As countries’ incomes increase, so does the volume of waste globally. Population growth and urbanization in developing countries have led to an increase in waste.
Also, due to the lack of knowledge about waste management among the people, waste is widely accumulated from place to place. It has been estimated that the average global solid waste generation is 2.01 billion tons and will increase to 2.2 billion tons by 2025.
Lack of waste management affects health and economic development. Nowadays, waste management is seen as an effective practice followed by countries. The process of collecting waste, sorting it, recycling or destroying it is called waste management. Waste can be mainly classified into solid waste and liquid waste. Types of solid waste include agricultural waste, municipal waste, industrial waste, domestic waste and special waste. These special wastes include E-waste, Medical waste, Plastic waste and Construction waste.
South Asia, East Asian countries, Middle East and North African countries are the countries that recycle less than 10 percent of the world.
On the contrary, waste management is done well in high-income countries like Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, USA, Canada, Brazil, Turkey, and China.
These countries follow solid waste management practices globally.
Following globalization in the late 19th century, Japan faced massive environmental problems due to increased waste. Industrialization and increased economic growth during the 20th century greatly increased the amount of waste. The first legislation related to waste management was introduced in 1900 as the ‘Waste Cleaning Act’.
In the 20th century, the 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) focused approach to waste management was introduced. The different waste management policies practiced in Japan can be categorized as follows:
Technology Efficient Waste Transport – A special program has been implemented in Japan to reduce the cost of collecting and transporting waste. Special types of vehicles are designed to carry large quantities of waste at one time.
In this way waste management can be improved as well as environmental protection. While developed countries make progress in waste management by using such modern technologies, low-income developing countries face environmental damage due to non-compliance of waste management.
