Open Dump

In many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, as much as 30 to 50 percent of solid waste produced in urban areas is left uncollected. Land disposal of waste has become an inevitable component of the solid waste management system. Open dump, dump site, dump, uncontrolled dump, and uncontrolled waste disposal site are terms used to describe a designated or undesignated site where wastes are either deposited on land, burned, or buried without supervision and without precautions regarding human health or the environment. Thoughtless dumping and uncollected wastes, which characterize the management of solid wastes in cities in low- and middle-income countries, is often aggravated by weak governance institutions, corruption and lack of transparency, low level of public awareness of the potential public health and environmental impacts of waste dumping, and poor attitudes and behaviors towards waste.

Open dumping is the practice of disposal of wastes in open dumps. Over one billion people living in low- and middle-income communities and slums lack appropriate waste management services. As a result, open dumping has become the world's most common method of disposal of wastes. Despite its many disadvantages, individuals and communities have continued to rely on open dumps for the disposal of their waste. Open dumps in low and middle-income countries are also “resource recovery centers,” where hundreds—sometimes thousands—eke out a living from the recovery and sale of what other people have chosen to discard. There is an urgent need to phase out open dumps and put in their place sanitary landfills as a method of waste disposal in developing countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.