Generation and management of municipal solid waste in top metropolitans of China: A comparison with Singapore

Abstract

With the rapid urbanization in the last decades, especially after the year 2000, several metropolitans were formed. e.g., Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, and Chongqing that locate at four world-class megalopolises across China. The generation and management of municipal solid waste (MSW) are important components for city development, both of which are spatiotemporally heterogeneous among these metropolitans, as a result of diverse socioeconomic statuses. This study attempts to sufficiently reveal the spatiotemporal heterogeneity by determining the MSW per capita, MSW composition, and proportion of each management strategy (landfilling, incineration, and compositing). Singapore is taken for comparison, for it is a Chinese community and well-known for its outstanding performance in environmental sanitation. Results show that MSW per capita is highly dependent on GDP per capita, and exerts an increasing tendency with time, but can be relieved with MSW reduction policy. For each metropolitan, the development of landfilling and incineration fits the Kuznets curve well, and government policy is a more determinant factor than GDP. MSW composition is also time- and location-dependent, and source sorting generally favors the subsequent resource utilization including the mainstream incineration. In addition to MSW generation and management, the action, goal, and experience in Singapore are expatiated, which are believed to be of referential significance for these metropolitans.