through source separation, material recovery at transfer
stations, and resource recovery at treatment centers. This will reduce the
amount of waste to optimize the waste collection, transportation, and disposal system.
ASSESSMENT OF WASTE
MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
The
second part of a baseline study would be the assessment of current waste
management system/practices and identification of gaps therein. Waste
management systems include the policies, institutions, technologies and infrastructure,
financing mechanism, stakeholders’ roles, and operational plan for waste
collection. Policies for waste management cover local and national policies and
the level of enforcement. The regulations as well as fiscal policies for SWM
should be assessed to identify the gaps therein, either in policies or in enforcement.
Assessment of institutions would provide information on the type and level of institutions
involved with management of solid waste from one or more sources. This also
helps to identify the shortcomings of current institutional arrangements with
respect to efficiency and effectiveness of the SWM system.
Assessment of technologies
and infrastructure covers collection types (e.g., door-to-door, kerbside), type
of collection vehicles, transfer station and sorting technology, treatment plants
(e.g., incineration, composting/biogas), and landfill.
The operational plan for waste collection, transfer
stations, and disposal should also be analyzed. The operational plan goes
beyond preparing a list of the technologies and infrastructure. For example,
for the waste collection system, the number and type of waste collection
vehicles and their status (operational and nonoperational) is one issue, but
the operational plan, i.e., how the service provider or government operates
these vehicles on a daily or weekly basis and how much waste is collected, is
another issue. Similarly, the operational plan for transfer stations and landfill
sites should also be analyzed.
Thereafter, the financial mechanism to support SWM in general
and services (collection, treatment, and disposal) in particular should be
analyzed to identify any gaps in revenue generation and expenditure. This financial
mechanism may comprise local and national government support, international cooperation,
and direct taxes or fees for the waste generators. It is also useful to conduct
interviews of waste generators to assess their willingness to pay or use the
benefit transfer function to assess the willingness to pay if there is limited
time and resources for primary data collection.
Assessment of the stakeholders’ role should cover all the
major stakeholders such as waste generators, service providers, and regulators.
Gap analysis should also be carried out to assess any shortcomings in the
current SWM system.
These shortcomings could be identified from two
viewpoints: the traditional viewpoint of waste collection, treatment, and
disposal and the new viewpoint of 3R, focusing on source separation, material
recovery at transfer/disposal sites, and resource recovery at treatment
centers.
Target
Setting
Once the baseline report is
ready, the next step is to set the quantitative targets for ISWM. These targets
should be verifiable for monitoring and feedback. The target setting is led by
local government and by involving all the major stakeholders, including waste
generators, service providers, and the community as a whole. The targets should
be in line with the “mission” and “vision” statements of a city or a country,
if available. Otherwise, the starting point could be local or national goals.
These statements or goals may include keywords such as clean city, public
health, resource augmentation or 3R, and environmental friendly practices. The
targets may cover all the stages and services with respect to ISWM.
For example, targets for segregation at source may
identify types of waste, such as food waste, to be segregated at source and the
percentage and amount of waste to be segregated. For collection, the efficiency
targets could be set, such as 100% collection of the waste generated.
For material recovery, targets may be set for the amount
of waste to be sorted to recover recyclable materials such paper, plastic, and
metals. Similarly, targets for treatment may cover biological and thermal treatment
and recovery of resources such as compost, biogas, ethanol, and heat/electricity.
Finally, the targets for safe disposal may cover the volumes of hazardous and
nonhazardous waste for controlled and sanitary landfill and recovery of landfill
gas as a source of energy.
In addition to the targets for each stage of ISWM, other related
targets such as broadening of the revenue base, increasing stakeholders’ participation,
or promoting public–private partnerships could also be included. Moreover, it
is important to set the timeline for the targets. For example 90% and 100%
collection efficiency of waste generated within the city should be achieved by
the year 20XX and the year 20XY, respectively.
MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Once the baseline
report is ready, targets have been proposed, and issues of concern have been
identified, the next step would be to develop a management system to achieve the
proposed targets for ISWM based on the 3R approach. Such a management system is
a set of responses in terms of regulations/policies and institutional
frameworks, technologies and infrastructure, and voluntary actions for
each stage of ISWM. The policies, including
regulatory and fiscal, and their enforcement, as well as the role of institutions,
could be proposed in line with the existing system as ISWM is an evolutionary
process and not a revolutionary process. It should be remembered that in many
countries, national governments are
responsible for policies; thus, practical policies with a proper timeline for
their approval should be proposed.
Technological
and infrastructure measures could be very costly; thus, based on the local
socioeconomic situation and local capacity to operate and maintain these
technologies, appropriate technologies should be proposed. Appropriate technologies
could be identified by setting up criteria covering financial, technical,
environmental, and social indicators.
There are various frameworks available to
assess the technologies. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (DTIE) International
Environmental Centre (IETC) has developed a SAT framework (sustainability
assessment of technologies) to assist decision makers in selection of appropriate
technologies for any targeted public service.
ISWM
PLAN
An ISWM plan is a
document containing baseline information, proposed targets, issues of concern
and a set of responses as a management system, an implementation strategy, and
monitoring and feedback systems . The implementation strategy for ISWM defines
the ways and
means of implementing each response. For a
policy-level response, for example to propose an incentive on source separation
in terms of a tax rebate, a proper strategy based on local conditions should be
formulated. In some countries, local governments are sufficiently decentralized
to take these decisions, while in other countries, national governments alone
can take such decisions. Furthermore, for the policy-level response, the
implementation strategy for ISWM should also cover local capacity building to
implement such policies, once these are approved at the appropriate level of
government. For example, to increase waste collection coverage up to 100% of
waste generated from all sectors within a city, a certain number of collection
vehicles are required to be procured and put into proper operations. In the
implementation strategy document, a detailed plan should be formulated to get
the funding from possible sources, procedures should be put in place to procure
the vehicles, and an operational plan should be implemented to operate and
maintain the vehicles. Various investment and management strategies, such as
public–private partnerships for the collection system, could also be the part
of this document.
CONCLUSION
This report helps to
understand the evolving concept of ISWM, based on the 3R approach, and the
process for implementing an ISWM system in cities/towns. The ISWM system clearly
improves resource-use efficiency, as all waste sources are managed under an integrated
waste management system. This is crucial for managing special wastes, such as
hazardous waste. If individual sectors are managed separately, then it would be
a costly business. Hence, applying joint efforts under ISWM could be efficient
and effective. This is a major challenge for cities. Furthermore, resource
recovery from one sector, such as the commercial sector, may not be adequate to
attract investments in eco-industries or to convert waste into a resource.
Therefore, addressing all sectors under ISWM could be a very effective tool to
manage their waste effectively and efficiently based on the 3R concept.
Implementation of ISWM is straightforward because local capacity building,
supported by national and international initiatives, can lead to all the
actions being
undertaken locally, including waste characterization and
quantification, assessment of the current waste management system, targets for
ISWM, identification of stakeholders’ issues of concern, and development of an
ISWM plan and implementation strategy for ISWM.
