[Zurück]

J. Fellner:
"Responsible Material Flow Management - The Case of Waste Management in Developing Countries";
Vortrag: International Conference at the TU Darmstadt 'Competition and Conflicts on Resource Use', Darmstadt (eingeladen); 04.05.2009 - 06.05.2009.

Waste management is one of the major challenges for developing countries´ urban regions. Poor sanitation by lack of financial resources affects population´s health; end-of-pipe systems transfer potentially hazardous materials - but also potential resources- into landfills, open dumps or, even worse, illegal dumping and waste burning, respectively. It is the major task of decision makers, public authorities and implementing organisations to find and implement applicable solutions for these challenges in waste management.
The present paper investigates if waste management systems, which are presently applied in affluent countries, are appropriate solutions in less developed regions. For this purpose, three cities differing largely in their GDP and waste management are compared using the methodology of material flow analysis.
Criteria for evaluation are economic parameters, and indicators pointing out if the goals of waste management (protection of human health and the environment, the conservation of resources), are reached. Based on the results of material flow analyses, it is shown that for regions spending 1-10 Euro/capita and year for waste management, the "waste hierarchy" of prevention, recycling and disposal is not an appropriate strategy. In such regions, the improvement of disposal systems (complete collection, upgrading to sanitary landfilling) is the most cost effective method to reach the objectives of solid waste management. Concepts that are commonly applied in the "north" such as waste incineration and mechanical biological waste treatment are not suitable to reach waste management goals in regions where people cannot spend more than 10 Euro per person for the collection, treatment and disposal of their wastes. It is recommended that each region determines its material flows in waste management and its economic capacity, and designs the waste management system according to these figures and to the goals of waste management.