Municipal solid waste management in Beijing City

Journal Article · Tue Sep 15 00:00:00 EDT 2009 · Waste Management

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2009.03.018· OSTI ID:21269370

Zhenshan, Li ^[1]; Lei, Yang ^[1]; XiaoYan, Qu ^[2]; Yumei, Sui ^[1]

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1. Department of Environmental Engineering, Peking University, Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, No. 5, Yi Heyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100871 (China)
2. Key Laboratory for Environmental and Urban Sciences, Shenzhen Graduate School, Peking University, Shenzhen 518055 (China)

This paper presents an overview of municipal solid waste (MSW) management in Beijing City. Beijing, the capital of China, has a land area of approximately 1368.32 km{sup 2} with an urban population of about 13.33 million in 2006. Over the past three decades, MSW generation in Beijing City has increased tremendously from 1.04 million tons in 1978 to 4.134 million tons in 2006. The average generation rate of MSW in 2006 was 0.85 kg/capita/day. Food waste comprised 63.39%, followed by paper (11.07%), plastics (12.7%) and dust (5.78%). While all other wastes including tiles, textiles, glass, metals and wood accounted for less than 3%. Currently, 90% of MSW generated in Beijing is landfilled, 8% is incinerated and 2% is composted. Source separation collection, as a waste reduction method, has been carried out in a total of 2255 demonstration residential and commercial areas (covering about 4.7 million people) up to the end of 2007. Demonstration districts should be promoted over a wider range instead of demonstration communities. The capacity of transfer stations and treatment plants is an urgent problem as these sites are seriously overloaded. These problems should first be solved by constructing more sites and converting to new treatment technologies. Improvements in legislation, public education and the management of waste pickers are problematic issues which need to be addressed.

• OSTI ID: 21269370
• Journal Information: Waste Management, Vol. 29, Issue 9; Other Information: DOI: 10.1016/j.wasman.2009.03.018; PII: S0956-053X(09)00103-2; Copyright (c) 2009 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, All rights reserved; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0956-053X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

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URBAN AREAS
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