Sanitary Condition of Rural Domestic Waste in the Huai River Basin, 2015—2018

Objective To investigate the discharge, collection, transport, and disposal of rural domestic waste in the Huai River Basin, China from 2015 to 2018.

Methods The samples including 3 100 households and 28/29 waste treatment plants in 620 administrative villages from 31 counties of 31 prefecture-level cities in the Huai River Basin were randomly selected as subjects using the multistage random sampling method. Historical document review and questionnaire survey were performed to collect the regional data on population and economy, as well as domestic waste discharge, collection, transport, and disposal.

Results From 2015 to 2018, the per capita output of domestic waste in rural areas of the Huai River Basin was (0.43~0.51) kg/d. The main way of discarding domestic waste was discarding to garbage cans/pools. Compared with 2015, in 2018, the proportion of rural households using cans/pools increased by 31.84%; the proportion of administrative villages with unified garbage collection increased by 28.23%; the proportion of administrative villages with unified garbage transport increased by 33.9%. From 2015 to 2018, 42.59%~60.66% of the total population in the surveyed counties had their domestic waste disposed in waste treatment plants; the waste disposal rate was 62.73%~77.17%.

Conclusion Rural domestic waste discharge, collection, transport, and disposal in the Huai River Basin has improved, but the capacity of waste treatment plants cannot meet the demand for domestic waste treatment in this area. The construction of rural waste treatment facilities should be improved.