A decision aided system for sustainable waste management

Purpose– This purpose of this paper is concerned with the issue of designing and operating a sustainable waste management system, in rapidly growing urban areas. Some existing models for waste management and the extent to which they could be applied in a specific environment – Cairo for example – are discussed. An integrated framework which can serve as a basis for the development of a sustainable waste management system is proposed. Sustainability of the system, opportunities and challenges, material re-use and recycling, composting, incineration and energy production and land-filling are examined. Relevant waste management and cost sub-models inherent to the system are discussed. In addition, some other environmental and social aspects are also debated. The main focus of this paper is to provide some insights into the design of a more effective and integrated sustainable waste management system applicable for developing economies.Design/methodology/approach– An in-depth analysis is carried out for the existing models and approaches for waste management. This has led to the development of a framework which can be implemented.Findings– A comprehensive conceptual framework for a waste management system is developed. The major inputs and expected outputs are clearly identified.Originality/value– A comprehensive and complete system for waste management is proposed. This system can be operationalized and implemented with a view of sustainability.

Life Cycle Inventory Tools: Supporting the Development of Sustainable Solid Waste Management Systems

The present study was developed to comprehensively analyze experts' views and content of documents focusing on goals and criteria of sustainable waste management system in Tehran, Iran. To this end, the suitable goals for sustainable waste management system in Tehran city were adopted from domestic, national and international documents. For this purpose, 27 national and international documents and 2 domestic documents related to waste management were selected and analyzed by using content analysis according to Gall, 1994. Further, in order to formulate goals in case of bottlenecks and challenges of waste management in Tehran, the focus group technique was used based on Stewart and Shamdasani, 2014. At this stage, 24 key experts in the field of waste management were interviewed in the form of 4 focus groups. Data collection were performed via audio recording and word-for-word implementation of conversations, taking notes and writing field notes. The data collection continued until reaching theoretical saturation. Next, content analysis and coding methods were used to analyze the data. Finally, the goals of waste management were divided into five general categories including: institutional (with emphasis on the integration and inclusion of the key elements of the urban waste management system), technical and infrastructural (with emphasis on the optimization of existing processes in the use of urban waste management technologies), environmental (with emphasis on minimizing the adverse health and environmental effects of the urban waste management system, economic (with emphasis on the economic and financial sustainability of the urban waste management system), and cultural-social (with emphasis on attracting the maximum participation of citizens and service recipients). The results clearly showed that sustainable waste management measures in Tehran should follow these five components in order to reduce the problems caused by unrealistic waste management and make sustainable use of basic, natural, financial and human resources.

The appalling state of Liberia’s municipal solid waste management system (MSWM) is the motivation for this review and analysis. Solid waste management protocols and system dynamic modeling support policy development as it uses waste prevention to explain the complex waste management systems and suggests methods for effective management. However, creating an effective waste system goes beyond the formulation of policies and legislation; it involves financial and technological proficiency, skilled human capacity, technical, social, resource recycling, educational awareness programs, and active public participation. Because of urbanization, Liberia’s municipal solid waste (MSW) problems have become heightened, thereby impacting the economic, social, and political fabric of society by overburdening infrastructure and social facilities. The impact of urbanization must be addressed because urbanization, amongst several factors, including unsustainable management of MSW, degrades the environment and presents risks to public health. The purpose of this review was to highlight the current waste management activities in Liberia and provide information to the readers about the challenges facing the waste management sector and the challenges impeding the development of a sustainable waste management system. In Liberia, waste management activities are getting worse daily due to shortage of a comprehensive waste management framework, the absence of guidelines regarding the responsibilities of waste generators, and the decision-makers' lack of intent to design and implement a sustainable and integrated management system. Recommendations for collaborative efforts are made by focusing on delivering a waste strategy which concentrates on waste minimization, recycling, resource recovery, and promoting sustainable waste management practices for communities, small businesses, corporations, and government institutions in Liberia and other developing countries.

Effective waste management practices are not all about legislative solutions, but a combination of the environmental, social, technical, technically skilled human resources, financial and technological resources, resource recycling, environmental pollution awareness programmes and public participation. As a result of insufficient resources, municipal solid waste (MSW) in transition and developing countries like Botswana remains a challenge, and it is often not yet given highest priority. In Botswana, the environment, public health and other socio-economic aspects are threatened by waste management practices due to inadequate implementation and enforcement mechanisms of waste management policy. This mini-review paper describes the panorama of waste management practices in Botswana and provides information to competent authorities responsible for waste management and to researchers to develop and implement an effective waste management system. Waste management practices in Botswana are affected by: lack of effective implementation of national waste policy, fragmented tasks and overlapping mandates among relevant institutions; lack of clear guidelines on the responsibilities of the generators and public authorities and on the associated economic incentives; and lack of consistent and comprehensive solid waste management policies; lack of intent by decision-makers to prepare national waste management plans and systems, and design and implement an integrated sustainable municipal solid waste management system. Due to these challenges, there are concerns over the growing trend of the illegal dumping of waste, creating mini dumping sites all over the country, and such actions jeopardize the efforts of lobbying investors and tourism business. Recommendations for concerted efforts are made to support decision makers to re-organize a sustainable waste management system, and this paper provides a reference to other emerging economies in the region and the world.

Industry 4.0 based sustainable circular economy approach for smart waste management system to achieve sustainable development goals: A case study of Indonesia

Residents’ waste management practices in a developing country: A social practice theory analysis

The rapid growth of industry, urban areas, and populations has substantially increased waste production worldwide. The inadequacy of robust waste management systems and limited resources poses significant challenges for many emerging economies, including Bangladesh, resulting in environmental contamination. Despite numerous academic studies on sustainable waste management, there is a noticeable gap in the literature concerning identifying, evaluating, and modeling critical risks associated with adopting sustainable municipal waste management systems, particularly in emerging economies like Bangladesh. This study, therefore, aims to fill this gap by identifying, categorizing, and assessing the crucial risks in implementing sustainable municipal waste management systems. Through an extensive review of existing literature and validation with expert feedback, this study employs a fuzzy synthetic evaluation method-based framework to prioritize the identified risks. The study calculates the probability of occurrence and degree of impact values to provide decision-makers with insights into the severity of different risk categories, aiding in case-by-case attention. Scores assigned on a 1 to 5 scale range from 2.59 to 4.14 for the various risk categories. Notably, “Industrial challenges related” and “Community and infrastructure requirements related” emerge as the most significant risk categories among those analyzed. This study contributes to the existing literature by employing fuzzy synthetic evaluation, a methodology rarely used to determine critical risks in municipal waste management. Furthermore, it is poised to offer valuable insights to industrialists and waste management authorities, empowering them to develop responsive strategies and contribute to the sustainable development of cities and urban communities.

As an archipelago country, Indonesia is lied on the Pacific ring of fire - the center of active volcano and earthquake, located in tsunami-prone regions and several tectonic plates and had intense tropical rain, that places Indonesia at regular risk of earthquake, volcano eruption, tsunami, flood, and other natural disasters. Instead of nature and severity destructions, these natural disasters create a large volume of debris and waste, about 5 to 10 times of the solid waste generated usually, that have negative impacts on environmental, social and public health if not managed carefully. This study proposes a smart, sustainable approach for waste management in post-natural disaster. Some natural disaster happened in Indonesia was collected from Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency to identify the global waste and debris potential from the disaster. Smart, sustainable municipal waste management framework based on four priority areas of governance, economy, social and environment, from the previous study, is adopted to develop a post-disaster smart, sustainable waste management framework and a pre-design system. The proposed framework is focused on the technical mechanism for collecting and converting generated waste and debris into valuable materials that are integrated into the waste management system.

Healthcare waste in Bangladesh: Current status, the impact of Covid-19 and sustainable management with life cycle and circular economy framework

It is widely accepted that solid waste management is a global problem. This problem is even more pronounced in developing countries such as Nigeria where solid waste management is a major concern. In recent times, however, there has been a concerted effort towards engaging members of the public in solving the waste management crisis. This effort is centred on public participation in sustainable waste management practice across the country. Nevertheless, in Abuja there seems to be low public participation in sustainable wastes and environmental management practice. This paper therefore seeks to investigate the rate of participation in sustainable waste and environmental management activities in Abuja. In order to achieve the aim of the study, the paper relied on a sample of 57 participants to obtain some primary data. The paper employed a mixed method approach with the aid of a questionnaire. The questions were designed to gather data on demographics of the participants, their awareness and attitude to sustainable waste management, the barriers preventing public participation in a sustainable solid waste management and measures that can encourage public participation in sustainable waste management in Abuja. The study revealed that increase funding, provision of recycling collection points, enforcement of laws and policies, the development of effective policies and regulatory framework amongst others are some of the measures that can encourage public participation in sustainable waste management programs in Abuja.

The problems of waste management have become increasingly complex in recent decades. The increasing amount of generated waste, adopted legislation in the field of waste management, administrative issues, economic impacts and social awareness are important drivers in achieving a sustainable waste management system. However, in practice, there are many other drivers that are often mutually in conflict. The purpose of this research is to define the precise driver and their corresponding sub-drivers, which are relevant for developing a waste management system and, on the basis of their importance, to determine which has the predominant influence on the slow development of a waste management system at the national and regional level, within the Republic of Serbia and similar countries of southeast Europe. This research presents two levels of decision making: the first is a pair-wise comparison of the drivers in relation to the goal and the second is a pair-wise comparison of the sub-drivers in relation to the driver and in relation to the goal. Results of performed analyses on the waste management drivers were integrated via the decision-making process supported by an analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The final results of this research shows that the Institutional-Administrative driver is the most important for developing a sustainable waste management system.

Issues Solid waste management is one of the biggest concerns in Bangladesh, particularly in Dhaka city at present. This paper aims to find the gaps and challenges in solid waste management policies and implementations and thus, gives an insight towards sustainable solid waste management system in the country. Description of the Problem Improper solid waste management is adversely impacting environmental protection, public health and the control of carbon emissions in Bangladesh. As a result solid waste has become a major area of public policy with growing concern. Lessons Bangladesh has been experiencing changes in solid waste management since 1983 with the introduction of Dhaka City Corporation Ordinance and later the promulgation of National 3R Policy in 2010. With few exceptions, the overall waste management system cannot be termed as an efficient sequential process of waste minimization, recycling, and disposal based on global standards. Many initiatives are being implemented as part of independent projects by the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and not always supported by policies. Though the establishment of several secondary transfer stations (STSs) has improved the environmental conditions and cleanliness of the cities, the waste segregation and recycling practices in the pathways from households to landfill do not adhere to the 3R Policy. Both the recyclable and non-recyclable waste are collected and dumped all together at different levels of waste management, i.e. collection from households, dumping at STSs, and later in the landfill without any formal procedures of sorting and recycling. Lack of coordination between implementing agencies is another problem. Conclusions Absence of sustainable solid waste management policy and proper execution agency are the main obstacles towards a proper waste management system. This problem is huge and should be addressed immediately to protect the environment and ensure better health of the city population. Key messages Even though the formation of STSs is one of the significant changes in the system nowadays, it is not evaluated or monitored under any specific policy or ordinance. In order to implement the existing policies, adequate funding and monitoring bodies should be introduced to the waste management sector.

Increasing waste generation under inefficient management systems has become a major challenge in many developing countries facing rapid economic growth. Thailand is suffering from low efficiency throughout the waste management logistics from source to final treatment. This has become a major concern to public health and resource utilization in the country. This book aims to give an overview of the waste management system situation and concepts in different countries. The book focuses on the management of municipal solid waste (MSW) in Thailand and special waste streams such as discarded electrical and electronic equipment and hazardous household waste. System operation, management approaches, and key factors impacting the progress of waste management are explained. The first chapter starts with a brief introduction of the outlook and scope of the waste sector. An integrated sustainable waste management framework is presented, followed by a discussion of challenges and opportunities facing the sector in the future. The second chapter covers waste generation rates, waste sources, and waste characteristics. The third to eighth chapters present how municipal waste, electronic waste, hazardous household waste, and infectious waste are managed in Thailand. Lessons learned from various activities within Thailand aimed at overcoming ongoing challenges are presented. Recommendations promoting a sustainable waste management system in Thailand that could be applied to other countries with a similar background are presented including integration of the polluter pay concept, stringent new laws, good incentive systems for recycle and reuse, waste to energy technology, incorporation in environmental education, and awareness raising in every sector.

Sustainable waste management was introduced more than ten years ago, but it has not yet been applied to the Thai petrochemical industry. Therefore, under the philosophy of sustainable waste management, this research aims to apply the reduce, reuse, and recycle (3R) concept at the petrochemical factory level to achieve a more sustainable industrial solid waste management system. Three olefin plants in Thailand were surveyed for the case study. The sources and types of waste and existing waste management options were identified. The results indicate that there are four sources of waste generation: (1) production, (2) maintenance, (3) waste treatment, and (4) waste packaging, which correspond to 45.18%, 36.71%, 9.73%, and 8.37% of the waste generated, respectively. From the survey, 59 different types of industrial wastes were generated from the different factory activities. The proposed 3R options could reduce the amount of landfill waste to 79.01% of the amount produced during the survey period; this reduction would occur over a period of 2 years and would result in reduced disposal costs and reduced consumption of natural resources. This study could be used as an example of an improved waste management system in the petrochemical industry.