waste management in nepal essay

Making Urban Waste Management and Drainage Sustainable in Nepal

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• Mani Nepal 5 ,
• Bishal Bharadwaj 6 ,
• Apsara Karki Nepal 7 ,
• Madan S. Khadayat 8 ,
• Ismat Ara Pervin 9 ,
• Rajesh K. Rai 10 &
• E. Somanathan 11  

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• The original version of this chapter was revised. The correct chapter author names are now listed in order. The correction to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0680-9_30

As cities in Nepal grow fast in an unplanned manner, low-lying areas face the risk of flooding and waterlogging exacerbated by the impact of climate change events such as excessive rainfall. The problem is aggravated when solid waste is not managed properly. This chapter provides an account of some of the key findings from a large research project where we examined how proper solid waste management would help reduce the risk of flooding and waterlogging using the metropolitan city of Bharatpur as a case study. It also examines the effectiveness of information dissemination and installation of waste bins on the streets as a strategy for making urban communities cleaner. The benefits that cities would derive in terms of increased property value when communities get cleaner are quantified. Household surveys and other data are used to examine households’ willingness to pay for improved municipal solid waste management and how this could be financed in a sustainable manner to increase urban resilience as a strategy for community-based climate change adaptation.

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Strategies for Improving Municipal Solid Waste Management: A Comparative Assessment for Medium-Sized Cities

Waste Management in the Changing Climate

• Municipal solid waste
• Climate change
• Waterlogging
• Urban flooding
• Sustainable financing

Cities in Nepal are facing urban flooding and waterlogging risks which can be addressed by more investment on constructing drainage systems.

Without proper solid waste management, the returns from investment on urban infrastructure would be low after few years.

Additional user fees, revenue from recycling waste and additional import duty on importing plastic raw materials provide enough resources for managing solid waste which helps appreciating urban property prices.

1 Introduction

Cities in developing countries are facing increasing threats from waterlogging, flooding and water contamination aggravated by improperly managed solid waste. Several factors are responsible: unplanned urban growth has led to expansion of city areas into low-lying flood plains; climate change is leading to intense rainfall events which risk overwhelming city drainage systems; informal dumping sites may result in toxic waste entering rivers and groundwater following heavy rainfall; and indiscriminate dumping of untreated solid waste can clog the drainage system.

Waterlogging and water pollution have a disproportionate impact on the poorest sections who usually live near flood plains or in the slums in the less developed sections of the city (Ahmed, 2016 ; Sharma et al., 2022 , Chap. 22 of this volume). Climate change is likely to exacerbate these problems.

The suffering caused by frequent waterlogging has created public pressure to develop strategies. The most popular strategy is to invest in urban drainage infrastructure in order to eliminate drainage congestion. However, an analysis of the causes of waterlogging illustrates that investment in physical infrastructure alone is not enough (Pervin et al., 2020 ). Cities also need to work with inhabitants to improve the ‘urban culture’ of solid waste disposal. This requires a change in behaviour in terms of reduction and disposal of municipal solid waste. Stakeholders’ survey from South Asia suggests that South Asians prefer waste-to-energy strategies in order to address municipal solid waste management issue (Haque et al., 2019 ).

There are several known solutions to this: (a) development or creation of a market for recycling; (b) creating conditions for reuse of waste; (c) developing strategies for reducing the volume of waste; and (d) proper disposal of solid waste. In established cities, waste from businesses and households is collected for a fee while city councils take responsibility for dumpsites, while such a system is absent in many emerging cities in developing countries.

After the promulgation of a new Constitution in 2015, Nepal designated more than 220 new municipalities. Several of these new municipalities have no formal waste management system. Even if they have some form of waste collection system (formal or informal), proper management of the collected waste has been another challenge as these cities lack sanitary-landfill sites. Though most have informal and unorganized markets for recycling metal, paper and plastic, they rarely have segregation at source. As a result, informal agents like rag-pickers are engaged in sorting and segregating the tradable products from other wastes at the dumpsite or at the secondary transfer stations. The rag-pickers are often women and children from poor families (Bharadwaj, Baland, & Nepal, 2020 ) who are exploited as they are unorganized and not protected by rules or regulations. In addition, they are also exposed to health risks during the process of separating the tradable products.

Against this background, protecting cities require reducing the volume of waste, improving collection systems, investment in drainage, replacing riverside and wetland dumping with engineered landfills and identifying sustainable mechanisms to finance these improvements in waste management for enhancing urban resilience.

In Bharatpur, the informal collection system involves collection from houses and businesses and dumping at designated sites. Rag-pickers use dumpsites to collect recyclable or reusable materials (Rai et al., 2019 ). The city has no sanitary-landfill site, and hence, there is a further risk of health hazards through water contamination (both surface and underground water aquifers) and foul smell.

This chapter summarizes the key learning from a large-scale research project coordinated by the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE) Secretariat at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) under the Cities and Climate Change research, Footnote 1 where we: (a) examine the existing situation of waterlogging and flooding in Bharatpur under different climatic scenarios and the contribution of proper solid waste management in avoiding flooding and waterlogging risks, (b) examine the effectiveness of information and waste bins on the streets on cleanliness in Bharatpur, (c) estimate the value of cleaner neighbourhoods in Bharatpur and other urban centres across Nepal, (d) describe the extent of citizens’ willingness to pay for improvements in waste management in the city and (e) explore avenues for sustainable financing of municipal solid waste management in Nepal for enhancing urban resilience and adapting to the changing climate. For detailed analysis of these issues, readers are advised to refer to Rai et al. ( 2019 ); Bharadwaj, Baland, and Nepal ( 2020 ); Nepal et al. ( 2020 ); Nepal et al. ( 2021 ); and Pervin et al. ( 2020 ).

2 Study Area and Data

This case study is based on the Bharatpur Metropolitan City (BMC), located in the southern plains of Nepal. Bharatpur is a fast growing medium-sized city with a population of over 300,000 in its core area. The city is on the bank of a major river, Narayani, which also facilitates the drainage system of the city. There are two supporting natural drainage systems in the city: Pungi (6.6 km) and Kerunga (28.4 km) canals. Since the city does not have adequate man-made drainage systems, the encroachment of the natural canals has impacted drainage so that even moderate rainfall results in waterlogging in the city (Pervin et al., 2020 ).

For the study, we collected different types of data from Bharatpur during 2017–2018 and complemented it with secondary data. For an understanding of waterlogging and the flooding potential, primary data on rainfall, water level, water discharge, existing drainage networks and their cross sections was collected from the field during the summer of 2017. This information was supplemented by historical hydrological and climate data for developing a mathematical drainage network model (Pervin et al., 2020 ).

For understanding existing social and behavioural issues and household preferences on solid waste management, we conducted a primary survey of 150 Tole Lane Organizations (TLOs), (small community-level organizations for development activities consisting of 100 households on average, which elect a small executive committee of 9–11 members for addressing community issues including municipal solid waste management.). The 150 TLOs were selected randomly from over 350 TLOs. These TLOs were divided into two groups—control and intervention—for understanding the effectiveness of the interventions. As baseline, we surveyed seven households using systematic random sampling from each TLO (Rai et al., 2019 ). Altogether 1050 households were surveyed from 14 wards of the city’s core area before the intervention. After the intervention, we collected two additional rounds of data from the same households for examining the impact of information campaigns and low-cost waste bins on the streets for keeping the city neighbourhood cleaner. The same baseline survey was used for estimating the value of clean neighbourhoods for Bharatpur. For urban centres across the country, we used a nationally representative household survey (Nepal Living Standards Survey 2010/11). The detailed information is available in Nepal et al. ( 2020 ). For sustainable financing of municipal solid waste management, we used information collected by the Asian Development Bank and supplemented it with field data (Bharadwaj, Rai, & Nepal, 2020 ).

3 Adapting to Urban Flooding

Cities in developing countries are particularly susceptible to urban flooding and waterlogging since they have limited drainage infrastructure that is often mismanaged and congested for different reasons including improper disposal of solid wastes in the canals and drains (Haque, 2013 ). Excessive rainfall exacerbates waterlogging, especially in low-lying areas where slums are generally located in fast growing unplanned cities. Consequently, the groundwater gets contaminated, increasing the likelihood of public health problems (ten Veldhuis et al., 2010 ).

Our analysis included rainfall data collected by the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) for Bharatpur city at Bharatpur station (from 2000 to 2016), water-level data for the Narayani river at Devghat station and for the Rapti river at Rajayia station collected by the research team. The bankfull levels of the Narayani and Rapti rivers were considered as the design water level for Bharatpur. The surveyed cross sections of the Narayani and Rapti rivers were interpolated to generate bankfull water-level data at the outfalls of the Pungi and Kerunga canals. We used MIKE11 modelling tools from the Danish Hydraulic Institute (DHI) to develop the drainage model. The model was calibrated against the water level and discharge data of the canals for 2017.

We developed some climate change scenarios for Bharatpur based on changing rainfall patterns as the climate change models predict that the volume of rainfall would increase during the monsoon (May–October) and reduce during the dry season (December–March) in the Ganges basin, whereas Bharatpur is one of the sub-basins (Pervin et al., 2020 ). In the study area, high-intensity and short-duration rainfall is projected to increase, overwhelming the existing drainage infrastructure and resulting in more waterlogging and flooding in future. We also consider the rapid urbanization and land-use change in Bharatpur while developing the model scenarios.

Based on several focus group discussions, we developed the adaptation scenarios for Bharatpur. Under the existing conditions, about 13% (Fig.  21.1 a: Current scenario) of the land area is under the risk of flooding and waterlogging. With appropriate structural interventions, the flooding risks could go down to 5% (Fig.  21.1 b: Improved scenario). These results are shown in Fig.  21.1 a and b.

Source Pervin et al. ( 2020 )

Waterlogging risks with current and improved scenarios.

The scenario analysis suggests that without proper solid waste management, the city area at risk of flooding returns to 8% in five years time, diminishing the returns from investment in physical infrastructure.

4 Effectiveness of Information and Street Bins in Keeping the Neighbourhoods Cleaner

Since proper solid waste management is the key to reducing flooding and waterlogging risks in the city, we looked at some of the low-cost interventions that would help cities keep neighbourhoods clean. Our intervention involved providing information to the households on how to manage household waste better rather than dumping it or burning it in the intervention TLOs. We also installed street waste bins as part of the intervention. These waste bins are 20 L bins intended for the people who could put their leftover food and other unwanted items while travelling around the city, but not intended for solid waste generated by the households. For this purpose, we randomly selected two groups of 75 Tole Lane Organizations (TLOs) each, with one designated as a control group for comparison.

After a baseline survey, households and executive committee members of each intervention TLO participated in a workshop which provided information on managing household waste, including segregation, recycling and composting of the waste and why burning or throwing waste is detrimental. We organized one workshop for each intervention TLO. At the same time, 20-litre street waste bins were installed in the intervention TLOs. We conducted a post-intervention survey in the first half of 2018 and a final round of post-intervention survey in the second-half of 2018.

Since we have three rounds of data from each household, we used (a) a simple linear regression model with indicator variables for ‘intervention’ and ‘round’ for last two rounds of data (without baseline) and (b) a difference-in-difference approach using all three rounds of data in order to see the impact of intervention on the cleanliness of the neighbourhoods. More specifically, the outcome variables are: cleanliness of the neighbourhood, waste given to the collectors instead of burning or throwing and segregation of the waste at source. Since we use an experimental design to randomly assign control and treatment neighbourhoods, our results have a causal interpretation.

The key findings of the research are summarized below (Nepal, Karki Nepal et al., 2021 ):

Neighbourhoods and streets are cleaner due to the intervention : There was a 9% point increase in the perceived cleanliness of the streets, and 14–22% point increase in the perceived cleanliness of the neighbourhoods after the intervention.

More households started giving their wastes to the waste collectors : Due to the intervention, there was an 8–10% point increase in households that give household waste to the collectors instead of burning or throwing it out.

No impact on the at-source segregation : However, our results suggest that there is no impact of the intervention on the at-source segregation of the waste.

Since the intervention was intended to inform households on how to segregate at source and why not to throw or burn the waste, the first two results are expected, but the third result is surprising given that the households had been sensitized how to segregate the waste at source. However, this is possibly due to the fact that there is no provision for collecting degradable and non-degradable wastes separately even though households segregate it at source. In the absence of such separate collection service, households tend to unlearn the learning from the sensitization workshops. Perhaps, if households do not see a likely consequence of their action, they may ignore the instruction or information, suggesting that any programmes or policies should be consequential to the households for them to change their behaviour (Nepal et al., 2009 ).

5 Households’ Preferences for Municipal Solid Waste Management

The city has been managing solid waste collection through two private companies. They charge monthly fees (ranging from NPR 30 to NPR 100 for the households, and NPR 200 to NPR 4000 for commercial outlets, where the service is based on the volume of waste and frequency of collection). About 95% of the households in the sampled wards subscribe to the collection service. The city provides additional resources to the private companies since the collected fees do not cover the operational costs. The city also refunds 30% of the collected fees to the concerned TLOs so that they can invest in cleaning up their communities.

Household survey results suggest that the majority (53%) of the city residents were not satisfied with the waste collection services that they were getting. This is mainly because they were not getting the services on the given day at a pre-specified time as there was no fixed time or date for picking up the wastes from the households. The private service providers have estimated that only 60% households pay waste collection tariff regularly. Our choice experiment analysis suggests that households were willing to pay 10–28% additional fee on top of what they were paying if the service provider collects the waste on a given day and time, and if the city installs waste bins on the streets that pedestrians could use for disposing unwanted litters. This could result in an additional income of NPR 5 million additional for the city. A progressive tariff increase based on the number of floors of the individual houses can generate more revenue, since willingness-to-pay increases by 8.2% on average for every additional floor of a house (Rai et al., 2019 ).

Our analysis suggests that the city needs to spend around 17% additional resources in addition to the existing expenditure in order to provide the expected services (on time collection on a given day and placing bins on the streets) to the city residents. A further 10% is required for separate collection trips for degradable and non-degradable waste. Our analysis suggests that with some additional efforts, the city could meet the expectation of the residents and could collect additional revenues for managing the municipal solid waste better. If all households pay the collection fee as a result of improved services, then the additional collected tariff would outweigh the additional expenditure required for improved services (Table 21.1 ). In addition, a separate collection service generates additional income from the recycled materials, particularly plastic. This can also lead to increased longevity of landfill sites. Overall, there is some revenue gap under the current system of municipal solid waste management, where composting of organic waste is not considered as an option. When segregation at source promotes composting at home, then waste transportation cost will be reduced from the estimated 10% since the volume of waste will also decline under this scenario.

In short, city residents are concerned about the municipal solid waste management and willing to pay additional service fee if the current situation improves. For this, the municipality has to improve waste collection service to increase the participation of city residents, for which they are ready to pay additional fees. It is also true that the increased revenue due to the improved services may cover the additional cost, but it is less likely to cover the total cost of municipal solid waste collection services at the existing tariff rate. However, reduced waste due to segregation and longevity of landfill sites increases the social and environmental benefits. We discuss how the revenue shortfall could be overcome in the following section.

6 Sustainable Financing of Municipal Solid Waste Management

To examine the revenue potential of materials recovery and recycling for the municipalities in Nepal, we use data collected by the Asian Development Bank in 2013 from 58 municipalities across the country.

Based on existing solid waste management across the municipalities, we examine the materials recovery and recycling rates of plastics, papers and other wastes. We focus mainly on plastic wastes as discarded plastic remains in the environment for a long time and harms the whole ecosystem—land, rivers and oceans. Although plastic bags ban policy with sufficient penalty and strict enforcement can reduce the use of plastic bags, it cannot address the increasing use of plastic for other purposes (Bharadwaj, Baland, & Nepal, 2020 ). Plastic-related waste constitutes about 10% of household solid waste. Under different scenarios, we find that recovered plastic ranges from 0.36 to 1.62% of total solid waste produced in Nepal. Under the optimistic solid waste management scenario—where the plastic material recovery rate is 15% and the collection efficiency is 66.7%, the revenue generated from recycling plastic waste—where price of recovered plastic is NPR 30 per kg and solid waste management costs is NPR 2347 per ton—covers 138% of the management costs of the plastic-related waste and prevents 4220 t of plastic entering the environment annually in the form of solid waste. Figure  21.2 exhibits the mechanism of the plastic recovery and recycling market. However, under the more practical scenario (average of best and worst cases), the revenue generated from recycling plastic covers only 82.85% of the plastic-related waste management cost.

A framework for sustainable financing of municipal solid waste management. Source Bharadwaj, Rai, and Nepal ( 2020 )

Since there would be a resource gap under this scheme for financing plastic waste management, we also estimated an appropriate tariff rate on importing plastic items (including plastic granules and other raw materials) that could help finance the plastic waste management across the country. Our estimate suggests that an additional tariff of 1% on the imported plastic materials would generate enough revenue for financing the cost of managing plastic wastes (Bharadwaj, Rai, & Nepal, 2020 ).

The additional tariff would not only generate required revenue for managing plastic waste, but would also reduce the use of plastic items by making them costlier, thus spurring the demand for recycled plastic in one hand also promoting the alternatives to plastic on the other. The incentive for recycling will reduce the plastic material in the waste stream, which would otherwise end up being released into the environment given the weak dumping site management which results in waste being dumped in the forest or on the riverbanks.

7 Value of Cleaner Neighbourhood

Improper management of municipal solid waste not only contaminates groundwater and impacts health but it also diminishes the aesthetic value of neighbourhoods and lowers the value of housing property. In general, the price of a housing unit depends on several factors called attributes. Three main categories of the attributes are considered valuable while buying a housing unit. They are structural (land areas, built-up areas, types of roof, wall and floor materials, number of rooms and bathrooms and floors, etc.), neighbourhood (crime rate, school quality and distance, distance to the markets and hospital) and environmental (presence of open space and parks, distance from the forest and rivers, distances from the waste dumping sites and presence of waste collection services) characteristics. Even though these characteristics are important, the buyers may not pay separate prices for each of these attributes as a housing unit is a bundle of all these attributes. We have used the Hedonic price model to disentangle the value of each attribute and examine the effects of municipal solid waste collection services at the neighbourhood level on housing property values (Nepal et al., 2020 ).

For this purpose, we used two sets of data—one is collected from Bharatpur and the other is collected by the Nepal Central Bureau of Statistics (the third wave of the Nepal Living Standards Survey 2010/11). Hedonic studies in developed countries use market transaction data of housing units. However, market transaction data in Nepal generally understates the housing property price as buyers and sellers have all kinds of incentives to underreport property prices for avoiding taxes unless the buyer gets credit from a bank while buying a house. Therefore, we use self-reported housing values from both sets of data. The study sites are indicated in Fig.  21.3 , where red colour indicates Bharatpur Metro, and blue colour indicates other municipalites (2011 Nepal Census).

Source Nepal et al. ( 2020 )

Sampled municipalities across the country.

We estimated the implicit price of presence of solid waste management service, a proxy for cleaner neighbourhood, in three market segments—urban hills, urban Terai and Bharatpur. We found that in these market segments, the housing price could be 25–57% higher in communities where solid waste management services are in place while the housing price could be 11% lower in a community where there are open drains nearby (Nepal et al., 2020 ). That is, city residents place a high price premium on cleaner neighbourhoods and a price penalty when the drainage system is open.

Figure  21.4 indicates that the housing price could be greatly enhanced with the provision of municipal solid waste management in the community. Hence, making solid waste management a top priority is rewarding not only to the home owners but also to the cities where the tax base includes the assessed value of property, and a part of the tax revenue could be used to finance the revenue shortfall for managing municipal solid waste better.

Source Authors’ calculation

Implicit prices of the housing attributes.

8 Discussion and Conclusion

This chapter highlights some of the key findings from a large-scale research project, and the detailed methods and results are published in several papers (Rai et al., 2019 ; Bharadwaj, Rai, & Nepal, 2020 ; Nepal et al., 2020 ; Nepal et al., 2021 ; Pervin et al., 2020 ; Nepal, Karki Nepal et al., 2021 ). Flooding is a major hazard for cities like Bharatpur, and this problem will become more serious with climate change, requiring improved drainage systems. This involves not only an improvement in the physical infrastructure of canals and drains but also in solid waste management to prevent clogging of the drainage network. The latter requires the involvement of the communities.

In the case of Bharatpur, while physical investment in drainage systems is estimated to reduce the flood-prone area by 38% (comes down to 5% from 13%), improved waste management is estimated to reduce it by an additional 37% (prevents going back to 8% flood-prone area from 5%). Women tend to manage household solid waste better in terms of segregation and composting that reduces the volume of waste going to landfill sites, suggesting that targeted sensitization programmes would help making the communities cleaner and less prone to waterlogging (Nepal et al., 2021 ; Rakib et al., 2022 , Chap. 24 of this volume). 

The randomized intervention consisting of provision of information and sensitization to waste management as well as provision of street bins resulted in cleaner streets and neighbourhoods and more waste being given to collectors rather than being dumped nearby or burnt. However, segregation at source did not improve probably because residents did not perceive it as being effective in the absence of a system for collecting segregated waste separately by the collection service.

At present, as in most cities in low-income countries, the revenue from municipal waste collection fees in Bharatpur is insufficient to cover the cost of collection and disposal. This makes it difficult to improve solid waste management. However, our analysis of household survey data shows that people are willing to pay more for better service. This can partially close the revenue gap. Additional revenue could be raised by recycling plastic materials and increasing the tariff on imported plastic in Nepal by a modest 1%. This would raise sufficient revenue for managing plastic wastes.

A further avenue for raising revenue to cover waste management costs that promotes adapting to climate change in the cities for enhancing urban resilience arises from the effect that cleaner neighbourhoods seem to have on housing prices. If some of this increase in pricing of houses is captured by the municipalities through an increase in revenue from property taxes, then this would easily bring in enough revenue to finance the necessary improvements in municipal solid waste management.

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These estimates are based on the field survey 2017–2018, choice experiment analysis, focus group discussion and key-informant interviews with Bharatpur Metro Officials and private companies engaged in waste collection in Bharatpur.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the International Development Research Center (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada for providing financial support (Grant #08283-001) under the Cities and Climate Change research (2017–2020) to conduct this study. The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), where the first author is affiliated, acknowledges with gratitude the support of the Governments of Afghanistan, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, Sweden, and Switzerland. However, the views as well as interpretations of the results presented in this research are those of the authors and should not be attributed to their affiliated organizations, their supporters or the funding agency.

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Nepal, M. et al. (2022). Making Urban Waste Management and Drainage Sustainable in Nepal. In: Haque, A.K.E., Mukhopadhyay, P., Nepal, M., Shammin, M.R. (eds) Climate Change and Community Resilience. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0680-9_21

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Waste Management Model

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Technical Expert/Promoting Green Recovery Project/UNDP

UNDP Accelerator Lab in Nepal has been exploring ways to find various options to deal with the complexity of solid waste in Nepal since September 2020. Within the last 1.5 years, we were able to conduct research and studies on the situation of plastic waste at 293 urban municipalities, explore and test locally driven experiments and build prototypes on plastic bricks in Pokhara Metropolitan City, Refused Derived Fuel in Thimi Municipality and plastic shredding machines in Kathmandu Metropolitan City.

Similarly, UNDP under its post-COVID recovery efforts, initiated Promoting Green Recovery Project (PGRP) , with the aim of strengthening the capacities of the 7 national health care facilities, and is working with 5 local municipalities (Bheemdatt, Birendranagar, Tilottama, Waling and Duhabi) for the effective management of municipal waste while fostering opportunities to create 1,500 green jobs and raise the awareness on sustainable urban mobility.

UNDP Accelerator Lab together with Promoting Green Recovery Project have conducted two rapid assessments at Namobuddha Municipality and Tilottama Municipality to understand current situations, the local gaps and needs to minimize the key issues and maximize waste recovery at the local level.

This blog is the first in the two-part series. The first blog reflects on the current waste management practices, gaps and the lessons learnt on what worked and what did not for the two municipalities while the second blog will describe the proposed waste management models for Namobuddha and Tilottama municipalities.

Key Issues Observed

The interventions through our projects have been crucial for us to understand the complexity of solid waste management. The key issues that we observed at both municipalities ranged from basic household level segregations to internalizing behaviors towards waste management to larger impediments on advocacy, specific policies and guidelines for different waste categories that link the community with local governments and the national umbrella holding the overall responsibilities.

Current Waste Management Practices

The initial findings from the rapid assessments revealed that the household waste segregation practices are negligible at both the municipalities, Namobuddha and Tilottama. However, we detected different approaches on raising awareness for proper segregation at the local level.

In the case of Namobuddha Municipality, it was observed that there are pig farms that have distributed buckets to collect biodegradable waste while recycled waste (such as PET bottles, glass, metal and cardboards) are being collected by waste collectors from Banepa Municipality and Dhulikhel Municipality twice a week. Namobuddha Municipality Office is solely responsible for collecting the remaining waste from 250 members, particularly commercial sectors, residing in the core market of Dapcha Bazaar and Bhakhunde Bazaar area. The collected waste is directly dumped in the open pit and covered with sand and soil which is located next to their office building.

Sampling areas of Dapcha Bazaar and Bhakhunde Bazaar of Namobuddha Municipality

In the case of Tilottama Municipality, we observed that three organizations, viz. WASH Sahakari (wards 7-17), Sundar Nepal (ward 1 and wards 3-6) and Tole Lane Organization of Ward 2, were more responsible on managing waste. Among these organizations, WASH Sahakari sorted out the collected waste at their facility center by using conveyor belt. The recycled products are then sold to recycling companies while the remaining waste is dumped at three different locations allocated for each organization.

Sampling wards of Tilottama Municipality

The waste composition in both the municipalities was calculated through quadratic method based on the collected waste at disposal sites. As reflected in the graphs below, the major sources of waste at both the municipalities are biodegradable ones followed by plastics and paper/ cardboard.

Average waste composition of Tilottama Municipality (left) and Namobuddha Municipality (right) [Source: UNDP, 2022]

Gap Analysis

The observed patterns on waste generation, collection, segregation, recycling, and disposal at both the municipalities have shown their own sets of gaps with few common patterns that needs to be addressed at the local level. As presented in the gap analysis diagram below, the common patterns that raised our attention were open dumping and open burning of plastics and electronic wastes at both the municipalities. Besides, lack of resources, awareness, waste treatment measures and waste management models at both the municipalities were the topmost common gaps hindering the overall Solid Waste Management processes.

Gap analysis on Solid Waste Management conducted for Namobuddha Municipality and Tilottama Municipality

Issue of open burning of waste at Tinau Riverbank, Tilottama Municipality.

We also observed that practices of using alternatives to plastics and household level segregation are very negligible and have only been initiated by WASH Sahakari, a local cooperative in Tilottama Municipality for 11 wards (ward 7-ward 17) but, unfortunately, has not been successful in delivering the desired results. WASH Sahakari, however, has installed conveyor belt to sort the collected waste.

Expected Actions  

The assessments are expected to bring forth the actual scenario for both the municipalities through field supervision, consultative processes and brainstorming sessions. One of the expected outputs of these sessions is to collectively design feasible waste management models for both municipalities as per their need and requirements.

Waste composition survey at one of the dumping sites of Tilottama Municipality

However, to ensure that the existing good practices of waste segregation and processing is further improved and continued at both the municipalities, detail implementation plan with localized waste management model will play crucial roles.

Stakeholders involved in one of the round table discussions at Tilottama Municipality

Lessons Learnt

While analyzing the gaps and initiating the rapid assessments, we were able to observe three interesting insights. One was related to institutional capacity and interest of the local governments on introducing new initiatives and taking risks; second was related to the knowledge and skillsets; and the third was related to the interest on exploring waste recovery options and sustaining them in a long run. The gap analysis has made it even clearer that a specific waste management model is essential for both the municipalities that will look forward and will provide a need-based and locally adaptable approach based on the waste composition, local capacity (in terms of both resources and skillsets) and level of awareness.

During this analytical process, we were able to make few observations that could stimulate and guide the preparation of the probable waste management models for both the municipalities:

• While interacting with the local community, we observed a high willingness to segregate waste at source. However, practice is minimal due to the lack of proper training and awareness and lack of motivation to the waste management champions such as the local waste enterprises.
• There is a possibility of introducing proper mechanisms with essential facilities to recycle and sort waste at specific locations, which could be the concept of waste bank or waste recovery center or waste facility center as per the local requirement and need.
• There is a high level of interest among the women’s groups, social organizations, Tole Lane Organizations, youth clubs who could be mobilized to ensure community participation in the waste management sector.
• There is a high potential of Public Private Partnership since there exist few enterprises interested in investing to start recovery business if there is additional support from the local government, in the form of subsidy or incentives or cost-sharing partnership.
• Local plan and policy on municipal waste management will also guide the municipality to identify gaps and propose viable options on waste recovery. However, there is a requirement on strict enforcement to incorporate them in the local level periodic and annual planning to ensure proper implementation and sustainability.
• Each ward in both the municipalities has a good understanding of the urgent need of waste management but has not started off anything yet due to the lack of proper guidance. A local level guiding document could be one of the entry points for both the municipalities.

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Municipal solid waste management in Nepal: practices and challenges

2005, Waste Management

Solid waste management in Kathmandu valley of Nepal, especially concerning the siting of landfills, has been a challenge for over a decade. The current practice of the illegal dumping of solid waste on the river banks has created a serious environmental and public health problem. The focus of this study was to carry out an evaluation of solid waste management in Nepal based on published information. The data showed that ⩾70% of the solid wastes generated in Nepal are of organic origin. As such, composting of the solid waste and using it on the land is the best way of solid waste disposal. This will reduce the waste volume transported to the landfill and will increase its life.

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Badan Nyachhyon

The document is design to guide the Private Sector investors for development of investment packages on Integrated Solid Waste Management for Kathmandu Valley.

1. In Nature, every thing is perishable. Every thing is recycled back to its source of generation and no waste is generated that create environmental hazard. 2. The Solid Waste Hazard is persistent all over the country from Himalayas to Terai, from villages to cities sparing nobody. Many think, the solid waste hazard will go away if thrown away but it comes back through the air we breathe, water we drink and food we eat through the chain of food, water and air. 3. In Nepalese context, Solid Waste Issues were taken into consideration since 1978 with the initiation of the Solid Waste Management Project with the cooperation of the Federal Republic of Germany. 4. The current practice of Solid Waste Management is shortly known as " Throw Away " practice with municipalities collecting, transferring and partly disposed into landfill sites and mostly into open Nature as riverbanks, forests, ponds, and open places. Today, solid waste produced in the country exceeds 7,500 Tons per day with 1,489 Tons/day produced in 58 municipalities alone. 5. The Solid Waste Management sector practically failed with the withdrawal of the donor support inviting huge environmental hazard and damage to human health. Today, the river systems were permanently polluted solid waste dumped on its banks (and aggravated with wastewater discharge) and that destroyed all aquatic life, contaminated the ground water and emitting huge volume of methane gas trapped in the dumping yards. This will continue for next over 20 years and more. Apparently, there is no easy way to bring back the rivers into their original natural conditions. 6. The community based Solid Waste Management in Pokhara, Biratnagar, Bharatpur, Butwal, recycling of paper, plastics and metal, and " Waste Free Communities " campaign of Zero Waste Nepal are few examples of good practices. 7. The closure of Teku sorting and composting plant, the closure of Gokarna landfill site, the loss of tree plantation along Satdobato-Gwarko section of the Ring Road in Kathmandu, and consequent down fall of tourism industry are some of the cases of past failures in SWM. 8. Nepal has made very important policy changes at domestic level and is a signatory to a number of international conventions including Kyoto Protocol. Nepal also has had prepared several plans and programs related to Solid Waste Management. The implementation of the plans, programs and policies is the weakest part in SWM in Nepal

Sanjay Khanal

The general leachate characteristics of different ages of landfill sites (LFS) in different parts of Nepal were investigated according to APHA 2012 methods. The mature landfill site (> 10 years old LFS) were found to have high pH value and low BOD and COD in compared to intermediate landfill site (5-10 years old LFS). The average pH, BOD and COD are found to be significantly different in various seasons as indicated by P-value in young and intermediate LFS. The age of the landfills and seasonal variation were found to have significant impact on leachate composition as LFS goes under acetogenesis, early methanogenic, late methanogenic and stabilized phases of degradation.

Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology

Ali EL KHATIB

Municipal solid waste (MSW) is the abridgment of the waste generated from domestic, commercial, and construction activities by natural persons that is collected and treated by municipalities. Exponential growth of population and urbanization, and the development of social economy, coupled with the improvement of living standard, have resulted in an increase in the amount of MSW generation throughout the world. On average the developed countries typically generate 521.95–759.2 kg per person per year (kpc) and 109.5–525.6 kpc typically by developing countries. Recent estimates suggest that the MSW generation globally exceeds 2 billion tons per year, which is a potential threat to environmental dilapidation. Therefore, MSW management (MSWM) seems to be one of the key topics for environmental protection in present days and also in the future. The authors have illustrated MSW generation and composition analysis and have provided a comprehensive review of MSWM in different countries throughout the world based on the available literatures. Some of the important aspects of waste management, such as composting, landfilling, and incineration, are illustrated.

American journal of Engineering Research (AJER)

Dhaka is the capital city of Bangladesh, with the highest population density (129,501 people/square km) in the world. Municipal solid waste (MSW) generation in the city is 4634.52 tons/day. This study aims to explore current MSW management scenario which is found one of the most underestimated sectors of Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) – the responsible authority for MSW management. Overall operational and collection efficiency of DCC MSW management is 45% and 60%, respectively. Vehicle fleet for waste transport showed considerably low efficiency in terms of load carrying capacity and fuel consumption. Residential waste is found potential source of composting. At present, a 500 tons/day compost plant has been operating since September 1998. Worth of recoverable recyclable material is found US$ 82,428,449.9989. Open dumping is a pressing problem leading to groundwater pollution, environmental contamination and emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Each day, approximately, 1800 tons of MSW is dumped in the only official landfill site – Matuail. DCC spends 1.5% (601,350 Bangladesh Taka (BDT)/day) of the total budget for landfilling operation and management. Land required for disposal of MSW in Dhaka is estimated to be 110 ha per year. Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects in waste sector in Bangladesh are found promising. This study urge to prepare a detailed plan for sustainable MSW management in Dhaka for source separation, large scale investment on composting and Waste to Energy (WTE) projects, recycling, state of the art landfill development, and optimized reverse logistic operation

Bijan Maskey

Municipal solid waste is a growing concern in cities of developing countries and households are the main contributor. Lack of reliable data sources remain one of the major drawbacks for deciding on effective waste management option. The study area Gorkha municipality is selected because it is one of the highly under-researched and least resource intensive municipalities in Nepal. However, continued growth in municipal waste if left unattended will only intensify the problem and thus demands proactive action. Therefore, the objective of this study is to analyze waste composition and to evaluate the socioeconomic factors impacting household waste generation for effective management. Using stratified sampling method, 401 households were selected from all 15 municipal wards. Socioeconomic factors impacting household waste generation were assessed using Ordinary Least Square regression model. The rate of household waste generation in Gorkha municipality is found to be 0.24 kg/capita/day and estimated total household waste generation of 9.4 tonnes/day. Household size and income are found to have positive impact on waste generation, both statistically significant at 1% and thus can be important indicators to forecast solid waste generation trend. Household waste composition was 47.25% organic waste, 37.52% recyclable waste that comprised of 10.38% paper and paper products, 9.88% glass, 6.92% metal, 5.39% plastic, 3.57% textile and 1.38% rubber and leather, and rest 15.23% other waste. Organic waste has the highest share and if not managed properly, creates serious health and environmental hazards. It could be managed efficiently by composting at household and local government level.

Prabha Karmacharya

BFA Basnayake

Pratik Poudel

This is my Masters Degree thesis. I have tried to mention about the existing situation of waste recycling industries in Nepal's capital Kathmandu. I have interviewed various recyclers in order to understand their difficulties and opportunities in the recycling based industries. I have also mentioned some of the ways through which various kinds of waste, bio degradable and non bio degradable can be recycled or reused. I have also given a brief insight on the situation of e waste in Nepal. I hope this thesis can be helpful for researchers who wants to research on the nature of waste management in Nepal and other developing countries.

Waste Management

Nur Latifah

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