Solid Waste Management in Palestine

Abstract

There is a significant increase in the urban population in developing countries, such as Palestine, and this poses a major challenge to the Joint Service Councils (JSCs) for solid waste management in Palestine. The problems associated with solid and hazardous waste management in developing countries are diverse and complex. Rapid development, urbanization, population growth, and problems related to the effective management of solid waste have greatly escalated. There are five distinct aspects of solid waste management: identification and classification of source and nature of waste, separation, storage, and collection of waste, waste transportation, treatment (including recovery of resources) from waste, final disposal of waste. The critical waste management issues that Palestine is challenged include stop increasing waste generation and saving landfill space and consequently lengthening the lifetime of the landfill sites. The process of sitting and building of new landfill sites entail, like in other countries, time-consuming processes, and require a long time in general, or rather difficult especially in Palestine if considered territorial dispute and political situation. Under such circumstances, it is required to know the actual data for solid waste situation as accurately as possible and to estimate the future waste quantity and quality in order to establish a precise policy on waste management and facility construction plan. The purpose of this chapter is to focus on the solid waste equipment management and how to plan the future needs of waste collection vehicles in Palestine. The study has determined that the waste collection vehicles which production before 2010 are out of duty and expendable vehicles and must be fully replaced and vehicles produced between 2011 and 2015 have 50% workable and vehicles of 2016 and higher are considered new and do not need to be changed. The study showed that in 2022, Palestine needs 97 garbage collection vehicles to meet the expected deficit in collection vehicles. The expected waste quantity will reach 2353 tons/day. The total severed population in 2022 is 3,139,341 (65% of the Palestinian population at that time), and the Unit Generation Rate is 0.75 kg/person/day.