MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
CASE STUDY: EGYPT
Abstract: Municipal solid waste management is one of the major inconspicuous responsibilities of the public sector. Current urbanization trends and uprising population are creating overstressing issues and raise the demand for an integrated waste management system. Along with the restricted economical capabilities, the awareness lever of the public and the efforts of the individuals for personal profit, contribute to the perpetuation of the problem. Solid waste management is a continuous issue and it intensifies through time. Especially in developing countries, the decisions to be made are critical since there are neither integrated established plants and systems nor the needed experience
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Despite the fact that the area that it consists is 1 million km2, almost half of the population leaves in 6% of the total area [1]. This is resulting in a very high density of Egyptian population. In the same sense, across Nile there are placed some of the largest cities of the county including Cairo which the population of the Metropolitan area is nearly 22 million people [2].
1.2. Current trends
Continuous growth of affluence in the coming years will result to larger urbanization trends and this, in turn, to disastrous results in regards to municipal waste generation and management [3]. Egypt’s history with solid waste management (SWM) is not practically long. Until today the average collection coverage of solid waste is 40%. Taking Cairo as an example, there can be measured collection coverage percentages ranging from 20% in poor areas to 80% in rich, commercialized areas of the city [4].
Egyptian cities are nowadays dealing with an increasing trend of informal settlement establishment. This is mostly due to the fact that more and more individuals are not able to afford housing expenses but also because of the housing capacity in the overcrowded areas
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PROBLEM CONTEXT
The management of municipal solid waste is essential with predominate motivating power the viability of the Egyptian cities, the environmental impact of the current situation but also human health and the aesthetic value of the landscape [7].
Egyptian cities that are characterized by high population density also tend to have intensive generation of solid waste [8]. The unstable political situation and the low income of the population are creating a demanding and challenging environment for the solid waste management system [9].
2.1 Waste composition
Alike other lower income countries, Egypt’s municipal solid waste consists of 56% organic waste, 13% plastic, 10% paper and cardboard, 4% glass, 2% metals and 15% of other waste, including a large fraction of construction and demolition waste [10].
2.2 Current efficiency
The current management of solid waste is not encouraging since 80-88% of the waste is openly dumped and only 7% of the waste is landfilled in engineered sanitary landfills. The recycled material are covering 10-15% and the composted 7% of the waste generated [11].
2.3 The informal
With the disposal of solid waste from process, manufacturing and its waste pose considerable challenges for many organizations. Since, landfilling has become limited, and with the cost of waste disposal continuing to rise, they needed alternative measures.
A garbage crisis is at hand. As a nation, we have begun to worry that the growing mounds of wastes will only continue to increase as the means of disposal become further restricted. Government agencies and public officials are urgently trying to find a solution. The waste dilemma has become the centerpiece of the politics of garbage.
To begin with, in the U.S., trash is most commonly sent to a landfill, unfortunately though, once it arrives there little sorting occurs. According to the EPA, “Nationally, food is the single most common material sent to landfills. When excess food, leftover food, and food scraps are disposed of in a landfill, they decompose and become a significant source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas” (“Cupertino Honored”). At a landfill, trash arriving is only screened for liquids in order to avoid the creation of leachate, or water that is contaminated from dissolved chemicals in garbage. Once screened, dumped, and covered, bacteria begin to decompose the trash and, as a result, release methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The fact is that landfills are ideally supposed to be used to bury garbage that is non-decomposable, however, with the garbage collection method that is currently in place across many states, all unsorted garbage is being sent there. In addition, “...traditional trash disposal not only wastes material that can enrich soil but accelerates climate change. Organic matter decom...
Wilson, D. C., Shienberg, A., & Casanova, L. (2012). Solid Waste Management in the world's cities. Netherlands: UN-HABITAT.
Household wastes management is a major challenge in urban areas throughout the world. Without an efficient and effective household wastes management system, the waste generated from household will bring the negative impact on the environment and human health. So, the waste generation, the availability of resources, and the environmental conditions must be understand in developing an appropriate household wastes management system. Household wastes can be defined as a solid waste that comprises of rubbish and garbage, as such cans, bottles, clothing, food packaging, newspapers, and etc. that originates from private homes or apartments. As a many complaints about the lack of cleanliness, the federal government decided in the mid-1990s that waste management would be managed by private companies which are shown in Table 1.0 that divided into four zones.
Human’s final solution regarding to deal with waste is to inform society to produce less waste and impose companies to produce recyclable and non-hazardous products. For paving this path, material management method would be more useful than other solutions.
Before considering a composting it is necessary to carry out a physical analysis of the wastes, using reliable sampling methods. Although similar constituents occur in solid wastes throughout the world, there are wide variations in relative proportions not only as between countries, but even between regions within a country. Following physical and chemical parameters will be analyzed as per standard methods (Jackson, 1967; Esakku et al., 2003; Anonymous, APHA 1992 17th Edition): Moisture, pH, temperature, Conductivity, Ash %, C, N, K, Na, Ca, P, Mg, Fe, Al, Cu, Mn, Ni, Zn, B, Hg,
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), American’s produced at least 1600 pounds of municipal solid waste (MSW) in fiscal year 2005 and more than 54 percent of the wastes disposed in landfills the amount of 140 million tons of waste. This amount of waste has potential to produce toxic gases, CO2, Methane, greenhouse gas (GHG), metals volatile organic compounds (VOCs), semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs), and toxic poisonous soup called leachate along hundreds of other contaminants. By using dump and old landfills, these pollutants became serious hazards to the environment, air quality, ozone layer, soil contamination, ground water and human resource. On the other hand, there are many opportunities to take advantage of municipal solid waste (MSW) by constructing Mod...
Delving further, we realize that ‘Waste management’ essentially means “the collection, transport, recovery and disposal of waste, including the supervision of such operations and aftercare of disposal sites”. However the latest concepts are of ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle of waste’ over and above waste disposal.
Do you know how many tons of garbage filling up landfills everyday? Do you know how many kilograms of daily domestic waste we generate? According to government's figures, there are 13,500 tons of waste landfilling in Hong Kong everyday, in which a third of it is food waste. Each Hong Kong citizen produces 1.36kg domestic waste everyday, which is at least 36% more than Taipei, Seoul and Tokyo. Waste disposal has been a highly controversial topic in recent years. If the trash production rate keeps on increasing, three landfills in Hong Kong will be exhausted one by one in two to six years. Landfill is the only way to dispose waste in Hong Kong. In order to tackle the municipal solid waste(MSW) problem, government decides to build an incinerator in Shek Kwu Chau, with other waste disposal method. The purpose of this project are to reduce the total amount of garbage, increase in the recovery rate of MSW and reduce the total MSW disposed of in landfills.
Incorrect waste deployments due to the inaccuracy of information lead to the derivation of the root cause of waste being incorrect. The wrong information was being analysed. Statistically, no conclusions could be drawn from the information available on the system hence no focus was available. A key factor in developing a waste management system is to understand: how much waste is being created, from where this waste originates and what are the reasons being the waste creation. This information will then allow the waste to be managed by addressing the reasons to achieve the desired outcome of the waste hierarchy. Such an outcome (100% accuracy) was achieved through the correct and accurate waste
Urban environmental problems in Egypt are multi-faceted, urbanization and issues that come with developmental challenges; urban production and consumption patterns psychological orientation of urban residents as well as institutional failures, these problems pose serious environmental, economic and social challenges to achieve sustainable development in the country. A basic problem in developing country like Egypt is that the population growth rate is faster than the rate of developing infrastructure and services, while the growth rate of productivity is lower .Egypt s primary cities Cairo and Alexandria comprise 43% of the total urban population (17% of the total population of Egypt) while 77 cities comprise 4% of the urban population (ElSakka,
Solid waste can be classified in different types, depending on their source, household waste is generally classified as municipal waste; industrial waste as hazardous waste or hospital waste as infections waste. It quite obvious that South Africa environment is deteriorated by the illegal dumping area that around here. Solid waste is a major problem this country is facing at the moment. The province that is experience this major problem is Gauteng province, this an urban area am taking about, and since it’s clear that over population is the cause of the problem. Gauteng province is an over populated than rural area .solid waste pollution is refuse or garbage that people use in their everyday life in their house, such as plastic
White, P. & Franke, M., 1999: Integrated solid waste management: a lifecycle inventory. Gaithersburg, Md.: Aspen.
Efficient waste managing approaches help with reducing and avoiding unpleasant impact on the environment and human health, while allowing financial development and progress in the quality of people’s life. People do not even imagine what is the size and capacity of their activities and the impact they produce on the environment. Garbage is an important ecological problem. It is seems amazing that approximately all of the citizens of the world identify rubbish as a major environmental problem and yet these people still litter. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (2008), an American produces 250 million tons of garbage per year (para.2). There are different circumstances that are based on the society, environmental conditions, occupation and size of each of the different family. As Richmond (2010) stated, if no administration organizations has the responsibility or resources to concentrate their efforts on the waste disposal, then the responsibility to do that is on ...