The World Bank defines waste collection as transporting waste from where it is produced (settlements and industrial, commercial and institutional areas) to a treatment or disposal site. Research on a waste collection multi-objective model says waste collection, although visible municipal work, requires high investment and an operational and environmental services cost.
Another problem is the unequal collection rates indifferent countries. A report from the World Bank shows a 48% collection rate in low-income countries, and even lower at 26% outside urban areas. Indonesia's Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment figures show the percentage of plastic waste leakage into the seas, lakes, and rivers in rural areas is almost four times higher than in urban areas, due to the high volume of mismanaged waste from dumping on land and in dumpsites and through open burning. In contrast, high-income countries such as those in Europe, North America, and Central Asia, collect at least 90% of waste.
A waste collection system has containers for waste, a management method, waste pickup, and collection vehicles. Several methods are used to collect waste from waste generators and transport it to waste treatment or disposal plants. Municipal solid waste can be collected in five ways: house to house, where waste is collected individually from generators’ houses by paid waste collectors; community bins, where it is brought by generators; curb-side pickup, where it is placed outside generators’ houses and picked up on schedule; self-delivered, where it is delivered directly to disposal or transfer points; and contracted or delegated service, where it is collected on schedule by appointed firms and customers pay the charges.
Japan uses the curb-side method, where household waste is collected by residents based on municipality set schedules. For example, Mondays and Thursdays assigned for burnable waste, Tuesdays for recyclable waste, and Fridays for non-burnable waste. Different areas in a particular city may have different collection schedules. Before collection, waste is first sorted by residents, and some requires specific treatment, such as milk cartons must first be washed, rinsed, dried, flattened, and bundled along with other cartons. For polyethylene terephthalate or PET bottles, labels must be removed and bottlecaps separately collected. Bottlecap rings must be separated before bottles are crushed in a recycling facility. Many cities have waste disposal guidebooks (Table 1).
Waste-sorting classification differs among cities and is determined by the local government, taking into account the intermediate treatment plants it operates and the downstream industries which recycle or treat specific waste.
In the Philippines, local governments handle the collection of non-recyclable waste as mandated by Republic Act 9003. Metro Manila mainly implements the house-to-house method for collection , whereby a detailed plan comprising waste collection service, routes, and vehicles, is managed by the local government. Marikina City, in Metro Manila, provides a waste collection service in its barangays (the smallest administrative unit). Waste from households, markets, and commercial areas is collected based on two categories: biodegradable and non-biodegradable. Biodegradable is delivered to disposal sites to be compacted and covered with soil, while non-biodegradable goes to recycling stations for sorting. The sorted recyclable waste is temporarily stored before being handed over to downstream recyclers.
Several ASEAN+3 countries have programmes to specifically manage recyclable waste. In Indonesia, the Bank Sampah or Waste Bank is a programme to collect recyclable waste, bought for prices depending on their type and cleanliness (Kojima, 2019). In the city of Malang, the Bank Sampah programme is facilitated by the local government through the Cleaning and Gardening Agency to encourage active public participation in municipal waste management from the source. Bank Sampah Malang has greatly influenced the perspective of the local people, changing from waste as a problem to waste as a source of money. The programme targets housewives, as they are central in managing household waste.
The buy-back centre, similar to the waste bank, buys collected recyclable waste from dealers, including junk shops, at a predetermined price. This differs from the old collection method, where collectors buy waste at a low price. Buy-back centres have been established in Thailand and the Philippines. Wongpanit, a junk shop franchise in Thailand, posts buying prices in the front of its shops and on its website to encourage people to bring in recyclable waste.
In the Philippines, recyclable waste is recovered in barangay materials recovery facilities (MRFs). regulated under the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2001. MRFs are classified as either clean or dirty. In clean MRFs waste has been properly separated at source, while dirty MRFs have composting units to manage separated biodegradable waste. This type of facility frequently generates leachates and emissions.
An MRF can process 1–5 tonnes of mixed waste daily. It starts by registering, inspecting, and placing waste based on type in a receiving unit, where bulky materials are directly sold or disposed of into a landfill, while mixed waste is treated further. Biodegradable materials in mixed waste are then composted or sent to a disposal facility. An alternative is to place biodegradable materials where they will be picked up by collection trucks. For recyclable waste sorted from source, collection starts with weighing and storing in designated bins (paper, cans, metals). Once a sufficient amount is collected, the waste is treated: tin cans are compacted; plastic bottles are cut, flattened, and bundled; paper materials are piled up; and glass is crushed. Residual materials are temporarily stored and then disposed of in sanitary landfills or fed into waste-to-energy plants as fuel.
The mayor of Surabaya, Indonesia initiated a pilot programme in April 2018 enabling passengers to pay for bus tickets using plastic waste instead of money. Passengers could collect 10 plastic cups, five medium-sized plastic water bottles, or three large plastic water bottles for a one-way ticket. After an enthusiastic response from locals, the Surabaya government planned to add 10–20 buses to its fleet. However, the programme was hit by the challenge of how to manage the collected plastic waste. It was reportedly to be delivered to Bank Sampah Induk Surabaya (Surabaya Central Waste Bank), but a lack of a local regulation to determine the economic value of plastic waste inhibited the delivery of waste to the bank.
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