Post-Conflict and Post-Disaster Waste Management (Chapter in "Talking Tactics: Environmental Protection and Armed Conflicts")
Publisher: environmental SCIENTIST
Author(s): Thorsten Kallnischkies
Date: 2020
Topics: Basic Services, Disasters, Governance, Livelihoods, Public Health, Renewable Resources, Weapons, Waste, and Pollution
Countries: Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Colombia, Georgia, Haiti, Indonesia
Waste management after disasters and conflicts is usually outside the focus of public attention, and often a blind spot in post-conflict/post-disaster (PC/PD) early recovery and reconstruction. Critical infrastructure and means of transport are often destroyed or heavily damaged in a conflict or disaster, so in the first few days, the initial cleanup work often consists of armed forces or civil protection agencies trying to make critical infrastructure accessible and functional using heavy equipment. These early responders dominate the news during these first days, but although the attention of the news media dwindles, the cleanup work continues for months and years afterwards.
Disasters usually take minutes, hours or just a few days to produce a huge amount of waste; conflicts can continue to do so for months and years. Both post-conflict and post-disaster waste tends to overwhelm city administrations and municipalities by its sheer quantity. Estimated post-conflict waste amounts in Aleppo, Syria are three times the weight of the annual municipal solid waste production in Syria.