Personal protective equipment use during COVID-19 pandemic and associated waste management in households in Sri Lanka

The use of personal protective equipment (PPE) is compulsory when accessing public places due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in many countries. Facemasks are the most common PPE used, however, some people use face shields and gloves. Frequent hand sanitizing is also recommended aiming to control the spread of the disease. All these activities generate a large amount of plastic waste daily. In Sri Lanka, it is estimated that 12 million facemasks are used daily, while 0.22 million gloves and 0.29 million face shields are used. Out of 12 million facemasks, 10 million are surgical or N95 masks. In addition, 0.79 million sanitizer bottles are used in a day, leaving empty plastic bottles. The most common method of disposing of facemasks in Sri Lanka is open burning by the users at their homes (55%). The rate of burning is comparatively low for other PPE. Although nearly 30% of people handover used facemasks to the municipal solid waste collection, there are no special precautions taken for separate collection and safe disposal. Guidelines are in place for handling healthcare waste generated in households under self-quarantine, but they are not applied for PPE waste generated in other households. Major drawbacks in PPE waste management is identified and mitigation measures were proposed. The estimate of waste plastics generated due to PPE use is 88.5 tonnes per day in the country. Energy recovery via pyrolysis may be a viable alternative to landfilling and affordable for developing countries.

Recyclables Collection Route Balancing Problem with Heterogeneous Fleet

Nowadays, robust and efficient solid waste collection is crucial to motivate citizens to participate in the circular economy by sorting recyclable solid waste. Vocational vehicles, including garbage trucks, contribute significantly to CO2 emissions; therefore, it is strongly recommended, and in the European Union it is mandatory, to replace conventional-fuel-based garbage trucks with electric ones. For providing sustainable and energy-efficient solid waste collection with a heterogeneous fleet, in-depth mathematical computations are needed to support solving complex decision-making problems, including crew rostering and vehicle routing, because the distance and capacity of electric garbage trucks differ from conventional-fuel-based ones. However, the literature on solid waste collection using electric garbage trucks is still relatively scarce. The main contribution of this paper is developing an optimization problem for balancing travel distance assigned to each garbage truck of a heterogeneous fleet. The problem is based on specific requirements of the Municipal Solid Waste Management in Cracow, Poland, where the working time of routes is balanced and the total time of collection service can be minimized. For the problem, an MIP program was developed to generate optimal crew schedules, so that the hitherto network of segregated solid waste pickup nodes can be served using a heterogeneous fleet in which the share of electric garbage trucks is up to 30%. We study the impact of the changed composition of the fleet on modifications in crew rostering due to the shorter range of an electric vehicle compared to a conventional-fuel-based one.

Leaf Litter Vermi Composting: Converting Waste to Resource

Waste is not waste unless someone wastes it. Solid waste collection and its management is one of the burning issues of environment today in most nations worldwide. Although many methods have been proposed and implemented for proper solid waste disposal but some of these treatment and disposal strategies can cause severe environmental issues. The present manuscript intends to give an overview of studies on use of garden leaf litter waste around us as a substrate for vermicompost formation. Vermicomposting is aerobic process in which detritivorous earthworms play an important role in decomposition of organic waste converting it to nutrient rich medium for plant growth known as vermicompost. They do so by interacting with wide range of microorganisms and variety of other fauna acting as decomposers and this interaction results in stabilization of organic matter leading to alteration of its physical and biochemical properties. In recent years, vermicomposting technique has advanced considerably because it is eco-friendly, economically feasible and socially acceptable approach for waste management. In simple words, it is a way of converting waste to wealth. Furthermore, the end product of vermicomposting (Vermicast) - the nutrient rich compost is an efficient soil conditioner.

Reverse Privatization as a Reaction to the Competitive Environment: Evidence from Solid Waste Collection in Germany

After earlier waves of privatization, local governments have increasingly taken back control of local service provisions in some sectors and countries and instead started providing those services themselves (reverse privatization). Using a unique panel dataset on the mode of service provision for solid waste collection for German municipalities that cover the years 2003, 2009, and 2015, we investigate the motives for reverse privatization. Our results show that—in deciding whether to insource or not—municipalities react to the cost advantages of private suppliers as well as to the competitive environment and municipal activity: there is more switching to insourcing in concentrated markets and in markets with horizontally or vertically related public services. Local interest groups influence this decision as well.