Kuwait, being one of the richest countries, is among the highest per capita waste generators in the world. Each year more than 2 million tons of solid waste is generated in the tiny Arab nation. High standards of living and rapid economic growth has been a major factor behind very high per capita waste generation of 1.4 to 1.5 kg per day.
Waste Disposal Method
The prevalent solid waste management method in Kuwait is landfill burial. Despite being a small country, Kuwait has astonishingly high number of landfills. There are 18 landfills, of which 14 sites are closed and 4 sites are still in operation. These landfills act as dumpsites, rather than engineered landfills.
Menace of Landfills
Infact, landfill sites in Kuwait are notorious for causing severe public health and environmental issues. Besides piling up huge amounts of garbage, landfill sites generate huge amount of toxic gases (methane, carbon dioxide etc) and plagued by spontaneous fires. Due to fast paced urban development, residential areas have expanded to the edges of landfill sites thus causing grave danger to public health.
The total land area of Kuwait is around 17,820 sq. km, out of which more than 18 sq. km is occupied by landfills. Area of the landfill sites ranges from tens to hundreds of hectares with waste deposition depth varying from 3 to 30 meters.
All kind of wastes, including municipal wastes, food wastes, industrial wastes, construction and demolition debris etc are dumped at these sites. Infact, about 90 percent of the domestic waste is sent to landfills which imply that more landfills will be required to tackle rapidly increasing volumes of solid wastes.
Most of the landfill sites have been closed for more than 20 years due to operational problems and proximity to new residential, commercial and industrial areas. These sites include Sulaibiyah, Kabed, Al Qurain, Shuaiba, Jleeb AI Shuyoukh, West Yarmouk, AI Wafra among others. Migration of leachate beyond landfill site boundaries is a frequent problem noticed across Kuwait. Groundwater contamination has emerged as a serious problem because groundwater occurs at shallow depths throughout the country.
The major landfill sites operated by municipality for solid waste disposal are Jleeb AI Shuyoukh, Sulaibiyah and Al-Qurain. The Qurain landfill, with area of 1 sq. km, was used for dumping of municipal solid waste and construction materials from 1975 until 1985 with total volume of dumped waste being 5 million m3.
The Sulaibiyah landfill site received more than 500 tons of waste per day from 1980 to 2000 with area spanning 3 sq. km. Jleeb AI Shuyoukh, largest landfill site in Kuwait with area exceeding 6 sq. km, received 2500 tons per day of household waste and industrial waste between 1970 and 1993. Around 20 million m3 of wastes was dumped in this facility during its operational period.
Over the years, most of the dumpsites in Kuwait have been surrounded by residential and commercial areas due to urban development over the years. Uncontrolled dumpsites were managed by poorly-trained staff resulting in transformation of dumpsites in breeding grounds for pathogens, toxic gases and spontaneous fires.
Most of the landfill sites have been forced to close, much before achieving their capacities, because of improper disposal methods and concerns related to public health and environment. Due to fast-paced industrial development and urban expansion, some of the landfills are located on the edges of residential, as is the case of Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh and Al-Qurain sites, endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
Now is the time to start solid waste management in Kuwait because they don’t have a single moment to spare. Kuwait is a small country and they will not find a piece of a land for their use in near future. Environmental pollution is a chronic effect on human health. They may get relief from many disease and reduce global warming by management of solid waste specially house hold waste.
Dr. Khabir Uddin
Jahangirnagar University
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Enjoyed your comments. I find that in most countries – retro-active clean-up of landfills and energy production can only be accomplished with a direct involvement and commitment of several levels of governments – a la funding – and equally important, a very well defined go-forward policy for waste management – domestic, industrial and hazardous. I find that in most cases this is piecemeal and not well defined – not to mention lacking funding. In addition, there are many solutions being well marketed that are not proven and quite frankly not economic or worse, simply don’t work. This is an area where there needs to be more international cooperation in sharing technologies and public policy that DOES work , IS economic and REALLY addresses the waste management problems that are coming to a head today.
It would be comparitively easier to implement a systematic municipal waste management system in Kuwait for multiple reasons, ranging from the area to population. It’s high time to think about it.