Characterization and planning of household waste management : a case study from the MENA region

Abstract

Solid waste management is one of the most important environmental issues worldwide, particularly in MENA countries. The present study was carried out in the city of Algiers, the capital city of Algeria. This urban area is marked by an increase in waste flow combined with a demographic surge. In order to investigate waste production and its drivers, we used both multiple regression and correlation analyses to test this dependence. Geospatial analysis was performed using principal component analysis integrated with GIS in order to look at the spatial distribution of waste management and potential drivers of waste production. The results indicate that household waste management is influenced by drivers related to the size of the settlement and the characteristics of waste management companies ( ≤ 0.05). The findings also show that none of the sociodemographic variables were found to significantly influence waste production. However, the spatial distribution is influenced by the geographic and sociodemographic characteristics of Algeria at all territorial levels. Algiers is still a landfill-based city in the MENA region, where mixed waste collection prevails in all districts. This study reinforces the importance of expanding source-separated waste collection schemes in order to increase the household waste diversion from landfills and, more importantly, shows how modern tools such as GIS, principal component analysis, and spatial analysis urban planning are useful for monitoring household waste, in line with circular economy principles.