Traditional and Modern Trends in Waste Management

In the first two decades of the 21st century, the problem of waste disposal has surfaced with much severity due to the ever-increasing population, rapid urbanization, continuing industrialization, and change in lifestyle, and also to some extent through universal digitalization. These factors have collectively amounted to the generation of enormous volumes of toxic/non-toxic wastes, domestic, agricultural, medical, commercial, industrial, mining, electronic, radioactive, etc. Waste management specifies the sum total of activities and actions essential to handle waste from its origin to its ultimate clearance. In a broader approach, it targets the collection, transportation and disposal of garbage, sewage, and other waste products, simultaneously taking care of its generation, characterization, and minimization too. Though source reduction and reuse, animal feeding, recycling, composting, fermentation, landfills, incineration, and land application are the eight key groups of traditional waste management practices, the modern approach can encompass other aspects like waste management policies with the legal and regulatory framework. Moreover, in recent years, many sophisticated methods are employed to successfully manage these wastes, including biological reprocessing, recovery and recycling, dumping in a sanitary landfill, waste to energy, bioremediation, plasma gasification, and disposal in ocean or sea etc. The advancement that is being made in waste disposal methods is still not adequate. Both developing as well as the least developed countries still have many important issues that need to be resolved related to waste disposal wherein some of the most critical ones include lack of political will to tackle the problem, absence of a planned national policy related to solid waste management, feeble implementation of rules and regulations, paucity of funds dedicated to mitigating the problem, lack of mass awareness and or educational programmes at all levels, and ignorance about a ‘circular economy. Needless to say, even the developed countries continue to grapple with the problem of a speedy and secure mode of waste management. As the waste load increases incessantly, it becomes more and more challenging for humans to find a wholesome method of waste disposal that can help maintain a cleaner environment and support sustainable development. Therefore, the need of the hour is an integrated waste management approach with ‘All for Environment’ attitude. 

Keywords: Environment, Management, Pollution, Technique, Waste.