7 minute read
Challenges and its opportunities
Kathmandu’s Waste Management: Challenges and
its opportunities Rtn. Nabin Bikash Maharjan Co-founder/CEO Blue Waste to Value Technical Advisor Solid Waste Management Association of Nepal
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Kathmandu Valley has 18 Local authorities, generating more than 1200+ tons of garbage everyday and it has become a headache for the newly elected mayor and its council members who are responsible for the management. It's been a long time since 2005 AD (>17 years) the Sisdol landfill site was continuously receiving the garbage from Kathmandu Valley. The landfill was designed to manage temporarily to receive garbage for only 2 years with the goal to finish the construction of a long term engineered sanitary landfill at Banchare danda. But the Banchare Danda landfill construction was not moved on as expected and so Sisdole has to receive the garbage continuously from the valley. Waste management is crucial and it comes as an issue every year, and elected bodies discuss for the opening of the ways to dump the generating garbage at the sisdole, promising several demands from the locals and then again they fail to fulfill the demands which is partly fullfill the commitments. So then again the issue gets back to the same point. This trend of halting and negotiating has continued and never solved the main issues of their demands.
Responsible environment friendly solid waste management hierarchy directs that the prevention of waste or refuse is the first step, and then to reduce and reuse options. The leaders did not get the subject into the priority neither the civilians nor commercial establishments. Due to the lack of strict supervisioning and monitoring mechanisms in the system, people used to mix their garbage and even the collectors mixed them into the same vehicle. Solid Waste
Management Act 2068 BS and Regulations 2071 BS clearly stated that the local authorities have full responsibility of their city”s solid waste management, they can have either take the support of the private consultation/dedicate them to manage the garbage in proper environment friendly adaptations, however, this has never become a rule to follow at the practical ground. Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has its separate Environment Management Department (EMD) which is taking responsibility for the street sweeping, collection, transfer to the landfill and even ding management at Sisdol Landfill site, is crucially doing its job with the limitation of the resources and capabilities. In 2010, Solid Waste Management Technical Support Center (SWMTSC), under the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), which is currently not in action, called interested applications from the international parties into 3 different
packages of the Kathmandu Valley as Integrated Solid waste Management (ISWM) project. Package I included Kathmandu Metropolitan City with surrounding VDC (currently all VDCs are converted into Municipality), Package II included Lalitpur Metropolitan City, Kirtipur and Surrounding VDCs; whereas Package III included Madhyapur Thimi Municipality, Bhaktapur Municipality with surrounding VDCs. The ISWM project call is designed for the long term (20 Years +2 years construction period), and later It was carried out through the office of Investment board of Nepal (IBN). After the evaluation, Two of the applied consortium companies; namely NEPWASTE, was awarded for the package and Clean Valley Company for Package II and III. Both the Companies developed the DPR and submitted it to IBN as per the TOR. With the close review on the document, IBN came over the decision for the preparation of “Project Development Agreement (PDA) and exercised it to bring the selected parties to the point to take over the project. Since the local elected bodies back after the election, as of the new constitution of Nepal, the decentralization of the decision making, has let the local authorities need to decide for the contract agreement. It took another 5 years to review and detail the actions that had to be convinced by the past elected bodies and were not signed yet. The company has updated the bank showing the interest and paying the premium. However the responsible authority has delayed moving ahead with the decision.
What to do with our generated waste?
Waste generally comes in home, offices through purchasing capacity. The more purchasing power, the more waste gets generated. So, we all must have to be conscious, before we purchase anything from the market. I recommend to bring only what you can use for the long term, do not buy altar items, or any form of unnecessary packaging. You can leave them off from the goods/items that you purchase. Hence, you can heavily reduce the waste at source, even if it comes to some amount you have to segregate at source and put them separately. Individual homes can have at least two bins-dry (non biodegradables) and Wet (biodegradables); thereby one can make compost out of wet waste. If there is some quality leftover food, then can send it for the animal feeding. Dry items should be stored in sacks/bags either to wait for the collection system or to reach up to the optimum volume so informal waste buyers can come and collect with some monetary value. This will definitely give a justice for the environment, health and personal behaviors of the family and community.
How can we make compost?
Depending on the volume of the wet waste generation, we can choose the system of composting. Normally 4-6 family member households can keep a 100 liter perforated compost bin. It would be very handy, can go on the balcony, rooftop, or even inside the kitchen, especially fit for the urban dwellers. Small 1-2 liter bin at the kitchen can be used to collect the wet garbage;
which is to mix with brown items like sawdust, rice husk, leaf shredded (anyone available), which can absorb water in the wet garbage. We can add activators (source of microorganisms which helps to decompose faster) like Effective Microorganisms (EM1) and also mix the materials thoroughly before we put it into the compost bin. This will ease compost into a good quality. We can keep adding from the top and after the bin gets 2/3rd of the volume, it starts showing the black color at the pores of the bin- which can be extracted out using a L-shaped metal rod which comes along the bin. Nowadays, we also have an automatic composting machine (runs with electricity) that takes biodegradables inside the machine and produces compost out. The easy application of the activator inside the machine with the thermophilic bacteria growing environment make the compost within 24 hours.
What will we do then for the plastics and other nonbiodegradables?
Respecting the life cycle of the materials, one can segregate those items in source and put them in separate bins/sacks, can press it to reduce the volume and can store for more time period, so can accumulate enough volume for the collection from the recyclers. We can give away them by selling or as a gift for their contribution to save the environment. Plastics composed of 11-12% of the waste can be resegregated and recycled by the factories lying at the industrial estate. Papers, Rubbers, glasses and Metals are easily taken care of by informal scrap buyers in town.
What about the other non recyclables items that come in the garbage? How can it be managed?
Some advanced wastes like multilayer plastics (MLPs), absorbent hygiene products (AHPs), tetrapaks, different types of composite plastics are then to bring into use by building bricks, roads, chip boards, and pyrolysis or then can have sent to the Plasma arc technology to recovery the electricity and also 4% carbon can be reutilised in making bricks for paving.
Health care waste management systems are to be taken care of with the autoclaving infectious wastes, which then can be taken into the general wastes. Some hazardous waste including heavy metals are to be stored properly and managed with extensive care through the service providers. ♦ ♦ ♦
