Waste, a major and difficult challenge of this century

Here comes another big issue faced by today's world, known as Solid Waste Management. full of complexity, it is in developing countries that SWM faces the biggest problems, representing a major public health and environmental concern especially in regards to the poorest part of population.

If the standard way of managing waste in developed countries is generally described as follows

The steps of reducing, reusing and recycling waste are often over passed in poor or developing countries, which leads to dramatic situations. The situation is so critical that the second most serious problem faced by city dwellers is insufficient solid waste management. This doesn't surprise me, because I can imagine the huge amount of work that should be done to manage this problem.

Some info to remember:

• one to two third of  of solid waste generated is not collected
• Total global MSW will increase by 37.3% between 2007 and 2011
• the rate of waste generation generally increases in direct proportion to that of a nation's advance in development. This means that for urbanizing zones, the problem of waste treatment will become bigger and bigger.
• One out of two people living in cities is relatively poor or worst, and therefore directly concerned about waste management of his city
• Municipal solid waste management (MSWM) represent between 20% and 50% of municipal budget. This represents considerable expenses, which explains in my opinion the negligence that municipalities can have in regard to it, without considering the health and ecological impacts, what is a pity.
• Individuals residing near or on disposal sites (illegal) are infected by gastrointestinal parasites, worms and related organisms 

This subject highlight a new challenge that will be faced by developing countries, and in this case especially by urban areas and peri-urban slums. Furthermore, Bad waste management involve water resources contamination, which is already a big problem for those areas. In order to improve life quality of slum dwellers, it is important to take into account not only one part of the challenges, but to conciliate many different and challenging aspects.

I will complete this topic with some solutions that exists to make clever usage of waste, but which need some organisation and some knowledges (biogasification, recycling, etc.)