2009 | UNEP
Globally, 140 billion metric tons of biomass wastes are generated every year from agriculture equivalent to about 50 billion tons of oil. This energy can displace fossil fuel, reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and provide renewable energy to some 1.6 billion people in developing countries, which still lack access to electricity. As raw materials, biomass wastes have attractive potentials for large-scale industries and community-level enterprises. For efficient and effective conversion, appropriate selection of technologies is one of the vital pre-conditions. This compendium is compiled to assist in selection process for the technologies. This is a compilation of information about the technologies for converting waste agricultural biomass into material or energy resource. The technologies listed range from highly sophisticated equipment from industrialized countries to simple technologies from the developing countries. Different levels of use are also considered, i.e., commercial use, demonstration projects, and research level technologies. The technologies for different type of waste agricultural biomass and size of output are also considered. Technologies listed in the Compendium are limited to those that use cellulosic agricultural waste biomass.
Solid waste management is one of the major environmental burdens particularly in megacities of many developed and developing Asian countries. An alarming rate of solid waste generation trends can be seen parallel to urbanization, industrialization and economic development. This environmental burden continues to be a major pressing issue threatening the environment and health of the people. Unless environmental measures are introduced and effectively enforced, continuing burdens of solid waste management will be inevitable. This report presents and discusses the status-quo and issues of Municipal Waste in 14 countries in Southeast and East Asia. Aspects of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) included herein are generation and composition, policies and regulations, economic instruments, current practices of MSW and other management strategies. The report also presents some propositions and policy recommendations in order to determine regional collective actions on the status-quo and issues regarding Municipal Waste.
Solid and Hazardous waste is increasingly becoming a major environmental burden of most urban and industrial areas. An alarming rate of solid and hazardous waste arising in Asia and the world has been witnessed parallel to urbanization, industrialization and economic development. Issues such as the increase in volume, variety of soid wastes, their qualitative diversification, and the trans-boundary movement of hazardous materials and soaring prices of resources now bound. The Thematic Working Group on Solid and Hazardous Waste (Waste TWG) of the Regional Forum on Environment and Health in Southeast and East Asian Countries was established in 2007 to address many of these problems. The goal of Waste TWG is to ensure environmentally sound management of solid and hazardous waste, particularly municipal and medical waste, and promote the 3R's.
This summary report examines the waste management landscape in 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Member States. This report begins with the statistics on the trends of population growth, urbanization, and economic growth in each of the ASEAN countries, which is then followed by an overview of the waste generation, collection, treatment & recovery, and disposal statistics, and associated environmental, technical, and governance (institutions, policy, regulations) factors in the waste sector. The report also identifies the existing waste management challenges and gaps therein, and sets out recommendations.
The scoping study serves as a preliminary assessment of the current mercury waste management systems and practices in the ASEAN member states (AMS). It is aimed at identifying the current available sources of the relevant information, summarizing the essential information, and identifying gaps of information, challenges, needs and opportunities for further studies or actions. This study covers all AMS jurisdictions, while sector-wise, it focuses on Mercury in the Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining (ASGM); Mercury waste from the chemical manufacturing industry using the Chlor- Alkali process; as well as mercury in fluorescent lamps from industry and household sources. In terms of the Hazardous Waste Management (HWM) aspects under the BC Art. 4 and MC Art. 11, the study covers policies; legislative and regulatory framework; institutional framework; main sources/generators, waste prevention and minimization; handling, separation, collection, packaging and labelling, transportation, storage; treatment and disposal; and contaminated sites.
The Asia Waste Management Outlook (AWMO) provides an overview of the challenges and opportunities in waste management in the context of Asia. The AWMO is not intended to be a directory of wasterelated data or statistics; rather, it is intended to provide a perspective with prescriptions for a variety of stakeholders to encourage early action. It is also intended to provide an overview of the current status, current cutting-edge thinking, and the future of solid waste management in Asia over the medium term.
This report presents findings of capacity-mapping study on the monitoring and assessment of plastic pollution in the Lower Mekong Region. The study was conducted as part of the UN Environment Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific's project titled the *Promotion of ConterMEASUREs against Marine Plastic Litter in Southeast Asia and India" (hereafter, referred to as * ConterMEASURE project"). The CounterMEASURE project aims to develop a region-based approach for the monitoring and assessment of land-based plastic waste leakage and for pollution reduction into inland water ways, such as rivers, canals and drainage systems, and the eventual transport of plastic waste into the oceans.