PROJECT DURATION
February 1999 – July 2007
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The Solid Waste Management Project Phitsanulok aimed at introducing an efficient and environmentally sound solid waste management system for the city of Phitsanulok.
The main focus was on technical and organizational aspects, such as improvement of solid waste collection, transport and disposal standards. Waste avoidance campaigns and recycling of waste and organizational and finance-related aspects constituted further important fields of action.
The improvements and development in the municipality of Phitsanulok quickly aroused the attention of other towns, communities and national authorities. Therefore the project activities focused on a dissemination of the waste management concept of Phitsanulok on a national scale starting in the pilot regions of Chiang Mai and Lamphun. In all areas that took part in the project a significant increase of the recycling rate and a decrease of accruing residual waste and disposal costs could be observed. In Phitsanulok itself a decrease of waste volume from 140 tons to 86 tons a day and an increase of the recycling rate of inorganic waste to 90% (national average 55%) could be achieved.
Concepts of waste management that had been developed during the project were also taken up by other municipalities, e.g. by the Laotian capital of Vientiane.