Down to Earth: Solid Waste Disposal for Low-Income Countries

THIS BOOK PRESENTS the findings of the project “Appropriate Landfilling of Solid Waste” funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) and aims to provide broad guidance for the selection of adequate options for solid waste disposal in cities in low-income countries. By reviewing and analyzing case study material from the cities of Karachi and Faisalabad in Pakistan, and Addis Ababa and Arba Minch in Ethiopia, the authors seek to make up for the current lack of material regarding options which are both appropriate to and affordable by low income countries. This book will be of interest to policy makers and professional staff of urban governments, development agencies and non-governmental organizations in low-income countries.

The first of the five sections of the book is a short but precise introduction to the research. Here, the limitations of a purely technical and piecemeal approach to solid waste disposal are stressed. This has strong implications for the set of guidelines that constitute the core of this volume. In addition, the authors’ emphasis on building on existing municipal capacity also represents a move away from unrealistic and unsustainable solutions.

The various options for the disposal of municipal solid waste are explored in Section II. This section describes the key constraints that should be addressed if safe disposal is to be attained (municipal capacity; political commitment; finance and cost recovery; technical guidelines; institutional roles and responsibilities; and location of the site). By tackling the constraints in these areas, an urban system for solid waste disposal could move gradually from its current practice towards more controlled, but still affordable, options such as sanitary landfilling, composting and incineration.
Section III presents a framework for selecting appropriate options for the disposal of municipal solid waste. The available options can be assessed in terms of their effectiveness with respect to desirable features relating to five dimensions, namely, technical, institutional, financial, social and environmental. Each issue will be dealt with through a sub-framework consisting of three questions regarding the necessary information or data – what? why? where? In a very important sense, the authors stress that this framework should be complemented by the use of bibliography and “fine-tuned” with local specificity.

Section IV examines the application of this framework to the case study of Karachi, Pakistan. Here, the strong interdependence between the various actors and the process of solid waste management becomes evident, especially when the role of the informal sector is recognized with regard to the “recycling economy” and the changing composition of waste and its influence on the choice of the adequate solution. In this sense, landfill provides the best opportunity for the utilization of re-saleable waste and therefore the best option for avoiding disruption in the livelihoods and possibilities for additional income of poor people.

The final section is dedicated to a review of available landfill guidelines in a risk assessment framework. This section gives an overview of the principles of landfill design and operation, including the new concept of sustainable landfill, so that practitioners can understand the importance of controlling landfill-associated risks and can chose the best option for the considered situation. Risk control mechanisms through operational planning, design and aftercare are also reviewed. The text is accompanied by boxes and tables, offering the possibility of engaging in a more superficial or in a deeper reading.