A comprehensive overview of rural solid waste management in China

Abstract

This paper aims to conduct a comprehensive review of rural solid waste (RSW) in terms of characteristics, management and legislation. Survey results show that RSW generation rates range from 0.25 to 2.1 kg ∙(capita∙d)−1 in different rural villages across regions of China. Total RSW generation has been increasing, which is far higher than official data in 2014. RSW are dominated by food residue and coal ash/cinder/dust (at approximately 70%). Most of RSW are still discarded randomly without any treatment in China. Scattered RSW generation sources, imperfect legislation system, poor infrastructure on treatment and disposal are identified as the biggest challenge for RSW management currently in China. To improve RSW management, increasing financial resources, establishing sorting collection and transportation network, promoting sorting collection and recycling, improving treatment technology are proposed as the possible solution.