Management of open dumps in Asia challenges and opportunities

Abstract

The open dump approach, a primitive version of municipal solid waste disposal remains thepredominant option in most of the Asian countries. Problems of shortage of cover, lack ofleachate collection and treatment, inadequate compaction of wastes, poor site design andragpickers working and setting the refuse on fire to recover valuable inorganic items arecommon at such dumps. It is essential that an appropriate status quo analysis is carried outand an achievable, acceptable and affordable strategy and action plan are developed forimplementation in a phased manner. This paper presents the steps that may be initiated tosteadily move from open dumps towards controlled dumps and later to sustainable landfillsbased on the lessons learned from the on going project on "Sustainable Solid Waste LandfillManagement in Asia" under the Asian Regional Research Programme on EnvironmentalTechnology funded by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency andCoordinated by Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand.The first step in upgrading open dumps to sanitary landfills involves reducing nuisances suchas odors, dust, vermin, and birds. The principle of landfill mining may be used as the driver toconvert this challenging task into an opportunity. The possible outcome would includerecovery of space for future landfills, soil fraction for growing non edible crops as well aslandfill cover material and the plastics for making refuse derived fuel. A natural remediationtechnique such as phytoremediation using higher vascular plants, though slow, is also worthconsidering.