Decentralized waste management is about each community managing and processing their waste in their locality and not sending it at all to a Centralized large processing facility or often land fill. A centralized one shifts focus from the source of waste generation
to waste disposal sites and involves a large economic investment. Most of the Waste to Energy projects (centralized) tend to fail with low or no profits due to lack of feasibility and high economic investments.
Especially in countries like India where calorific value of waste is low and waste to energy plants are not a recommended Solution.(In India 80% of waste is channelized to landfills)
Benefits of decentralized waste management over Centralized waste management:
Promotes waste segregation at Source
When waste is managed at source it becomes a resource.The earlier we can segregate and process the waste, there is better chance of resource recovery.
Transportation and Processing Costs come down- If we manage waste at source or community level, it is much easier to handle it and logistics costs are negligible
3 Waste sensitization among waste generators-
It promotes the sense of responsibility among waste generators and ownership about their waste
4 Low Cost-Decentralized waste management requires communities to process waste in their own locality using low-cost mechanisms like in house composting.
5 Low Pollution- De centralized approach leads to less pollution and GHG emissions.
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