A successful case in waste management in developing countries

Proceedings of Recycling 2020

April 20-21, 2020 | Webinar

Lorena De Medina-Salas, Eduardo Castillo-Gonzalez and Mario Rafael Giraldi-Diaz

Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Adv Recycling Waste Manag

Abstract :

Although most developing countries have serious problems with the issue of waste management, there have been some success stories including the development of environmental public policies, which had led to better life quality. In most developing countries, waste management considers only two stages: collection and final disposal. The collection system does not include a differentiated collection of the municipal solid waste (MSW), this implies that the valorisation of the different waste fractions becomes more difficult to separate and most of them are dumped on uncontrolled sites. Meanwhile, the landfilled sites are limited and usually are about to exceed their capacity. In certain rural and semiurban localities is common practice to burn their waste, polluting the air, soil and even water. Local authorities are doing some efforts to prevent this pollution type, but it does not always work properly. However, there are certain successful cases like Teocelo, Veracruz, Mexico. This is a semi-urban locality where since the year 2000 the inhabitants are contributing to waste management in different ways. All the people separate their waste in organic and inorganic. Only the inorganic fraction is managed to the collection system, while a part of the organic fraction is usually composted in homes and the rest is treated in a composting plant. Until now the people of the locality keep this way of living and considers that the care of the environment is important for this and new generations.

Biography :

Lorena De Medina Salas completed her PhD at age 29 at Pacific Western University, USA. She is a professor and researcher in the waste management area of the Environmental Engineering Program at Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad Veracruzana in Mexico, with 15 years of experience. She has published more than 35 papers and has been serving as a scientific reviewer for reputed journals.
Eduardo Castillo González is a Civil Engineer with professional certification, master's degree in Environmental Engineering and doctorate (PhD) in Education. Full-time professor at the Faculty of Chemical Sciences of the Universidad Veracruzana. He has published more than 30 papers and belongs to the National System of Researchers in Mexico. He is currently the Principal of the Faculty of Civil Engineering in the Xalapa region of the Universidad Veracruzana.
Mario Rafael Giraldi Díaz, earned a doctorate (PhD) in Environmental Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain. He was granted with two postdoctoral research fellowship. He has more than ten years of experience in the scientific-field of industrial ecology, he has several international publications and theses directions in this field. He has professional experience in the industry and government agencies, currently he is full professor and researcher of environmental engineering at the Faculty of Chemical Sciences of the Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico.