Urban Environment Management : an Application of Carrying Capacity to Solid Waste Disposal

This section devotes in the first part to the explanations of waste generation and its definition. Solid waste is a part of waste and residential solid waste or refuse is the largest portion of solid waste to be disposed of. The reasons for ever-increasing domestic solid waste which usually enters municipal solid waste management system are given in the later part of the section. The statistical data of solid waste are presented both on the basis of per capita per day and on annual basis. As population increases and more people are concentrated in urban areas, waste problem grows more acute. As standards of living goes up, the public demand better waste disposal service. At the same time, the higher standards of living complicates the problem by increasing the amount of waste produced and the cost of properly disposing of it. In large metropolitan areas particularly the disposal problem has reached serious proportions in recent years due to the steady exhaustion of available landfill areas, the impact of more rigid air, water, and land pollution controls, and the decline of markets for major salvage items such as ferrous metal and paper products (American Public Works Association 1970, P.) Waste comes from human activities of production and consumption. As shown in the following diagram, production activities generate residuals and wastes which are discharged to the environmental resource base, and likewise consumption goods themselves produce or become residuals and are imposed on common pool resources as externalities