Challenges and opportunities of municipal solid waste management system in Homs city, Syria

The management of municipal solid waste (MSW) is a serious challenge facing both the national and local authorities in Syria. As a consequence of the conflict that began in March 2011, the solid waste situation worsened where collection vehicles and waste containers were damaged or looted, and workers were kidnapped and killed. The unsafe circumstances due to the war, the scarce financial resources, the nature of the inadequate infrastructure and the lack/migration of skilled engineers resulted in weak management and treatment of solid waste. The paper aims to present the current practices of municipal solid waste management (MSWM) in Homs city, assess and understand the MSW system and its main challenges in order to remedy the current problems in the solid waste sector and to contribute to the building of a future of sustainable solid waste management in Syria. A combination of methods was employed in this study in order to understand the MSWM system of Homs city, and data were collected from scientific literature, existing databases, observations made during visits to urban areas and structured interviews with relevant stakeholders.