Solid waste management international perspectives

Abstract

Solid Waste Management is from many perspectives an international mission. Pollutants and emissions do not know of any boarders, they move from one country to another causing problems. We are all involved in the important task to protect the environment from these emissions - emissions coming from different products which finally have turned into waste. Wastes are simply discarded products and the design of a product can have a very significant impact on the nature of the waste that is produced. Different products are spread all over the world, finally ending up as waste, thus contributing to the negative impact on the environment if not handled in a proper way. It is only by working together from an international perspective as we can influence the producers to take their responsibility for a product throughout its entire life cycle and as we can develop ways of handling produced waste in such a way that the transboundary movement of emissions and the negative impact on the environment is minimized. Any vision, any outlook and any discussion of the future solid waste management must be based upon Agenda 21, adopted at the UN Conference on "Environment and Development" in Rio de Janeiro, 1 992. The International Conferences, Habitat I and Habitat II following of Agenda 21 have clearly showed the necessity of stressing a continously developing of an improved and acceptable solid waste management, especially in urbanized and over-crowded city areas. The problem of getting a hygienical and environmentally safe solid waste management is to a very large extent a problem of the large city areas. As waste management is a worldwide problem - with very much the same problems in different countries - there also is a need of exchanging information, experiences, know-how and results from R & D and different projects. From an International Perspective the establishing of a well functioning network is extremely important.