A System Dynamics Study of Solid Waste Recovery Policies in Phnom Penh City

There is an economic reason to extend the useful life of the landfill because once the old landfill is filled, the new one can be found only at greater distance, and this increases remarkably the transportation cost. Therefore, waste has to be recovered as much as possible. To do this, in developing countries context, small scale composting promotion is widely accepted and the contribution of informal recycling is also widely recognized. The question remains to what extent composting and informal recycling contribute to the waste diversion. To create a platform for discussion and learning, a model is established. The model in this paper is based on the system dynamics (SD) approach. The simulation results with the data collected in Phnom Penh city, Cambodia, show that waste recovery through small-scale composting and informal recycling cannot contribute significantly to the waste diversion without other supporting policies.