Consumer's Handbook for Reducing Solid Waste

Up to 10 billon metric tons of solid waste is generated annually from urban households, commerce, industry, and construction globally. This is bound to increase further as populations grow and migration from rural to urban areas occurs with wealth and consumption inevitably rising, prompting the amount of waste per person to multiply.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) implemented a regional technical assistance, TA 8566: Mainstreaming Integrated Solid Waste Management in Asia, to conduct an assessment of solid waste management practices in five case study cities in Asia and to provide recommendations and best practices that can guide municipalities, ADB project officers and others on how to improve proper waste management and achieve a clean, livable city.

The toolkit, Integrated Solid Waste Management for Local Government: A Practical Guide, is a major knowledge output arising from this TA. The lessons learnt from studying the five cities under this project were collated, and supplemented with general industry experience of the consulting team, bank staff and reviewers. The toolkit contains more than 40 practice briefs designed to provide easily accessible information in a very targeted manner, with embedded hyperlinks to reference documents should the reader wish to obtain more data on that topic.

One of the references of this toolkit or practice guide is this publication from the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Published in 1996, it is still highly relevant in getting the public to reduce their waste. The handbook explains common concepts in waste management, such as source reduction and recycling, and it also provides easy-to-apply suggestions on conserving resources, reusing items, and even sharing seldom-used objects. It also promotes the importance of educating others, from neighbors to local businesses and community leaders.