Globalization has different effects on various countries. These effects are treated differently, based on factors such as countries' resources and culture.
In rapidly growing cities, due to increase in population and consumption because of income level, there is larger amount of waste to be dealt with. This can actually become a problem in low income countries where most of budget goes to pick-up and transfer of waste, and does not leave much for discard. I want to briefly discuss research done on two other places in the world that are having difficulty with the waste management.
Globalization has been identified as playing a negative role in solid waste management in African cities (Achankeng 2003). Studies have shown that increase in waste generation based on quantity and variety has been one of many outcomes of globalization in cities of developing world including Africa. Achankeng finds that there is a positive correlation between city population and the scale of waste management problems. He also notes that there are a few formal systems of material recovery in Africa. However, there is a wide reuse of plastics, and bottles, paper, cardboard, cans for domestic purposes, highly common among the poor in the city. Many authors have identified the high volume of organic content of solid waste in African cities, suggesting to have a bigger investment on composting.
India has also been struggling with municipal waste management and scientist have been studying different approaches to overcome difficulties. Rathi (2005) studies two different approaches to municipal solid waste management; community participation and private sector participation. She concludes that there is a substantial reduction in the cost of waste management with community participation due to separation of waste at source, which in turn leads to a reduction in the requirement for community bins and transportation of waste.
Waste management issues created by urbanization have been studied by researchers in many countries in the past few decades. These problems are necessarily getting worse or better, but governments and people are at least more aware of sustainability issues and the outcomes.
References
Achankeng, Eric. 2003. Globalization, Urbanization and Municipal Solid Waste Management in Africa. African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific 2003 Conference Proceedings. African on a Global Stage.
Rathi, Sarika. 2006. Alternative approaches for better municipal solid waste management in Mumbai, India. Waste Management 26, 1192-1200
Sunday, June 17, 2007
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1 comment:
Hi Leila,
I haven't researched homelessness as waste managment officially, but just from personal experience, I would say that the homeless population definetly contributes, expecially in terms of recyclable bottles and other returnable waste. I remember reading a newspaper article about it somewhere, where some group had done research, but I can't remember where I read it. It's somewhere out there though!
Cheers, Tobias.
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