Lessons from the Technical Cooperation for Waste Reduction and Minimization in Municipal Waste Management in Palestine
摘要
Palestine is divided into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with a total population of 5 million, with about 3 million in the West Bank and 2 million in the Gaza Strip. These Palestinian residents generate more than 4,000 tons of municipal waste per day, and to ensure public health and prevent environmental pollution, the waste generated must be properly treated and disposed. Since no waste incineration facilities have been introduced, the only method of final disposal of waste is landfilling, but securing land for waste landfill sites is extremely difficult due to the problems under the occupation. In addition, the remaining capacity of the existing sanitary landfill and controlled dump sites is limited. Therefore, drastic reduction of waste generation and waste minimization are urgent issues for the Palestinian Authority. Waste management in Palestine is handled by joint service councils (JSCs), which are jointly managed by local government units (LGUs) on a governorate basis. 13 JSCs in West Bank and 2 JSCs in Gaza Strip are providing waste collection services to residents. As a result, the coverage of waste collection services is more than 94% of residents by 2023. Under these circumstances, it is necessary to formulate a Waste Reduction and Minimization Plan (WRMP) for all JSCs to cooperate in reducing the waste generation and minimizing the disposal amount of waste. An international technical cooperation project was implemented against this situation from 2020 to 2024. This paper describes the formulation process of the WRMP in the Project, provides an overview of its contents, and discusses lessons and learned from the project experiences.