BY STAFF REPORTER
Memories of the Qoshe landfill disaster, that happened some 5 years ago, is still fresh in the minds of many residents of Addis Ababa as well as a large number of Ethiopians. Qoshe, a short form of the word Qoshasha obtained its name as it used to be a place for dumping urban solid waste of the city for almost half a century.
As the city grew up people settled in the area due to lack of residential houses, despite being aware of its danger for health. However , nobody expected that it would one day crumble and swallow them with their houses. Similar accumulation of such urban waste is still a looming challenge for peoples life.
According to World Banks documents, The world generates 2.01 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with at least 33 percent of that—extremely conservatively—not managed in an environmentally safe manner. Worldwide, waste generated per person per day averages 0.74 kilogram but ranges widely, from 0.11 to 4.54 kilograms. Though they only account for 16 percent of the world’s population, high-income countries generate about 34 percent, or 683 million tonnes, of the world’s waste.
When looking forward, global waste is expected to grow to 3.40 billion tonnes by 2050, more than double population growth over the same period. Overall, there is a positive correlation between waste generation and income level. Daily per capita waste generation in high-income countries is projected to increase by 19 percent by 2050, compared to low- and middle-income countries where it is expected to increase by approximately 40per cent or more.
Waste generation initially decreases at the lowest income levels and then increases at a faster rate for incremental income changes at low income levels than at high income levels. The total quantity of waste generated in low-income countries is expected to increase by more than three times by 2050. The East Asia and Pacific region is generating most of the world’s waste, at 23 percent, and the Middle East and North Africa region is producing the least in absolute terms, at 6 percent. However, the fastest growing regions are Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa, where, by 2050, total waste generation is expected to more than triple, double, and double respectively. In these regions, more than half of waste is currently openly dumped, and the trajectories of waste growth will have vast implications for the environment, health, and prosperity, thus requiring urgent action.
As Ethiopia continues to grow economically there is a growing trend of use of consumer goods that generate a large volume of waste. Post-consumer waste consists of packaging parts that are not needed, such as fruit skins, bones in meat, undesired things received, advertising material in the mailbox like a flyer received in the street without having the opportunity to refuse, dust, weeds, fallen leaves, things one no longer needs, e.g. a magazine that has been read, things replaced by new versions, clothes out of fashion, remaining food that one cannot keep or does not want to keep, broken things, things no longer working, spoiled food, worn-out clothes, clothes which no longer fit, outgrown items toys, clothing, books, schoolwork, disposables such as Kleenex and finished batteries, human waste, waste of pets, waste water from various forms of cleaning, things people do not want and cannot sell, broken/unused cars, items that cannot be used.
Accordinging azocleantech, Waste collection and management is a vital component of healthy, safe, and environmentally sound city management – with wider implications for the whole planet’s environmental wellbeing. However, effective waste collection and management is often unattainable in developing countries.
Research has shown that upper-middle-income countries’ populations see 86per cent of their solid waste collected effectively. In lower-middle-income countries, this is reduced to 68per cent and only 41per cent of solid waste is collected in low-income countries.
Lower-middle and lower-income countries have seen significant improvements in their rates of waste collection in recent decades. However, cities in these regions have also seen a concurrent and extreme rise in population and infrastructure growth – which has, in turn, led to the creation of much more post-consumer waste. This growth is particularly acute in cities in sub-Saharan African and south-east Asia.
Over half of the municipal solid waste management budgets in these cities are therefore spent on collection – despite only being able to retrieve around two-fifths of waste through municipal waste-management systems.
This in turn leads to less room in the budget for waste management, and therefore most of the post-consumer waste that is collected is sent to unmanaged landfill sites. This situation creates conditions for serious illnesses spreading among people living close to these dumpsites, including diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, and plague-like diseases.
Large, unmanaged landfill sites also lead to local and global environmental issues such as the atmospheric release of landfill gases, water pollution, and water-borne illnesses that devastate local ecosystems.
These problems are exacerbated by infrastructure issues with municipal waste management systems. Poor route planning, lack of available information about collection schedules (and inconsistent schedules in the first place), poor roads, and a lack of suitable vehicles all contribute to the problems of waste in developing countries’ growing cities.
As many of these issues are related to the high cost to municipalities of their centralized municipal waste management system, turning to the informal waste ecosystem that exists in these cities may provide a solution.
The Ethiopian Herald May 14/2021
