DECOUPLING OF WASTE GENERATION FROM ECONOMIC GROWTH A PERSPECTIVE OF MATERIAL FLOW ANALYSIS

摘要

The paper focused on estimating solid waste generations in Taiwan and studying whether the decoupling of waste generation from economic growth has occurred or not. An economy-wide material flow analysis that estimates the domestic processed output of solid waste was therefore accomplished. For the purposes of future projection and further comparisons, we also developed a generation coefficient based method, in which the coefficients are defined as solid phase residual generation per sectoral products gained. Among the sectors of agriculture, industry, service, and household considered, the daily generation rates of household solid waste are further analyzed and projected based on a regression analysis. The daily household waste generation coefficient reduced dramatically from that of 1.323 (in 1995) to 0.892 (in 2004) and is projected as 0.642 (kg d~(-1) person~(-1)) in 2010. In addition, the relationship between national income (GDP) and waste generation was also investigated. The cumulative GDP growth rate reaches 300% during the 20 year study period (1990 to 2010). On the other hand, the total solid waste generations decrease apparently during that period. An inverted-U relationship suggests the appearance of the decoupling of solid waste generations from economic growth.