What a waste : solid waste management in Asia

This paper reviews the broad trends related to solid waste management in Asia. It focuses on waste management only as it pertains to urban environments. The study analyzes the trends and provides preliminary suggestions for reducing the trends' impacts. The concern about environmental effects associated with solid waste management and the escalating costs that solid waste management consumes from local government budgets is examined. The paper briefly discusses possible policies and budget requirements for dealing with the burgeoning waste stream. In compiling the solid waste generation data, the authors identified shortcoming with terminology used and sampling methods and built-in problems with consistency. In Annex 1, recommendations are made to help overcome these limitation and for improving solid waste data collection and presentation. Annex 2 presents waste generation rates for selected Asian cities.