Municipal Solid Waste Collection Services Research Articles

Optimizing routes of municipal waste collection: an application algorithm

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to formulate an algorithm designed to discern the optimal routes for efficient municipal solid waste (MSW) collection.Design/methodology/approachThe research method is simulation. The proposed algorithm combines heuristics derived from the constructive genetic algorithm (CGA) and tabu search (TS). The algorithm is applied in a municipality located at Southern Brazil, with 40,000 inhabitants, circa.FindingsThe implementation achieved a remarkable 25.44% reduction in daily mileage of the vehicles, resulting in savings of 150.80 km/month and 1,809.60 km/year. Additionally, it reduced greenhouse gas emissions (including fossil CO2, CH4, N2O, total CO2e and biogenic CO2) by an average of 26.15%. Moreover, it saved 39 min of daily working time.Research limitations/implicationsFurther research should thoroughly analyze the feasibility of decision-making regarding planning, scheduling and scaling municipal services using digital technology.Practical implicationsThe municipality now has a tool to improve public management, mainly related with municipal solid waste. The municipality reduced the cost of public management of municipal solid waste, redirecting funds to other priorities, such as public health and education.Originality/valueThe study integrates MSW collection service with an online platform based on Google MapsTM. The advantages of employing geographical information systems are agility, low cost, adaptation to changes and accuracy.

Municipal Solid Waste Collection Services in Rapidly Growing Cities of Tanzania

Globally, rapid urban and population growth poses a huge problem for solid waste management (SWM), with developing countries’ fast-growing cities having more SWM challenges than industrialized countries. In Mbeya, Tanzania, a study to investigate the performance of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) collection services was carried out using a descriptive cross-sectional research design, and a mixed research approach. Questionnaires, interviews, field observations, and document reviews were used to gather information. Among the indicators used to evaluate the performance of Solid Waste (SW) collection services were the levels of community participation in SW collection, means of SW collection, coverage, amount of SW collected daily, facilities for SW collection and transportation, timely SW removal from collection points, and the ability to address SW collection challenges. Quantitative data was analysed using the IBM-SPSS software. Multiple response functions in SPSS were used to analyse questions with more than one answer, while content analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data. The findings indicate that MSW collection services in Mbeya City are under-performing due to a number of factors, including the lack of vehicles and solid waste storage facilities, delays in removing solid waste from collection points, low city council budget allocation and disbursement for SWM activities, and the lack of willingness of the Mbeya City Council to address MSW collection challenges. It is thus concluded that adopting and enhancing the publicprivate partnership model in SWM is critical to addressing MSW collection difficulties in Tanzania’s rapidly growing cities.

Evaluating the Efficiency of Municipal Solid Waste Collection Services in Developing Countries: The Case of Chile

Due to the increasing volume of waste and the increasingly complex administration of its collection and disposal, solid waste management is quickly becoming a demanding issue for municipalities all over the world. Benchmarking the effectiveness of municipal solid waste management is critical for assessing municipalities’ resource management performance and developing public policies for improvement. The main contribution of this article is an analysis of the efficiency of municipal collection services in Chile focusing in house solid waste. This study estimates the economic and technical efficiency using Stochastic Frontier Models for socio-economic, technical and human geography data from 2014 to 2019 for a sample of 280 municipalities, as well as an analysis of the internal and external factors that influence the efficiency levels shown by municipalities using an econometric model with 2017 socio-economic data. In addition, the spatial distribution of efficiency is investigated, with the Moran index used to identify clusters of towns to see if there is any spatial autocorrelation. The findings show that there are considerable disparities depending on whether the collection is private, public or mixed, and that rural municipalities are inefficient. The efficiency is not distributed evenly throughout space. The findings and recommendations of this study are intended to aid in the improvement of municipal and public policies relating to MSW management efficiency.

Challenges and Priorities of Municipal Solid Waste Management in Cambodia

Municipal solid waste (MSW) management is one of the utmost challenges for Cambodia’s city and district centers. The unsound management of MSW has detrimentally affected the environment and human health. In the present study, an attempt has been made to provide a comprehensive insight into the generation and characteristics, policies and legislation frameworks, management arrangement, collection, treatment, and disposal of MSW. The experience of developed and developing countries and the challenges and priorities of MSW management in Cambodia are also highlighted. In Cambodia, about 4.78 million tons of MSW were generated in 2020, with a 0.78 kg/capita/day generation rate. Only 86% of cities and districts have access to MSW collection services. The current practice of MSW management is reliance on landfill (44%). There are 164 landfills operating countrywide, receiving about 5749 tons of MSW per day. Recycling, incineration, and composting share 4%, 4%, and 2% of MSW generation, respectively. In 2021, the total revenue that was recovered from recyclables was USD 56M. The study concludes several major challenges and proposes valuable suggestions, which may be beneficial for the improvement of the current system to support the sustainable management of MSW in Cambodia.

Assessment of Quality of Household Solid Waste Collection by Private Service Providers in Bujumbura City

Public provision of municipal solid waste collection services in developing countries is characterised by poor service delivery. This paper examines if privatisation has led to better quality of households’ waste collection services in Bujumbura city, Burundi. The paper is based on 308 questionnaire survey of Bujumbura households’ living in high, middle and low class residential facilities served by private service providers; coupled with interviews and document analysis. The quality of service is based on nine service quality indicators. About 28.8% of registered households for waste collection paid and serviced by private service providers. Waste collection is varied and mostly every two weeks, yet license stipulates once per week; whereas charges are varied and higher than the set rates. Ordinal probit regression analysis shows that out of 9 service quality indicators, 6 are significant at household level and 5 on the residential class. Households’ living in high class residential expresses greater satisfaction with quality of service than those who live in middle and low class residential. The paper recommends regular monitoring and supervision of solid waste collection by private service providers for quality services delivery to households in Bujumbura city.

Urban Households' Willingness to Pay to Improve Municipal Solid Waste Collection Services and Associated Factors: A Double-Bounded Contingent Valuation Study in Harar City, Ethiopia.

Municipal solid waste collection (MSWC) service financing is a challenge for governments in developing countries, with little or no contribution from the service users. In most Ethiopian cities, residents do not pay for MSWC. This study aims to estimate households' willingness to pay (WTP) for improved municipal solid waste collection service in Harar city. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 331 households employing the contingent valuation method with a double-bounded dichotomous choice format. The hypothetical program works to collect solid waste twice a week, house-to-house, and safely dispose of it to reduce environmental and health impacts. The Tobit regression model was used to account for the determinants of households' WTP. Findings showed that 89% (95% CI: 85.4, 92.5) of households were WTP for the improved waste collection program, with an average yearly amount of US$12. The Tobit model shows that being married (β = 6.9, 95% CI: 1.2, 13.7), having a monthly household income of >8000 ETB (β = 31.9, 95% CI: 22.1, 41.7), attending education about MSWM (β = 11.8, 95% CI: 5.6, 18.1), having temporary storage at household level (β = 15.3, 95% CI: 9.5, 21.2), and recycling practices (β = 5.5, 95% CI: 1.2, 10.8) positively influenced the WTP. Interventions like providing educational programs about waste handling and recycling and providing or encouraging households to have temporary storage at the household level are needed to enhance users' WTP. The policy implication of the finding is that community contribution through service fees could be a strategy for sustainable financing.

COGNITIVE DOMAINS OF COMMUNITIES ON MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS IN METU TOWN, SOUTH-WEST ETHIOPIA

Urban waste management is drawing increasing attention in emerging cities of Ethiopia. Accurate and reliable information on cognitive domains of communities is a very important element for efficient and effective planning of solid waste management (SWM) system. Therefore, we assessed the cognitive domains of communities on SWM system in Metu town. A cross-sectional study design and simple random sampling technique was employed on 252 households (HHs), and 65 commercials and institutions (CIs). Data was collected through face to face interview using a structured questionnaire and checklist. A survey from sampled HHs and CIs revealed that 79.8% of HHs and 38.5% of CIs were separately stored solid wastes, capable of being sold and/or exchanged. Nevertheless, 26.2% of HHs and 94.6% of CIs didn t practice recycling and reusing of solid waste, only 24.2% of HHs is currently doing home composting as recycling. Out of the total, 19.8% HHs and 16.9% of CIs were accessed to door to door municipal solid waste collection service, 75% of the HHs and 80% of CIs were used Micro and small scale enterprize (MSE) for door to door solid waste collection service. The vast majority of the communities in Metu town unsatisfied by the service rendered by municipality and MSE, only 1.2% of HHs and 3.1% of CIs respondents were satisfied with solid waste collection services of the municipality. In general, the town should emphasize the cognitive domains of communities to improve SWM activities by promoting waste segregation, recycling/reusing, and providing waste transfer stations with collection containers.

A structured methodology to understand municipal waste generation at local level with minimized effort: development and case study.

Understanding municipal solid waste (MSW) generation is a key requirement for designing and optimizing MSW collection services. The present contribution proposes a statistical methodology to identify MSW generation patterns from MSW collection records. The methodology aims at finding statistically distinct household waste generation patterns within the days of the week and within months (seasonal variation). It is based on standard statistical methods (ANOVA complemented by non-parametric tests and cluster analysis). The methodology was applied to a Portuguese neighbourhood to assist in the definition of a waste sampling campaign to support the implementation of a pilot PAYT. The results showed the existence of groups with statistically distinct MSW generation patterns both at the weekly and monthly time scales. Three clusters of days of the week, with high, medium and low generation, and two clusters of months, with high and low generation, were identified. These results allowed to design and implement a customized field waste sampling campaign to estimate the MSW generated at the study site with minimal field work. Instead of implementing a homogeneous sampling campaign (equal number of samples for every day of the week and for every month), the samples were collected from the days and months that showed statistically distinct MSW generation pattern. The systematic procedure can be easily adapted to any given location, thus being a useful tool that combines statistical analysis with field collected data.

A stochastic frontier analysis of the efficiency of municipal solid waste collection services in China

Governments in many developing countries, such as China, are investing a lot of human, financial and material resources to ensure that as much of municipal solid waste (MSW) as possible is collected for centralized harmless treatment and disposal. This is regarded as an effective way to alleviate the “waste siege” problem in governance caused by the continuous enormous increase in MSW quantity. Therefore, how to improve the efficiency of MSW collection service system is an important governance issue because the inputs that can be utilized to manage MSW problem are limited due to budget and resource constraints. However, studies on MSW collection efficiency in developing countries like China are under-represented in the existing literature. This paper applies a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) approach to evaluate the efficiency of MSW collection services in 30 provinces of China from 2008 to 2017, and explore the relative importance of several factors that might influence collection efficiency. The results indicate that there exists considerable room (62.8%) to enhance efficiency since its current efficiency value is merely 0.372. With regard to influencing factors, the proportion of population aged 15–64 appears to have the greatest positive impact on efficiency, along with per capita GDP, added value of tertiary industry and education level. This paper also explores spatial variations of MSW collection efficiency across the eastern, central and western regions. These findings have policy implications and can inform the related government departments how to formulate proper policies to improve collection efficiency.

Frameworks for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from municipal solid waste in Oman

PurposeThe Gulf Cooperation Council member countries not only generate the highest quantity of municipal solid waste (MSW) per capita when compared globally, but also in most of these countries, such waste is just dumped at different landfill stations. In Oman, the total quantity of MSW stood at 2.0 million tons per year. The emission from this waste is estimated at 2,181,034 tons/year (carbon dioxide equivalent). This article attempts to develop frameworks that considered landfilling, composting and recycling of MSW.Design/methodology/approachTo know the composition of the municipal solid waste in Oman, a quantitative research method was employed. The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from MSWM in this study focus on three major gases, CO2, CH4 and N2O. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2006 model is used to calculate GHG emissions from landfills and composting (IPCC, 2006). Four frameworks – baseline F0, framework F1, framework F2 and framework F3 – are outlined in this paper. The F0 represents the current situation of the MSW in which most of the waste goes to landfills and dumpsites. In F1, improved MSW collection service and landfilling are incorporated and open burning is restricted. The F2 considered landfilling and composting, while F3 is based on landfilling, composting and recycling.FindingsThe framework F2, which proposes the composting process for the organic waste which normally goes to landfills, results in the reduction of emissions by 40% as compared to landfill practice. Similarly, the samples of MSW collected in Oman show a good amount of recycling waste. The framework F3, which considers the landfill, composting and recycling, reduced the total GHG emissions from 2,181,034 tons/year to 1,427,998 tons/year (carbon dioxide equivalent), representing a total reduction of 35% in emissions.Research limitations/implicationsDifferent values such as CH4 correction factor, the fraction of degradable organic carbon and the fraction of DOC used to determine the GHG emissions from MSW considering landfilling, composting and recycling based on the IPPC model and existing literature review. The actual determination of these values based on the Oman conditions may result in more accurate emissions from MSW in Oman.Practical implicationsDifferent frameworks suggested in this research have different practical implications; however, the final framework F3, which produces fewer emissions, required a material recovery facility to recycle the MSW in Oman. For framework F3, it is important that the residents in Oman have enough knowledge and willingness to do the waste segregation at the household level. Apparently, such knowledge and willingness need to be determined through a separate study.Originality/valueThe frameworks F2 and F3 are considered to be more suitable solutions compared to the current practices for Oman and other gulf countries to reduce its per capita emissions from MSW and protect its local environment. There is a potential for further work that needs to explore the possible solutions to implement the suggested frameworks.

Value of cleaner neighborhoods: Application of hedonic price model in low income context

Municipal solid waste management is a challenging issue in developing countries. An unclean neighborhood could have a significant negative impact on housing property values too as it may lead to numerous diseases in addition to diminished aesthetic value. This study examines the effects of municipal solid waste collection services at the neighborhood level on housing property values using the hedonic price model. We use a sub-sample of nationally representative household survey data from urban areas as well as primary data collected from one of the metropolitan cities in Nepal. Our results suggest that city residents place a high price premium (between 25% and 57%) on cleaner neighborhoods and less (−11%) on open drains. These numbers indicate that better waste management will bring high returns to home owners, and also the municipality in cities where the tax base includes the assessed value of property.

Improving Municipal Solid Waste Collection Services in Developing Countries: A Case of Bharatpur Metropolitan City, Nepal

Municipal solid waste management is one of the major challenges that cities in developing countries are facing. Although waste collection services are critical to build a smart city, the focus of both scholarship and action/activism has been more on the utilization of waste than on collection. We devised a choice experiment to elicit the preferences of municipal residents with regard to the various attributes of solid waste collection services in the Bharatpur Metropolitan City of Nepal. The study showed that households identify waste collection frequency, timing of door-to-door waste collection services, and cleanliness of the streets as the critical elements of municipal waste collection that affect their welfare and willingness to pay. While almost all households (95%) were participating in the waste collection service in the study area, more than half (53%) expressed dissatisfaction with the existing service. Women were the main actors engaged in waste collection and disposal at household level. The results of the choice analysis suggest that households prefer a designated waste collection time with waste collection bins placed at regular intervals on the streets for use by pedestrians who often throw garbage on the streets in the absence of bins. For these improvements, households were willing to pay an additional service fee of 10–28% on top of what they were already paying. The study also finds that municipal waste collection can be improved through the involvement of Tole Lane Committees in designing the timing and frequency of the service and by introducing a system of progressive tariffs based on the number of storeys per house.

Benefits of improved municipal solid waste management on greenhouse gas reduction in Luangprabang, Laos

ABSTRACTClimate change is a consequence of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the waste sector contribute to 3% of total anthropogenic emissions. In this study, applicable solutions for municipal solid waste (MSW) management in Luangprabang (LPB) and Laos were examined. Material flow analysis of MSW was performed to estimate the amount of MSW generated in 2015. Approximately 29,419 tonnes of MSW is estimated for 2015. Unmanaged landfilling was the main disposal method, while MSW open burning was also practiced to some extent. The International Panel on Climate Change 2006 model and the Atmospheric Brown Clouds Emission Inventory Manual were used to estimate GHG emissions from existing MSW management, and total emissions are 33,889 tonnes/year carbon dioxide-equivalents (CO2-eq). Three scenarios were developed in order to reduce GHG emissions and environmental problems. Improvement of the MSW management by expanding MSW collection services, introducing composting and recycling, and avoiding open burning, can be considered as solutions to overcome the problems for LPB. The lowest GHG emissions are achieved in the scenario where composting and recycling are proposed, with the total GHG emissions reduction by 18,264 tonnes/year CO2-eq.

Assessing efficiency drivers in municipal solid waste collection services through a non-parametric method

Municipal solid waste collection is a public service with impact on the environment, public health, and the appearance of a municipal area. The standard of efficiency achieved in providing this service has a direct impact on household expenditure, since the costs of collection are recovered through citizens’ taxes. The failure to consider relevant performance drivers recently led some Italian waste utilities into bankruptcy and financial collapse. Following prior research to identify the environmental and operational variables affecting the efficiency and quality of waste collection services, this study applies a more suitable and robust non-parametric method based on conditional order-m efficiency to identify the performance drivers of the waste collection services in 40 municipalities in Verona province, Italy. The exogenous variables studied could be clustered as 1) customer features (size of population served, population density, tourist flows, and percentage of non-residential customers; 2) household features, measured by number of inhabitants per house; and 3) operational features, represented by tons of waste collected for each load, method adopted (curbside or street bin), and maturity achieved with a given method. The study demonstrates that all variables affect the cost efficiency of waste collection with different intensity and direction.

Household Solid Waste Generation in Urban Pakistan: A Case Study of Rawalpindi

Nowhere else in Pakistan is the urban rot more pronounced than in the waste-littered streets. Apart from being an eyesore, ill-managed solid waste in Pakistan is one of the primary causes of health and environmental problems, which costs the state and individual households hundreds of millions of rupees in healthcare costs and lost productivity. This paper focuses on the determinants of household solid waste generation in Rawalpindi Cantonment. Relying on a survey of economically-differentiated 118 households in six urban neighbourhoods, this paper has found substantial differences in household waste generation rates across various income groups. As expected, high-income neighbourhood residents generated more waste than their mid- and low-income counterparts. The total waste generated by household increased with household size. However, the waste per capita declined with the increase in the household size. The state of solid waste collection was found to be poor across all income strata. The two low-income and one mid-income neighbourhood did not have any municipal waste collection service. Fewer than 50% of the households in the high-income neighbourhood reported access to municipal solid waste collection service. The rest self-disposed household solid waste mostly in empty lots in the neighbourhood. More than 65% of the households sold recyclables to waste collecting street hawkers, while another 25% handed recyclables to domestic workers, who in turn sold recyclables in the market.

Advantages and disadvantages of a municipal solid waste collection service for citizens of Hanoi City, Vietnam

Governments of municipalities in Vietnam experiencing dynamic economic growth and dramatic population increases have been struggling to manage increased amounts of municipal solid waste (MSW). This study aimed to clarify the advantages and disadvantages of the current MSW collection service for citizens of the four central districts of Hanoi city, Vietnam, by conducting interviews with 200 households and 200 business entities regarding their satisfaction with the service. The survey results showed that Hanoi city provides an economical collection service with sufficient frequency and at appropriate times for citizens. However, a number of citizens complained about unsanitary conditions in the area surrounding their residence. Business entities had sufficient motivation to sell recyclable waste (RW) to the informal sector, not only to derive revenue from selling RW, but also to reduce the amount of MSW generated, thus reducing the MSW collection fee. Households were not motivated to reduce MSW by selling RW to the informal sector because they paid a fixed collection fee. As a result, an improvement in living standards in the near future is expected to contribute to increasing the amount of MSW generated from households.

Development of MSW collection services on regional scale: spatial analysis and urban disparities in North-East Region, Romania

The cities are facing illegal dumping of municipal solid waste (MSW) because the waste collection facilities do not cover the entire population. Furthermore, this sector is poorly developed in small towns or villages annexed to administrative territory units (ATU) of cities , MSW are disposed in open dumps polluting the local environment. This paper analyzes on the one hand the urban disparities on public access to waste collection services (WCS) in the North-East Region on the other hand, it performs a comparative analysis between 2003 and 2010 outlining the changes made in the context of Romania’s accession to EU. Also, it performs a quantitative assessment method of uncollected waste at urban level and correlated to demographic features of each city. Spatial-temporal analysis of waste indicators using thematic cartography or GIS techniques should be a basic tool for environmental monitoring or assessment of projects from this field in every development region (NUTS 2). The EU acquis requires the closure of noncompliant landfills, the extension of waste collection services, the development of facilities for separate collection, recycling and reuse according to waste hierarchy concept. Full coverage of urban population to waste collection services is necessary to provide a proper management of this sector. Urban disparities between counties and within counties highlights that current traditional waste management system is an environmental threat at local and regional scale.

Performance assessment for municipal solid waste collection in Taiwan

Collecting municipal solid waste (MSW) is a major and expensive task for local waste management authorities, thus efficient MSW collection is a necessity. This study presents a procedure for developing an aggregate indicator (AI) to assess MSW collection efficiency based on multiple factors. The applicabilities of various key performance indicators (KPIs) are evaluated based on five selection criteria, and five KPIs are chosen to form the AI. The relative efficiencies of local MSW collection services are analyzed by the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method. A set of common weights for all five KPIs is then generated based on DEA results and four selection rules by modifying a previous approach. Finally, the proposed AI is applied to assess the MSW collection services provided by 307 local governments in Taiwan, and associated results are compared and discussed.

National and regional generation of municipal residue biomass and the future potential for waste-to-energy implementation

Abstract Municipal residue biomass (MRB) in the municipal solid waste (MSW) stream is a potential year-round bioenergy feedstock. A method is developed to estimate the amount of residue biomass generated by the end-user at the scale of a country using a throughput approach. Given the trade balance of food and forestry products, the amount of MRB generated is calculated by estimating product lifetimes, discard rates, rates of access to MSW collection services, and biomass recovery rates. A wet tonne of MRB could be converted into about 8 GJ of energy and 640 kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, or buried in a landfill where it would decompose into 1800 kg of CO2 equivalent (in terms of global warming potential) methane (CH4) and CO2 emissions. It is estimated that approximately 1.5 Gt y−1 of MRB are currently collected worldwide. The energy content of this biomass is approximately 12 EJ, but only a fraction is currently utilized. An integrated assessment model is used to project future MRB generation and its utilization for energy, with and without a hypothetical climate policy to stabilize atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Given an anticipated price for biomass energy (and carbon under a policy scenario), by the end of the century, it is projected that nearly 60% of global MRB would be converted to about 8 EJ y−1 of energy in a reference scenario, and nearly all of global MRB would be converted into 16 EJ y−1 of energy by the end of the century under a climate policy scenario.

Logistical management and private sector involvement in reducing the cost of municipal solid waste collection service in the Tubas area of the West Bank

This paper addresses the problems of the municipal solid waste (MSW) collection system in the Tubas district of Palestine. More specifically, it addresses the often-voiced concerns pertaining to low efficiency as well as environmental problems. This was carried out through a systematic methodological approach. The paper illustrates how a private company applied a logistical management strategy, by rescheduling the MSW collection system, reallocating street solid waste containers and minimizing vehicle routing. The way in which the MSW collection timetable was rescheduled decreased the operating expenses and thus reduced MSW collection costs. All data needed to reschedule the collection timetable and optimize vehicle routing were based on actual field measurements. The new MSW collection timetable introduced by a private company was monitored for a period of a month. The new system resulted in an improvement in the MSW collection system by reducing the collection cost to a level that is socially acceptable (US$3.75/family/month), as well as economically and environmentally sound.