Urban Solid Waste Management Research Articles

Urban solid waste challenges and opportunities to promote sustainable developing cities through the fourth industrial revolution technologies

Purpose In less than a decade to Sustainable Development Goals, the urban solid waste (USW) emanating from households, especially in developing countries, calls for concern. Several policies have been suggested and some implemented, but the challenges facing USW management remain, especially in developing nations. Past studies demonstrated that the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) technologies can be used to improve urban public services. The role of 4IR in mitigating the challenges of USW is yet to receive in-depth research in Nigeria. Thus, the study investigated 4IR role regarding mitigating the challenges facing USW.Design/methodology/approach Seven cities across Nigeria, including the Federal Capital Territory, were used as the study area to achieve the research objectives via a qualitative research design. Thirty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted from selected regulators, households, legislators, ICT experts, NGOs and waste managers. A thematic approach was adopted to analyse the collated data.Findings Findings group the USW challenges into five categories. The 4IR technologies can be used to manage USW; thus, they create an opportunity to integrate and promote sustainable clean cities.Research limitations/implications This study is confined to the 4IR role concerning mitigating the encumbrances facing USW in Nigeria and proffered feasible policies to enhance a sustainable healthy environment.Practical implications Proffered policy solutions will stir policymakers and construction practitioners to think outside the box and offer and better understand how 4IR technologies can be utilised to mitigate those challenges. The outcome will create sustainable clean cities as part of the implication contribution to the body of knowledge.Originality/value Evidence from the reviewed literature shows a paucity of literature focussed on 4IR roles in mitigating the encumbrances facing USW in Nigeria. Therefore, this study contributes to the existing research work on 4IR concerning its role in enhancing USW in Nigeria and, by extension, to other developing countries.

The Role of Geomatics in Management of Urban Solid Waste. The Case of Constantine Wilaya, Algeria

The Role of Geomatics in Management of Urban Solid Waste. The Case of Constantine Wilaya, Algeria

Solid waste generation model validation and economic loss estimation due lack of recycling.

Urban Solid Waste Management (USWM) is one of the components that influences in the sustainable cities. It is a fundamental factor in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 2030 agenda. This paper work aims to validate a mathematical model for solid waste generation and to estimate the economic loss due lack of recycling in the city of Campo Grande, State of Mato Grosso do Sul/Brazil. The model adopted was developed by Dias et. al. (2012), which allows projecting the mass of waste to be generated by the inhabitants from socioeconomic indicators, such as per capita income, social classes and size of population in a specific urban territory. Besides, waste composition was analyzed to determinate the value and share of the gravimetric characterization, in order to estimate the economic loss in areas, which there are no selective collection of Household Solid Waste (HSW). The model showed strong adherence, when compared to the real mass of HSW collected. The economic loss due to selective collection approaches nearly 9.6 million US$, or about 11 US$ per person per year. The study can provide support for economic evaluation of project sand public policies related to USWM executed in any other city with similar characteristics.

POLICY GAPS ON SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT: CASE OF CHEGUTU MUNICIPALITY ZIMBABWE

The purpose of this study was to explore policy gaps on urban solid waste management in Zimbabwe and suggest management strategies to close these gaps. This was motivated by the observation that there is no policy in Chegutu Municipality which deals holistically with solid waste management. A qualitative research design was adopted to analyze policies and establish gaps. A descriptive survey based on a case study of Chegutu Municipality was used. A survey of a purposive sample of 44 residents, 5 Council employees, and 2 EMA officials was conducted. Questionnaire, Interviews and document analysis were employed. The study found that, there is no policy in Chegutu Municipality which deals holistically with solid waste management. The study recommends that citizens should be educated as a matter of national policy on waste minimization. Policies with a holistic view of solid waste management should be drafted in Chegutu Municipality. Since there is lack of enforcement and responsibility in solid waste management policies, roles of stakeholders and institutions should be clearly defined.

A Geometric Aggregation of Performance Indicators Considering Regulatory Constraints: An Application to the Urban Solid Waste Management

A Geometric Aggregation of Performance Indicators Considering Regulatory Constraints: An Application to the Urban Solid Waste Management

Gestão de resíduos sólidos urbanos no México: Um estudo de caso a partir de uma perspectiva organizacional

ABSTRACT The management of urban waste is a problem for any city, but recent studies have ignored the management of the entities responsible for this issue. To solve this, a case study on urban waste management with a holistic organizational analysis methodology is presented. With this methodology, a profound and systematic approach to the constitutive dimensions of and organization is achieved, which contributes to the understanding of management in complex environments. The study is made about the responsible entity of urban solid waste management, in the second biggest city of Mexico, Guadalajara, and who lives a serious problem in the field.

Perceptions of Urban Pollution of River Dependent Rural Communities and Their Impact: A Case Study in Bangladesh

This study considers the Old Brahmaputra River, Bangladesh, as a case study regarding community perceptions on urban pollution and its impact on rural communities. In doing so, in-depth individual interviews (n = 195), key informant interviews (n = 7), and focus group discussions (n = 7) were conducted by emphasizing different perspectives on urban pollution and its effects on people related to losses of fisheries resources, agricultural production, human health, and livelihood transformation. The findings illustrate that poor urban solid waste management and direct sewage discharge degrade rivers daily. The most vulnerable rural communities are directly dependent upon the river, including fishermen, farmers, and boatmen. Specific measures such as an effluent treatment plant should be established near the river, and households and commercial drains should be cut off from the direct connection with the river. Alternative income-generating activities for the stakeholders are suggested to safeguard the river from urban pollution and the wellbeing of the stakeholders.

The challenge of urban solid waste management in Brazil

The National Solid Waste Policy (PNRS) and its regulation originated a new reference for the integrated and sustainable solid waste management in the country and new challenges for the implementation and improvement of the selective collection service provision in the municipalities. The purpose of this research is to identify the efficiency level of urban solid waste management in the Brazilian capitals during the period from 2002 to 2016. To measure the efficiency, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique was used. The sample consisted of 20 Brazilian capitals. After measuring efficiency, the logistic regression technique was used to measure the contribution of each variable used in the DEA technique. As a result, it was observed that the number of materials recovered is very low compared to the number of materials collected, the municipality that collected the most materials was Vitória in 2015 and the municipality that recovered the most waste was Florianópolis in 2013.

Solid waste management and contemporary challenges

In the present study we analyze and discuss socioenvironmental impacts arising from inadequate management of urban solid waste in the Brazilian Discovery Coast, southern Bahia. We also discuss the challenges to be overcome to promote proper management, highlighting the need for social inclusion of waste pickers. Methodological procedures consisted of an applied and exploratory research, through a review of specialized scientific literature. We also used secondary data available at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and at the National Sanitation Information System, and applied a structured online questionnaire to municipal managers of public sanitation services. The cities under study only transfer the waste generated in urban centers to distant areas, in dumps, negatively affecting the environment and public health. There are neither management units nor incentive practices or support programs aimed at recyclable material collectors. Due to the weaknesses and the socioenvironmental, cultural, and historical importance of the area under study, the creation of public policies with broad popular participation is urgently needed to promote a fairer, healthier, and more sustainable development.

Internet of things and machine learning‐based approaches in the urban solid waste management: Trends, challenges, and future directions

AbstractSolid waste management (SWM) is a crucial management entity in urban cities to handle the waste from its generation to disposal to accomplish a clean environment. The waste management operation mainly encompasses various climatic, demographic, environmental, legislative, technological, and socioeconomic dimensions. The traditional approaches deliver limitations in the process of predict and optimizing such composite non‐linear operations. The integration of the internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) methods have progressively gained attention by delivering potential alternatives for resolving the difficulties in SWM. This article presents a review of the significance of the amalgamation of IoT and machine learning (ML) in the SWM to predict waste generation, waste classification, route optimization, estimation of methane emissions, and so forth. The article covers the application of each ML model for the activities, including SWM, compositing, incineration, pyrolysis, gasification, landfill, and anaerobic digestion. Moreover, it is concluded that the decision tree and random forest (DT‐RF) algorithm is minor implemented, and artificial neural network (ANN) is implemented majorly in the SWM. The large number of data sets covered in the publication are secured and hidden; it limits replicating the AI models; this is also one key constraint of the non‐implementation of AI models in SWM. Scarcity of data, accurate data, rare availability of customized AI models for tackling the activities in SWM are the limitations identified from the previous studies. Implementation of low‐power ML processors, edge and fog computing‐based devices is the future direction for overcoming SWM limitations.

Towards Artificial Intelligence in Urban Waste Management: an early prospect for Latin America

The expectations about the increase of solid waste generation are a global concern in order to mitigate the negative impacts caused by this scenario. Recent experiences show advantages in applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Urban Solid Waste (USW) management. Although, developing countries face many structural and governance barriers that limits the real potential of applying these technologies. This study presents a worldwide outlook about the application of AI in USW management and identifies the reality of Latin America countries in this new context. It is especially important to improve monitoring and to create data management platforms. Also, this study collaborates on the minimization of possible technological boundaries posed to Latin America region and besides, it can be considered a reference study for countries in similar conditions.

Viable Disposal of Post-Consumer Polymers in Mexico: A Review

Post-consumer polymers require viable actions to transfer value to the final consumer to reduce environmental impact. Worldwide, initiatives are being developed to promote the culture of recycling and thus reduce waste generation. These initiatives seek to make the work of thousands of people visible, encourage job creation, and promote businesses through incentive schemes for effective separation, collection, classification, reuse, and recycling, in the hands of consumers, collectors, and scavenges. It is necessary to emphasize that Mexico needs to develop techniques to increase the productivity of collection centers for recyclable materials and to face the challenges that recycling implies. For these reasons, the Mexican government has spoken of waste management as a national priority due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which increased urban solid waste between 3.3 % and 16.5 % in addition to what was generated under normal conditions. Also, the recycling chain provides economic income to more than 35 thousand Mexicans. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is an example of the most notable circular economy in Mexico because 60 % of PET bottles are recycled. Therefore, this article addresses the methods and systems in the management of urban solid waste. It focuses on post-consumer recycled plastic bottles to provide an overview of cost-effective strategies for designing and developing an affordable sorting system in Mexico from the academic field. In addition, to simplify the solution that we propose, it is recommended to combine optical techniques such as infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy with others methods that work together, such as computer vision, to develop affordable systems that address the limitations of mechanical systems.

Fishing plastics: A high occurrence of marine litter in surf-zone trammel nets of Southern Brazil

Plastic is one of the most commonly found residues in the marine environment, which can cause several impacts. This study evaluated the interaction of marine litter with surf-zone trammel nets in Southern Brazil. Fifty fishing operations were sampled, where 4213 items were captured: 1500 discarded fish, 1384 fragments of marine litter, and 1329 utilized fishes. Plastics were the most abundant items (n = 1363), representing 98.4% of the registered marine litter, especially plastic bags (n = 1191). 94.5% of registered marine litter is considered as single-use waste. The interaction with marine litter can cause negative impacts to small-scale fisheries (e.g. economic and damage to fishing nets). We highlight the urgency in implementing actions for urban solid waste management and public policies to reduce single-use plastics and educational campaigns on the environmental theme.

Data mining and knowledge discovery in databases for urban solid waste management: A scientific literature review.

The processes related to solid waste management (SWM) are being revised as new technologies emerge and are applied in the area to achieve greater environmental, social and economic sustainability for society. To achieve our goal, two robust review protocols (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, and Context (PICOC) and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA)) were used to systematically analyze 62 documents extracted from the Web of Science database to identify the main techniques and tools for Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) and Data Mining (DM) as applied to SWM and explore the technological potential to optimize the stages of collecting and transporting waste. Moreover, it was possible to analyze the main challenges and opportunities of KDD and DM for SWM. The results show that the most used tools for SWM are MATLAB (29.7%) and GIS (13.5%), whereas the most used techniques are Artificial Neural Networks (35.8%), Linear Regression (16.0%) and Support Vector Machine (12.3%). In addition, 15.3% of the studies were conducted with data from China, 11.1% from India and 9.7% of the studies analyzed and compared data from several other countries. Furthermore, the research showed that the main challenges in the field of study are related to the collection and treatment of data, whereas the opportunities appear to be linked mainly to the impact on the pillars of sustainable development. Thus, this study portrays important issues associated with the use of KDD and DM for optimal SWM and has the potential to assist and direct researchers and field professionals in future studies.

Problem of Solid Waste Management and its Impact on Urban Environment

The problem of urban solid waste management is regarded as one of the most important environmental issues, especially in developing countries. Municipalities all around the world are dealing with increasing levels of solid garbage and need to devise effective strategies to tackle the problem. It is critical to understand the amount of garbage created and the makeup of the waste stream in order to develop successful waste management in any location. Many research have established that the amount of waste generated is proportional to the population. There are several other factors which affect the amount and composition of waste. The enormous increase in solid waste generation particularly in large cities will have significant impact in terms of the land required for waste disposal

Nexus between perceptions of urban environmental planning and solid waste management practices in Debre Markos Town, Amhara Region, Northwest Ethiopia

Lack of integration between urban environmental planning and solid waste management is a challenge for cities in developing countries. The aim of the research was to analyze the nexus between local communities’ perceptions of urban environmental planning and solid waste management practices in Debre Markos Town, Northwest Ethiopia. The study applied a binary logistic regression approach to identify the factors that influence local communities’ perceptions about urban environmental planning and solid waste management practices. Results show that education level, family size, income and availability of safe disposal sites are statistically significant (either at P < 0.01 or P < 0.05) predictors of local communities’ perceptions. The challenges and prospects of urban environmental management were varied and rated from least to very big by respondents. Lack of commitment is reported at 41% as a very big challenge and at 43% as a big challenge of urban environmental management. The paper concludes by proposing proper implementation of the integration of solid waste management and urban environmental planning for sustainable urban development.

Processing of biomethane for electricity production as a sustainable way to treat municipal organic solid waste: A case study of the Corumbataí river basin region

This study proposed action scenarios for urban solid waste management in six municipalities in the Corumbataí River Basin. The operating scenarios were designed for organic waste treatment and for the shared disposal of urban solid waste. Six municipalities were studied, five of which had less than 30,000 inhabitants (Analândia, Charqueada, Corumbataí, Ipeúna, and Santa Gertrudes). In addition, Rio Claro had 199,000 inhabitants. Thus, the transport and transshipment stages, general infrastructure, and final disposal in landfills were analyzed. Further, the three scenarios for organic waste treatment were conducted separately. The items and the cost of implementation were estimated for decentralized composting, centralized composting, and biomethanization of waste with electricity recovery. The biomethanization scenario included the commercialization of electricity, so it generated revenues that decreased costs. This cost reduction was especially notable in the last years of the project when the goals of diversion of organic waste through selective collection were higher. The results suggested that the investigated scenarios could improve organic waste treatment and that the biomethanization scenario with electricity generation presented lower average costs per inhabitant than the centralized and decentralized composting scenarios.

Formal or informal recycling sectors? Household solid waste recycling behavior based on multi-agent simulation

Urban household solid waste recycling and management are complex adaptive systems with multiple agents, stages, and elements. Previous studies neglected the impact of municipal residents' behavioral decisions on recycling sectors. In this study, the degree of regret-joy and personality characteristics were introduced into a multi-agent-based model to simulate the action decision-making of agents under different strategies. The results demonstrate that, without the government's role, nearly 60% of municipal residents preferred the informal recycling sector (IFRS). Meanwhile, the formal recycling sectors (FRS) find it difficult to attract urban residents because of their low income levels. Regarding a single policy, the subsidy policy is more beneficial than the regulation policy for increasing the income of the FRS from 20 to 250 Yuan. However, neither of the two single policies can weaken the market competitiveness of the IFRS. Moreover, a comprehensive policy combining both subsidies and regulations has enabled more than 60% of urban residents to choose the FRS, thereby increasing its profit and market share to 270 yuan and 500 kg, respectively. These results provide policy suggestions for optimizing the waste recycling management systems.

Life cycle assessment for hydrothermal carbonization of urban organic solid waste in comparison with gasification process: A case study of Southern Chile

AbstractMost developing countries lack sufficient legal and management infrastructure to dispose of urban solid waste (USW). The continuous increase of USW generation requires evaluating different treatments for developing countries based on the life cycle assessment methodology to compare the environmental impact by reducing greenhouse gases and leachate. Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) and gasification processes are presented as potential solutions for USW treatment due to their efficiency in producing energy for local requirements. This study aimed to compare both technologies for Temuco and Padre Las Casas cities in Southern Chile that show severe air pollution and USW management problems. The results indicated that gasification had a better environmental performance than HTC when the conversion of 1 ton of organic fraction USW was analyzed. However, since HTC achieved higher energy efficiency, it had a lower environmental impact than gasification, considering the production of 1 MWh. For a definitive choice of the technology to be used, it is necessary to compare other variables, including economic and social aspects, to provide a holistic perspective.

DESIGN OF THE MANAGEMENT MODEL OF URBAN HOUSEHOLDS SOLID WASTE GENERATION

One of the global problems related to the future of cities is the environmental problem, namely the amount of municipal solid waste. From this waste, several issues arise in various aspects, such as health, aesthetics, and social and environmental problems. So that focused research is carried out on the management of urban solid waste produced by households. The research objective is to design a conceptual model and determine the variables and indicators that affect the generation of urban household solid waste and determine what prevention can be done. The model intended consists of 5 variables and 17 indicators. Data was collected based on a survey method with a closed questionnaire distributed to 120 respondents aged ≥ 17 years and residing in Yogyakarta. Analysis of the model and variable relationships was carried out based on the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method with the help of AMOS 24 software. The results showed that the designed model was valid. Socioeconomic variables, KAP level, waste reduction, and seasonality are direct predictors determining waste generation behavior. Socioeconomic variables are also direct predictors of KAP level and seasonal variables, and KAP level variables are direct predictors of waste reduction and seasonal variables