The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the household waste flow during the containment period

Abstract

The first COVID-19 case in Algeria, was registered on February 25, 2020, it concerns an Italian national. On November 5, 2020, the total number of infected persons reached 60169 cases and keeps on rising to the point that the curve does not follow the normal law. The present work tries to illustrate another implication caused by the coronavirus pandemic. We focus on the amount of waste produced during the containment caused by the coronavirus epidemic. Targeting three engineered landfill centers (ELCs) located in northeastern Algeria occupying three important wilayas (states) that are Guelma, Eltaref and Annaba, in different population densities. A variable trend increase in household waste quantity is determined during this study. Guelma shows an increase of about 20%, however, Eltaref shows an increase of 11%, while Annaba shows an increase of about 14%. An increase of the quantities of waste entering the landfills during the pandemic, which will have enormous impacts on technical management, on the leachate flow with its heavy environmental impacts and which will cause an early saturation of the cells, especially with the stopping of the recycling process due to security measures. This study highlights the need to re-examine the current management system in order to better manager similar crises in the future.