Applicability of recycling and resource recovery for solid waste of Sri Lankan supermarkets

Abstract

Every day, supermarkets create municipal solid waste, which makes up about 25% of all solid waste made in urban areas of Sri Lanka. Poor waste management in Sri Lankan supermarkets can have a big effect on greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, and public health by contaminating water, soil, and the air. To address this challenge, recycling, and resource recovery are two of the best sustainable waste management practices. Hence, the study aims to investigate the applicability of recycling and resource recovery techniques for Sri Lankan supermarket solid wastes. The research choice adopted in this study was a mixed method with a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews. A questionnaire survey with 70 participants from top-level management, middle management, and the front-line staff was conducted to identify waste types and management practices, and a semi-structured interview with three professionals who have experience in this field was conducted to validate the survey. Further statistical analysis and manual content analysis were used to analyse the data. The findings revealed that the main waste types generated by Sri Lankan supermarkets are food, plastic, polythene, paper, and cardboard. Biogas and composting were found to be the most applicable on-site resource recovery techniques for these types of waste, and other techniques such as gasification, deinking for paper recycling, and recycling of plastic and polythene waste required the involvement of third-party resource recovery plants. The study can aid researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in coming up with and using waste management policies, laws, and guidelines for Sri Lankan supermarkets and other similar contexts.