Factors influencing household-level positive and negative solid waste management practices in rapidly urbanizing cities: insights from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia

Household solid waste management (HSWM) practices are a critical aspect of municipal solid waste management (MSWM) systems. Despite efforts to implement source separation and recycling at the household level in developing countries, negative practices such as illegal dumping and backyard burning remain ubiquitous, particularly in rapidly urbanizing cities. Source separation and recycling behaviors have been rarely studied in such cities. Moreover, studies on illegal dumping and backyard burning using robust tools and frameworks are practically non-existent. This study aims to (a) estimate the prevalence of “negative” and “positive” behaviors for different HSWM practices, and (b) identify their observable and non-observable influencing factors. The focus is Santa Cruz, a rapidly urbanizing city of Bolivia. Household surveys (n=305) are used to establish the connections between latent constructs (e.g. awareness, satisfaction), and observable variables (e.g. location, socio-demographic characteristics) with each behavior. This is achieved through the combination of exploratory factor analysis to validate the constructs to be included in the analysis, and structural equation modeling to identify the most influential factors. Two causal models are developed, one for the positive behaviors (i.e. source separation, recyclables donation, recyclables selling, and use of drop-off facilities), and the other for the negative behaviors (i.e. illegal dumping and backyard burning). Results indicate that, satisfaction with the MSWM service has a negative and significant influence on the prevalence of illegal dumping and backyard burning behaviors, while the remoteness of the household (i.e. distance to the city center) has a positive significant effect on the prevalence of these behaviors. Source separation and recyclable donation are influenced positively by latent constructs such as attitudes, knowledge, and awareness. For recyclables selling and use of drop-off stations, income and location are the most relevant factors, although with smaller effects.

Challenges Towards Reducing Illegal Dumping Activities in the Construction Industry

This nowadays an increasing number of construction projects in Malaysia have contributed to the production of construction waste which has had a negative impact on the environment, especially through illegal dumping. The increasing number of illegal dumping activities is a sign that construction waste management needs to be examined. To date, a comprehensive criterion for construction waste management, in developing countries is still not clearly defined. Therefore, the objectives of this paper are to investigate current illegal dumping activities, and identify the challenges towards reducing illegal dumping activities in the Malaysian construction industry. Hence, this research conducted interviews with 20 expert stakeholders related to construction waste management in order to scrutinise illegal dumping activities in Malaysia. The data from these semi-structured interviews were analysed by content analysis. The findings are used to determine the current challenges for reducing illegal dumping activities in the Malaysian construction industry. The elements in the current findings are potentially to improve construction waste management in order to archive the proper construction waste management. Finally, this findings will help to identify strategies to reduce illegal dumping activities and to enhance challenges towards reducing illegal dumping activities in the Malaysian construction industry.

Behavioural Dumping and Drainage Channels

Dumping is one of the inevitable societal behaviours because waste can only be controlled but not eliminated completely. The rapidly growing developing countries have cities, towns and trading centres emerging daily coupled with increasing populations can be well related to poor drainage and irresponsible dumping in water channels. The aim of this study was to scrutinize drainage dumping behaviours in relation to water channels in some selected cities in Uganda. In this study, observational and analytical experiments on dumping were done in selected towns and cities, along some major highways connecting them. The findings showed that a lot of illegal dumping is happening at a rate of 63% on average on roads and even near the legal dumping places. Most of the refuse that is erroneously dumped ends up in drainage channels leading to serious flooding and other environmental consequences. The study recommends other better models in addition to improving drainage design, construction and maintenance patterns. Strict laws and sensitization are crucial in this regard and can help in saving and improving the lives of the people by at least 11%

A cloud-based cognitive computing solution with interoperable applications to counteract illegal dumping in smart cities

The study presented in this paper is the outcome of the activity carried on within the program “Party Cloud Challenge per Genova”, promoted by IBM in collaboration with the city municipality of Genoa, Italy. This challenge aimed to show how using cognitive computing solutions in an integrated cloud-based development environment enables the rapid deployment of advanced services with interoperable applications. Specifically, we investigated a solution to cope with the problem of illegal dumping prevention in a smart city. In this respect, we will describe the study of the prototype of an automated visual recognition and alerting system. The presented solution relies on the use of cognitive computing technologies to analyze videos provided by cameras installed in urban areas, to identify trash, especially bulky waste, where it should not be, and trigger an alarm to the municipality. In particular, we want to take advantage of the pictures, frames and videos continuously recorded by cameras installed for traffic monitoring, for surveillance, etc. in smart cities where the waste management system is supposed to be integrated with other municipality services for environment control and management. Besides, an organization plan is also proposed for intelligent waste collection as well as some organizational ideas for scalability.

Efficient supervision strategy for illegal dumping of construction and demolition waste: A networked game theory decision-making model

While the construction industry has brought substantial economic benefits to society, it has also generated substantial construction and demolition waste (CDW). Illegal dumping, which refers to dumping CDW in an unauthorized non-filling location, has become widespread in many countries and regions. Illegally dumping CDW destroys the environment, causing groundwater pollution and forest fires and causing significant economic impacts. However, there is a lack of research on the decision-making behaviours and logical rules of the main participants, construction contractors and the government in the illegal CDW dumping process. This paper constructs an evolutionary game model on a small-world network considering government supervision to portray the decision-making behaviours of illegal dumping participants and conducts a numerical simulation based on empirical equations to propose an effective supervision strategy for the government to manage illegal CDW dumping efficiently. It is found that the illegal dumping behaviours of contractors are mainly affected by the intensity of government supervision, the cost of fines and the income of illegal dumping; while for government, a supervision strategy is found to be necessary, and a supervision intensity of approximately 0.7 is the optimal supervision probability given supervision efficiency. Notably, under a low-level supervision probability, increasing the penalty alone does not curb illegal dumping, and a certain degree of supervision must be maintained. The results show that in addition to setting fines for illegal dumping, the government must enforce a certain level of supervision and purify the market environment to steadily reduce illegal dumping.

Assessment of Construction Waste Management Practice in Mekelle, northern Ethiopia: Challenges and Opportunities

The rapid economic growth and urbanization in Ethiopia have led to extensive construction activities in major cities. Construction activities have known to generate large quantities of wastes that pose serious environmental problems. This paper presents the challenges of construction waste management practices in Mekelle city and explores appropriate measures to address the issues in a more sustainable way. Field observation, questionnaire survey, interviewing of public sector officials at different levels was conducted to identify the source and management options of construction waste in the city. The findings showed that the majority of survey participants felt that their firms have taken various measures to manage construction waste. It was revealed that 40% of the respondents exercise illegal dumping as a common method of waste management, which is closely followed by reuse and recycling. It is evident that over 75% of the construction- generated has potential for recycling and reuse as backfilling and base for roads and buildings. The increase in the number of illegal dumping sites in the city represents the failure to properly control and implement effective construction waste management. It was suggested that sustainable solution for construction waste management at local level depends on increasing awareness and promoting reusing and recycling of construction waste.

An Illegal Dumping Detection System Based on Image Processing in OpenALPR

Tipping or depositing large waste onto land using unauthorized and unlicensed methods are considered as illegal dumping. The increasing rate of illegal dumping becomes a crucial nation issue because this activity causes negative impacts to social, economy and environment. Thus, study on detecting the dumping activities is conducted to control the illegal dumping activities in Malaysia. Raspberry Pi with Python language is used as the microprocessor and a Raspberry Pi camera module with a microwave radar sensor are interfaced to it to capture the image of any vehicles entering the illegal dumping site. The image is captured to recognize the license plate of the vehicle. The method in this study is by using Open Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR), Open Computer Vision (CV) libraries and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to detect the character of the plate registration number. The outcome of the study consists of recognition of Malaysia vehicles’ plate number and the automatic real time email notification on the illegal dumping case. The detection system can be used for case monitoring since the plate number recognition is done in real time. The system can be upgraded to ensure its sustainability in the harsh and isolated environment.