Strategy for sustainable waste management
Sunday, 9 August 2009
Shahiduzzaman Khan
LACK of awareness appears to be the major problem in solid waste management as people in the city and municipal areas continue to dump wastes in an unplanned way. About half of the solid waste generated every day cannot be collected due to their unplanned and haphazard dumping, a major challenge for solid waste management.
Besides, limited scope for recycling, difficulties to find the land for landfill project, inadequate budget and environmental pollution like ground and surface water contamination are some other major stumbling blocks to a sound waste management. Constrained by fund scarcity and shortage of manpower, the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) can hardly manage 40 per cent of solid waste of the metropolis, falling far behind the global standard in city cleanliness drives.
In its totality, there is no proper master plan for solid waste management in Bangladesh. In fact, such measures were conspicuously ignored in the past. What happens in most of the city corporations is just raw dumping of waste collected from all sites in a comparatively low value low land ignoring all the environmental impacts from it. Some small initiatives were taken earlier, but those were insufficient and not implemented in a proper way.
The solid wastes generated from different sources are highly heterogeneous in their physical, chemical and biological properties and call for different methods for their safe disposal. Solid wastes comprise countless number of different components: dust, discarded food, papers and boards, metals, plastics and glass, cloth and furniture, garden wastes, and many hazardous substances. In most cities of Bangladesh, the decomposeable organic matter is the major component of the municipal refuse and makes up nearly 70 to 80 percent of it. This component of solid wastes, when left uncleared, starts emitting foul odour and it also leads to breeding and proliferation of undesirable disease causing organisms. Solid wastages are causing the most environmental damage to the city's aesthetics and hygiene of its people.
Despite the widespread indiscipline in waste management, the DCC authorities are painting a rosy picture about the capital city saying that Dhaka would be built as a city of global standard by 2015. They sought at least Tk 1.0 billion a year from the government as subsidy to enhance the city corporation's capacity to dispose of hundred percent solid wastes for making a clean Dhaka city. Only recently, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has agreed to fund a DCC project to procure 100 vehicles to cope with the rising demand for waste management. With these, the number of vehicles will stand at 379. It is expected that the launching of the new vehicles will enhance the corporation's capacity to manage up to 60 per cent of the city's wastes.
Currently, some 5,000 tonnes of solid wastes are produced in the Dhaka city a day. The wastes are dumped mostly in two grounds at Aminbazar and Matuail. The city authorities are yet to find any use of recycling the wastes for commercial purpose.
Very recently, Matuail landfill was modernised with facilities like weigh bridge, electrical sub-station building, garage, security house, car-wash pool, surface drains around the facility area and some leachate (liquid that comes out of solid waste) pipes and gas pipes. Matuail is the first sanitary landfill of the country, which was inaugurated in October 2007.
However, the government is reportedly trying to develop a strategy soon for sustainable waste management to keep the environment toxin-free. After threadbare consultations with industry leaders and representatives of concerned organisations, the government is expected to adopt a comprehensive strategy for waste management soon. It is trying to take lessons from the example of Japan. The rich Asian country had bitter experiences in solid waste management since its high growth period in 1960-70s. But the country's local government had tackled the waste management problem very effectively and overcome it. Now waste management is a well-recognised environment-friendly activity in Japan. Bangladesh may hire Japanese experts.
Experts on solid waste management feel that there should be a strong coordination among all city corporations through sharing knowledge and information for ensuring solid waste management. Service delivery, performance and efficiency of the employees connected with the waste management need to be improved through appropriate reforms in the city corporations. The capacity of the city corporation concerned should be enhanced by providing training to the staff members as well as establishing accountability and transparency through proper supervision and monitoring system.
There are many factors that vary from place to place and experts feel that those must be considered in the design of a solid waste management system. The waste contains large amounts of moisture because of the high usage of fresh fruit and vegetables and due to the high proportion of sand particles it become very dense. The combination of the extra weight, the abrasiveness of the sand and the corrosiveness caused by the water content, can cause very rapid deterioration of equipment used for transportation and disposal.
The nature of the waste, its generation rates, density, composition, moisture content, size, distribution of waste materials, pH level, climatic and geographical situation need to be considered in order to recover and recycle acceptable biodegradable materials from agricultural, municipal, institutional, commercial and industrial organic wastes in an environmentally acceptable and cost-effective manner.
The city's waste management problem is such a complicated one that, everybody is at a loss about what to do, and when the problem subsides temporarily, forget all about it. Such a careless response has allowed this urban misery to silently grow and its repercussions are felt with louder intensity in the wet season. The question remains why can't the authorities take some measures during winter to ensure that when monsoon comes, the inconvenience of the urban people would reduce rather than multiply?
Heavy rainfall inundated many parts of the city a few days ago and badly disposed waste mixing with the water vitiated the environment, spreading diseases and resulting in unprecedented waterlogging. The prolonged crisis proved clearly that unless something is done to revamp the waste management process, such situations will keep recurring. Unfortunately, the authorities never seem to wake up unless a catastrophe appears to be imminent.
.........................................................
szkhan@thefinancialexpress-bd.com
LACK of awareness appears to be the major problem in solid waste management as people in the city and municipal areas continue to dump wastes in an unplanned way. About half of the solid waste generated every day cannot be collected due to their unplanned and haphazard dumping, a major challenge for solid waste management.
Besides, limited scope for recycling, difficulties to find the land for landfill project, inadequate budget and environmental pollution like ground and surface water contamination are some other major stumbling blocks to a sound waste management. Constrained by fund scarcity and shortage of manpower, the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) can hardly manage 40 per cent of solid waste of the metropolis, falling far behind the global standard in city cleanliness drives.
In its totality, there is no proper master plan for solid waste management in Bangladesh. In fact, such measures were conspicuously ignored in the past. What happens in most of the city corporations is just raw dumping of waste collected from all sites in a comparatively low value low land ignoring all the environmental impacts from it. Some small initiatives were taken earlier, but those were insufficient and not implemented in a proper way.
The solid wastes generated from different sources are highly heterogeneous in their physical, chemical and biological properties and call for different methods for their safe disposal. Solid wastes comprise countless number of different components: dust, discarded food, papers and boards, metals, plastics and glass, cloth and furniture, garden wastes, and many hazardous substances. In most cities of Bangladesh, the decomposeable organic matter is the major component of the municipal refuse and makes up nearly 70 to 80 percent of it. This component of solid wastes, when left uncleared, starts emitting foul odour and it also leads to breeding and proliferation of undesirable disease causing organisms. Solid wastages are causing the most environmental damage to the city's aesthetics and hygiene of its people.
Despite the widespread indiscipline in waste management, the DCC authorities are painting a rosy picture about the capital city saying that Dhaka would be built as a city of global standard by 2015. They sought at least Tk 1.0 billion a year from the government as subsidy to enhance the city corporation's capacity to dispose of hundred percent solid wastes for making a clean Dhaka city. Only recently, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has agreed to fund a DCC project to procure 100 vehicles to cope with the rising demand for waste management. With these, the number of vehicles will stand at 379. It is expected that the launching of the new vehicles will enhance the corporation's capacity to manage up to 60 per cent of the city's wastes.
Currently, some 5,000 tonnes of solid wastes are produced in the Dhaka city a day. The wastes are dumped mostly in two grounds at Aminbazar and Matuail. The city authorities are yet to find any use of recycling the wastes for commercial purpose.
Very recently, Matuail landfill was modernised with facilities like weigh bridge, electrical sub-station building, garage, security house, car-wash pool, surface drains around the facility area and some leachate (liquid that comes out of solid waste) pipes and gas pipes. Matuail is the first sanitary landfill of the country, which was inaugurated in October 2007.
However, the government is reportedly trying to develop a strategy soon for sustainable waste management to keep the environment toxin-free. After threadbare consultations with industry leaders and representatives of concerned organisations, the government is expected to adopt a comprehensive strategy for waste management soon. It is trying to take lessons from the example of Japan. The rich Asian country had bitter experiences in solid waste management since its high growth period in 1960-70s. But the country's local government had tackled the waste management problem very effectively and overcome it. Now waste management is a well-recognised environment-friendly activity in Japan. Bangladesh may hire Japanese experts.
Experts on solid waste management feel that there should be a strong coordination among all city corporations through sharing knowledge and information for ensuring solid waste management. Service delivery, performance and efficiency of the employees connected with the waste management need to be improved through appropriate reforms in the city corporations. The capacity of the city corporation concerned should be enhanced by providing training to the staff members as well as establishing accountability and transparency through proper supervision and monitoring system.
There are many factors that vary from place to place and experts feel that those must be considered in the design of a solid waste management system. The waste contains large amounts of moisture because of the high usage of fresh fruit and vegetables and due to the high proportion of sand particles it become very dense. The combination of the extra weight, the abrasiveness of the sand and the corrosiveness caused by the water content, can cause very rapid deterioration of equipment used for transportation and disposal.
The nature of the waste, its generation rates, density, composition, moisture content, size, distribution of waste materials, pH level, climatic and geographical situation need to be considered in order to recover and recycle acceptable biodegradable materials from agricultural, municipal, institutional, commercial and industrial organic wastes in an environmentally acceptable and cost-effective manner.
The city's waste management problem is such a complicated one that, everybody is at a loss about what to do, and when the problem subsides temporarily, forget all about it. Such a careless response has allowed this urban misery to silently grow and its repercussions are felt with louder intensity in the wet season. The question remains why can't the authorities take some measures during winter to ensure that when monsoon comes, the inconvenience of the urban people would reduce rather than multiply?
Heavy rainfall inundated many parts of the city a few days ago and badly disposed waste mixing with the water vitiated the environment, spreading diseases and resulting in unprecedented waterlogging. The prolonged crisis proved clearly that unless something is done to revamp the waste management process, such situations will keep recurring. Unfortunately, the authorities never seem to wake up unless a catastrophe appears to be imminent.
.........................................................
szkhan@thefinancialexpress-bd.com