Differences in Solid Waste Management in Developing and Developed Countries

Journal Entries

1. Discuss aspects from tutorial presentations relating to differences in solid waste management in developing and developed countries.

The aim of solid waste management is to dismiss waste residue from the neighbourhood and residential areas, industries and constructions site.

Different aspects of Solid Waste Management in Southeast Asian countries include waste generation rate and composition, lack of awareness, education and campaign, economic and technological aspects.

Waste generation rate and composition are relatively high in the developed countries for example Japan, Republic of Korea and Singapore because of increasing of urbanization and population. Less number of population in developing countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia have low rate of waste generation and composition. Technological available in developed countries are incinerator, recycling for treatment and landfill for disposal. For example in Singapore and Japan, heat from the combustion of trash is used to generate electricity. Singapore has more incinerators than landfill sites due to an increasing of solid waste generation and about 90% of non-recyclable solid waste is incineration. Japan has good effort in promoting 3R program to the public and community. Waste collection vehicle such as trucks are used to collect and transport waste to the treatment and disposal facilities.

Most of developing countries used landfill as disposal method instead of incinerator and recycling because of low cost required. The most common disposal method used in Thailand and Indonesia is sanitary landfill. Open dumping is common practice in Philippines. Most of the landfill in developing countries has complete facilities to treat leachate and gas collection. Incinerator is not widely used in developing countries. For example, Malaysia has only one incinerator and under the new regulation on solid waste management in Philippines, incinerator has been totally banned because of greenhouse gas emission from incinerator itself. Besides that, recycle is also not well practice in developing countries because lack of awareness like campaign and education on 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) program as well practiced in Japan, and less implementation and enforcement of policies and regulations. In Malaysia only 1% of wastes are recycle and 12% in Philippines.  

1. Discuss the strategic significance of material presented in lectures from 22nd April to 6th May.

The lecture on 22nd April was discussed on solid waste transportation, how important it is in waste management. Large amount of wastes generate from households, industries, and constructions will require a specific vehicle to collect and transport those wastes to the landfill, treatment plant and recycling centre. Each mobile are design according to the types of waste being collected. Different waste will have different characteristics so this is the reason why the mobiles are designed differently.