Management of open dumps in Asia challenges and opportunities

Abstract

The open dump approach, a primitive version of municipal solid waste disposal remains the
predominant option in most of the Asian countries. Problems of shortage of cover, lack of
leachate collection and treatment, inadequate compaction of wastes, poor site design and
ragpickers working and setting the refuse on fire to recover valuable inorganic items are
common at such dumps. It is essential that an appropriate status quo analysis is carried out
and an achievable, acceptable and affordable strategy and action plan are developed for
implementation in a phased manner. This paper presents the steps that may be initiated to
steadily move from open dumps towards controlled dumps and later to sustainable landfills
based on the lessons learned from the on going project on "Sustainable Solid Waste Landfill
Management in Asia" under the Asian Regional Research Programme on Environmental
Technology funded by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and
Coordinated by Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand.
The first step in upgrading open dumps to sanitary landfills involves reducing nuisances such
as odors, dust, vermin, and birds. The principle of landfill mining may be used as the driver to
convert this challenging task into an opportunity. The possible outcome would include
recovery of space for future landfills, soil fraction for growing non edible crops as well as
landfill cover material and the plastics for making refuse derived fuel. A natural remediation
technique such as phytoremediation using higher vascular plants, though slow, is also worth
considering.