We didn’t have a lecture today and this blog writing is based on individual work. Based on the two articles given, Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) is management of garbage from communities. Municipal waste doesn’t include for example industrial waste because it is a result of human activity.
According to UN Development Programme, inadequate waste management is the second largest problem faced by citizens after unemployment. This can easily be true. Italy comes to my mind when talking about waste problems in Europe. The whole city went into chaos because of poor waste management. I think the situation was affected by Italian mafia somehow. One of the articles showed that two factors affect organizing proper waste management: policies and technology. The situation in Italy happened due to bad policy.
Arranging proper waste management is difficult. First, the city has to choose if it uses private company or smaller, community based organizations. The benefit in using community based organization is that it is labour intensive, so the workers can go to places were the big machines can’t. Supervivion is really important, and it is normally done by local authorities.
It says in one of the internet links that: ”Waste management in developing countries must emphasize and be linked to the creation of jobs, poverty alleviation and community participation.” Waste management is different in developed and developing countries. Many poor people live by sorting out garbage and waste management arranged like in developed countries would destroy their livelihood.
Based on the references, it seems that in many developing countries, there isn’t any kind of waste management. I think that is horrible. Dumping waste near by housing can cause serious illness, pollution and water degradation. Maybe waste management seems like the smallest worry when you don’t have a job or enough food to eat. But in the end, it can lead to a disaster. In the developing countries inadequate waste management is closely linked to urbanization. Web link number 2 says in my opinion less important reasons to waste management: “Poor visual appearance of these cities will have negative impacts on official and tourist visits and foreign investment.” That must be true, but I think health risk to citizens and pollution are more important reasons. A good point in the web link was to emphasize the role of finance, since waste management typically has very low priority in developing countries. I wonder why?
Waste management is taken for granted in Finland, so I haven’t even realized how large process it is. I become to respect city planners and government even more for proper waste management. I have thought that some services are well handled, when you don’t even recognize they are taking care of. Developed countries should certainly help developing countries to get proper waste management, because it instantly improves the standard of living in the whole city. I realized there are many urbanization related issues that I haven’t thought about before.
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