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Tourism and waste management: the sustainability challenge

Construction waste lies abandoned around a tourist site in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.


Siem Reap, Cambodia's third largest city, is worldwide known for its vicinity to the UNESCO heritage site of Angkor. The largest archaeological park in the country and one of the main in South East Asia, Angkor features countless remains of temples of the former capital of the Khmer Empire, dating as far back as the 8th century. Sites such as Angkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Prohm attract more than 2 million tourists every year.

Located less than 10 km away from the archaeological sites, the city of Siem Reap has meanwhile evolved into a major hospitality hub. Numerous hotels, restaurants and agencies providing tourist services constitute the new soul of this city that is now home to more than 990,000 inhabitants.

The entry to Bayon temple in Angkor.

Along with the development of tourism in Siem Reap, what has concurrently increased over the years is however also the amount of waste produced by the city, a trend common to the whole country. The Cambodian Education and Waste Management Organization (COMPED - WM) estimates that from 2004 to 2016 the amount of solid waste disposed at landfills in Cambodia has increased almost fourfold and is expecting to reach 1,156,000 annual tons in 2016.

Data released in 2015 by the Provincial Departments of Planning indicate that the annual generation of municipal solid waste in Cambodia totals around 2,800,000 tons. Of this, in 2014 only approximately 39% was collected and transported from the urban cities to the 76 landfills across the country. This includes construction waste, household hazardous waste, some electronic waste and medical waste.

Against this increase of waste generation, the waste management capacity and infrastructures of the country remain limited and new efforts are needed to establish and operate an efficient, hazard-free, economically viable and environment-friendly waste management system. This challenge is common to many developing countries in Asia and beyond, and is becoming an increasingly pressing one for its implications on the well-being of citizens as well as environmental sustainability.

Some of the informal waste pickers at the Siem Reap landfill live on site in shanty huts surrounded by waste and with no WASH facilities.

In July 2016 the SWITCH-Asia Network Facility partnered with COMPED-WM to organize a workshop on Waste Management and Circular Economy in Asia. The event was held in conjunction with the XII Asia Pacific Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production (APRSCP) and included a fieldtrip to the municipal landfill of Siem Reap, under the guidance of Mr. Phalla Sam, COMPED-WM's Senior Technical Adviser and Compost Project Manager. [A PPT with the information he provided during the visit is available here.]

Located 28 km away from Siem Reap in Prakasat Bakong district, the Anlong Pi landfill mirrors many of the issues faced by Cambodia in managing waste, while also exposing the increasing challenges of making tourism a sustainable industry.

A worker from one of the private companies managing the transportation of waste to the landfill supervises the latest load.

In Cambodian cities, urban waste is gathered by estimated 5,000 collectors who deliver it to dedicated collection points. From there, trucks collect the waste daily and deposit it into landfills, which are usually open pits where open burning takes place. Municipalities tender the transportation of waste out to private companies, at least in the main cities of the country. In other parts, this service is provided by collectors based on market fees.

The municipality of Siem Reap has one waste collection point, where trucks of the GAEA and Vgreen transportation companies collect the waste and deliver it to the Anlong Pi landfill, Siem Reap's only official landfill.

The horizon at Anlong Pi is filled with waste.

The Anlong Pi landfill covers an area of 8 hectares, although only 3 ha are currently in use. With land prices expected to rise, the company managing the site decided to purchase more hectares in advance, anticipating expanding needs, explained Mr Sam. The landfill is in operation since the end of 2008, when it consisted of only 2 hectares. Additional land has been bought over the years from local farmers, who were happy to sell it so to improve their income and livelihoods, said Mr Sam.

Over the years poor farmers from the area have been happy to sell their land to the expanding landfill, so to earn more income. Meanwhile inefficient waste management at the landfill contaminates water and soil of the surrounding areas.

Siem Reap generates 267 tons of waste per day, out of which 230 are dumped at the Anlong Pi landfill. As explained by COMPED-WM Director, Mr. Rithy Uch, the problem is thus less one of collection. A very high rate of waste is in fact collected in Siem Reap, although often the timing of collection is not well coordinated and household waste remains along the streets for hours.

The main problem rests with how the landfill is organized and managed, and the lack of any institutionalised recycling.

In fact the municipal solid waste daily delivered to Anlong Pi is dumped on the site, with no official recycling process taking place afterwards. This is a problem common to the whole country, explained COMPED-WM: of the total recyclable waste collected in Cambodia, only 15-20% remains in the country for further processing, while as much as 85-80% is sold to recycling operators abroad to Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and other countries in the region
Recycling of raw materials such as scraps of plastic, paper, aluminium and iron is too costly to be processed domestically due to high electricity costs: in Vietnam, for instance, electricity costs 3 cent/kwh against 20 cent/kwh in Cambodia. For local companies exporting waste scavenged from landfills is thus more profitable than recycling it in Cambodia.

Municipal solid waste brought from Siem Reap to the Anlong Pi landfill is dumped on site with no official recycling taking place.

Although the waste dumped on landfills such as Anlong Pi is not formally recycled, there is effectively an entire manpower that makes a living by scavenging through the waste and picking anything that can still be sold: plastic, copper, glass and paper for instance. While official figures are hard to obtain, Mr Sam estimates that at least 100 people, including children, work as waste pickers in Anlong Pi alone. The figure is in the range of 1,500 to 2,000 when considering all of the 76 official landfills in Cambodia, explained COMPED-WM.

Informal workers, including children, work at the landfill, scavenging through waste that can still be sold. Many of them also live in the landfill.

Many of these informal workers rush to the site as the trucks come to dump their daily loads of waste. Many others, however, live on the site itself, in shanty huts with no water, sanitation and hygiene facilities and exposed to the contamination caused by the waste. The landfills in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh are the only ones in the country where no open burning of waste takes place. However methane is still being generated and inhaled by waste pickers, due to the exposure to the hot climate of e-waste such as batteries and because of workers burning the remaining metal.

At Anlong Pi and other landfills in Cambodia the livelihoods of entire families depend on their work as waste pickers.

Waste pickers perform their work without any safety and protective equipment in this putrid environment under a scorching hot sun, constantly exposed to stench and inhaling toxic fumes. Poor children drop out of school to pick waste and provide much needed additional income to their families.

One kilo of plastic bottles, equivalent to some 50 units, can earn them up to 0,10 USD. On a lucky day, waste pickers can make 2 USD.

Poor children drop out of school to work as informal waste pickers at the landfill.

The case of Siem Reap is unfortunately not an isolated one in Asia. Ineffective and inefficient waste management plagues all developing countries and is gaining growing prominence around tourist sites. Revealingly a new EU-funded SWITCH-Asia project was recently launched in Laos, which also addresses issues of effective waste management in a renowned tourist destination. Luang Prabang: Handle with care aims at reconciling preservation of a UNESCO heritage and development of tourism with sustainability, including proper waste management.

Evidence from the region points to the need for more robust public investment in ensuring an environment-friendly, safe and effective management of the increasing amount of waste being generated.

With regard to consumer behaviour, it is noteworthy that public awareness is growing about the risks and damages associated with waste production and management. However old practices often remain in place in the absence of effective and affordable alternatives, as resulted of market studies and consumer surveys recently conducted by the SWITCH-Asia project Reducing plastic bag waste in major cities in Cambodia.

Undoubtedly public investment in waste management systems and infrastructures remains a major challenge for poor and least developed countries, such as Cambodia. Besides a responsibility, this however presents also an opportunity for the private sector, especially in the case of tourist sites where private revenues depend substantially on tourist inflow.

Informal workers at Anlong Pi take a break as they wait for the arrival of the next truck carrying waste.

A stronger acknowledgement and appreciation of the link between environmental preservation and economic growth shall further encourage private sector stakeholders, such as the hospitality industry, to proactively contribute to tackle rampant waste management problems which damage their living environment while potentially jeopardising the reputation of the site. Public private partnerships can thus become an effective avenue towards a cleaner and safer environment.

Concurrently, the work of the informal sector, whose precarious and vulnerable livelihoods often depend entirely on waste management, shall be acknowledged and institutionalised. In this way a safe working environment would be provided to needy social groups, while integrating their important professional contribution. 
 

Photography and text: Silvia Sartori / SWITCH-Asia Network Facility