Managing municipal solid waste from a system perspective: A comparative study of Dalian, China and Waterloo, Canada

Abstract

In China, one of the challenges on managing solid wastes is how to realize waste reduction, reuse and recycling while maintaining rapid development, leading to a demand for an Integrated Solid Waste Management (ISWM) approach. A practical way to improve ISWM in developing countries is to learn from successful experiences in developed countries. Hence, systematic comparisons that reflect the complexity of ISWM systems in different contexts are needed. This paper takes a system perspective to compare and contrast two cases, the Region of Waterloo in Canada and Dalian in China, exploring the reasons for the different management approaches between the two cases. The results show that in some aspects, differences between the two waste management systems are tightly linked to their respective social and economic contexts, which can hardly be changed, whereas other differences can be attributed mainly to management strategies and tools. Suggestions are provided on waste planning, the development of waste diversion programs and waste treatment industries, the design of new programs, and the role of the local government. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

The progressive adoption of a circular economy by businesses for cleaner production: An approach from a regional study in Spain

“…Some of the studies that partially described the activities that companies perform within the framework of the CE can be found in recent reviews of the literature in this field, summarised in Table 1. In summary, the CE-related activities performed by businesses that have been analysed in the literature can be classified into four groups: I) activities that have been implemented for waste treatment and recycling (Chen et al, 2010); II) activities including dematerialisation secondary raw materials and waste recovery (Winkler, 2011); III) activities related to eco-design (Kama, 2015); and IV) activities in which industrial ecology and/or symbiosis is considered (Mathews and Tan, 2011;Winkler, 2011). However, there is no consensus regarding the best method of capturing distinct CE-related activities, nor has it discussed how firms can in practice adapt their business models to this new paradigm (Urbinati et al, 2017).…”

“…In particular, China promulgated specific laws about the CE that had consequences at technological, economic and social levels (Dajian, 2008). Thus, at regional level, several studies have been focused on the Chinese development of the CE and the metrics than could be applied for its measurement in a territory (Geng et al, 2012(Geng et al, , 2009, for waste management (Chen et al, 2010), or for the businesses' activity as agents of CE deployment (Ghisellini et al, 2018;Zhu et al, 2014) Aranda-Usón, A., Portillo-Tarragona, P. Scarpellini, S., Llena-Macarulla, F. (2019 on-line) The progressive adoption of a circular economy by businesses for cleaner production: An approach from a regional study in Spain. Journal of Cleaner Production.…”

Definition and measurement of the circular economy’s regional impact

“…We should note, however, that the landscape of regional governance in environmental settings is heterogeneous (Andrews and Boyne 2008;Gibbs and Jonas 2001;Romero, Jim enez, and Villoria 2012) and is linked to the spatial planning debate (Schaffrin, Sewerin, and Seubert 2014;Schafer and Gallemore 2016) on the availability and management of resources because of industry (Chen et al 2010;Danson and Lloyd 2012;Hughes and Pincetl 2014;Brinkley 2014). This dependence requires decentralised territorial solutions that are based on new strategies and integrated policies and that have been developed in cooperation with different economic sectors (Hovik et al 2015; van Straalen, Janssen-Jansen, and van den Brink 2014).…”

The Impact of Social Capital on farmers' Willingness to Reuse Agricultural Waste for Sustainable Development

“…These events occur frequently and continually, which has had a negative impact on CEA (He and Zhang, ). The government treats waste management as an essential content of public service (Chen et al ., ), but agricultural waste recycling requires the direct and active participation or engagement of other stakeholders as well, particularly farmers (Yau, ). Some studies have noted that encouraging farmers to reuse agricultural waste is the key to solving this dilemma (He and Zhang, ).…”