This time the subject was Municipal Solid Waste Management in developing countries. Here are some interesting points I noticed while reading the documents, and some thoughts:
- better waste removal services tend to be reserved for better neighborhoods, since there's more tax money there
- using the same technical solutions as in industrialized countries (expensive waste collection vehicles) may not work so well. Really interesting that the nature of the waste is usually very different, that whereas in industrial countries it's a lot of plastic, paper, glass and metal (relatively low density), in developing countries it's a lot of ash, sand, rocks and high moisture organic waste (high density)
- small enterprise waste collection seems like a good idea, but then there's the problem that they are only able to move local waste a short distance to some transfer point, where it may stay uncollected
- a good solution seems to be anything that's labour intesive, to employ as many people as possible. It seems that the garbage pickers and scavengers play a very important role, since they reduce the volume of waste by a lot
- I was a bit surprised that organic waste can make up over 50% of total waste, and is responsible for lots of the problems. It seems like it would be really easy to improve the situtation if everyone just composted at home
- it's hard to believe that people from industrial countries would ship hazardous materials to be disposed of in other countries where they have less stringent disposal regulations. This shows how much of the problem is corporate greed in industrial countries. Lots of these problems we're talking about can be solved right here where we live, not by micromanaging other countries
- interesting to see that e-waste was mentioned...I saw a short documentary about this a couple weeks ago
- this reminds me of some people I know back at home who challenged themselves to produce as little waste as possible for one year. They called it the Clean Bin Project (http://cleanbinproject.com)
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