Southeast Asia to spend $40b to manage waste

Southeast Asia to spend $40b to manage waste

SINGAPORE (AFP): Rapidly-growing Southeast Asian countries
are expected to spend a whopping US$40 billion annually on
disposing household and industrial waste within a decade, a
regional study showed yesterday.

Currently, these countries spent about $12 billion a year on
waste management projects.

The Singapore-based Regional Institute of Environmental
Technology (RIET), which carried out the study jointly with a
German company, INTEC GmbH, said the figures were derived from
empirical studies due to the absence of reliable statistics.

The study covered Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

RIET Managing director Philippe Bergeron told AFP that the
waste management in the region was set to rapidly expand in the
next few years, creating huge investment opportunities for
foreign waste disposal companies, equipment suppliers and plant
contractors.

"This is the message of the new study focused principally on
municipal and industrial waste in metropolitan areas," he said.

RIET, a non-profit organization supported by the Commission of
the European Union and the Singapore government, was established
to promote effective environmental technology throughout Asia and
to facilitate cooperation between the two continents.

Bergeron said that the future of waste management technology
in the region was bright because environmental protection was
increasingly being viewed as a vital cog in business and a pre-
requisite for sustainable growth.

Citing Taiwan as an example, he said government moves to
privatize municipal solid waste collection, disposal and
recycling would open up a huge market for environmental
technology and services.

"There is a big need to build capacity management in solid
waste in the region and I am convinced that this can be met
through joint ventures between local and foreign partners,
particularly from Europe," Bergeron said.