Earth Engineering Center Publications

The Earth Institute Newsletter for Cross-Cutting Research, Summer 2005

In the past decade, strong economic growth and uncontrolled urbanization have greatly magnified the problems with Vietnam’s solid waste management system, pushing waste management to the forefront of environmental challenges with which it must contend. Not only has there been an increase in the amounts of waste generated, the composition of the waste has changed as well. The current system is already overtaxed due to lack of institutional capacity and insufficient human and capital resources as can be evidenced by low collection rates and inadequate waste facilities. Given socio-economic trends, the issue of how to deal with its solid waste will only become more critical as Vietnam industrializes.

Waste Management World, ISWA (www.iswa.org), September-October 2004 Issue
By Nickolas J. Themelis and Scott M. Kaufman
The US generates the highest amount of waste per person in the world and continues to rely on landfilling at the expense of recycling and waste-to-energy, according to the latest in an annual series of national surveys on municipal solid waste generation and management.