TY - JOUR
T1 - Global municipal solid waste infrastructure
T2 - Delivery and forecast of uncontrolled disposal
AU - Maalouf, Amani
AU - Mavropoulos, Antonis
AU - El-Fadel, Mutasem
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.
PY - 2020/9/1
Y1 - 2020/9/1
N2 - Proper management and treatment of municipal solid waste (MSW) plays a central role towards the reduction or elimination of uncontrolled disposal and the achievement of United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the reduction of its vast adverse environmental and health impacts. Despite that, till now, there has never been a quantitative analysis of the progress in waste management infrastructure delivery worldwide. In this paper, we provide valuable insights regarding the progress in new MSW infrastructure delivery based on a dataset of 1764 projects from 156 countries, for the period 2014–2019. We also estimate the magnitude of uncontrolled waste disposal practices worldwide by estimating the gap between the current MSW infrastructure delivery and actual changes in MSW generation. Our results show that the new capacity delivered during the six years period amounted to 243 million metric tonnes (Mt) (40 million Mt per year), out of which 45% was delivered in high-income countries, 37.5% in the People’s Republic of China and 17.5% in the rest of the world, mainly through thermal treatment (~57%) and landfilling (8%). The average allocated per capita budget of these projects during this period is about US$14, equivalent to US$ 2.33 (cap*year)−1. Our main conclusion is that the share of uncontrolled disposal will continue to rise at least until 2028, reaching almost 730 million Mt per year. Evidently, the global community continues to face a serious challenge towards the implementation of the UN SDG 12, target 12.4 by 2020. The analysis demonstrates that infrastructure delivery must increase by four folds to eliminate uncontrolled disposal practices.
AB - Proper management and treatment of municipal solid waste (MSW) plays a central role towards the reduction or elimination of uncontrolled disposal and the achievement of United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the reduction of its vast adverse environmental and health impacts. Despite that, till now, there has never been a quantitative analysis of the progress in waste management infrastructure delivery worldwide. In this paper, we provide valuable insights regarding the progress in new MSW infrastructure delivery based on a dataset of 1764 projects from 156 countries, for the period 2014–2019. We also estimate the magnitude of uncontrolled waste disposal practices worldwide by estimating the gap between the current MSW infrastructure delivery and actual changes in MSW generation. Our results show that the new capacity delivered during the six years period amounted to 243 million metric tonnes (Mt) (40 million Mt per year), out of which 45% was delivered in high-income countries, 37.5% in the People’s Republic of China and 17.5% in the rest of the world, mainly through thermal treatment (~57%) and landfilling (8%). The average allocated per capita budget of these projects during this period is about US$14, equivalent to US$ 2.33 (cap*year)−1. Our main conclusion is that the share of uncontrolled disposal will continue to rise at least until 2028, reaching almost 730 million Mt per year. Evidently, the global community continues to face a serious challenge towards the implementation of the UN SDG 12, target 12.4 by 2020. The analysis demonstrates that infrastructure delivery must increase by four folds to eliminate uncontrolled disposal practices.
KW - infrastructure delivery
KW - landfilling
KW - Municipal solid waste generation
KW - uncontrolled disposal
KW - United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
KW - waste treatment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85086870002&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0734242X20935170
DO - 10.1177/0734242X20935170
M3 - Article
C2 - 32586216
AN - SCOPUS:85086870002
SN - 0734-242X
VL - 38
SP - 1028
EP - 1036
JO - Waste Management and Research
JF - Waste Management and Research
IS - 9
ER -