Solid Waste Management in Kathmandu

Here's the abstract of my M.Sc dissertation submitted to University of Northampton titled "Applicability of transfer of best practice in solid waste management from England to Kathmandu Metropolitan city".

Rapidly growing populations, coupled with economic growth and rise in living standard have accelerated the waste generation rate in developing country like Nepal, causing its management to be a major challenge. Solid waste management(SWM) has been highly neglected area particularly on developing country which has leads to serious environmental problems like contamination of water and soil by leachate from poorly managed and illegal solid waste dumps. Its impact on public health has caused developing nation to address this issues with increasing urgency. Solid waste management is a complex system which involves multiple processes from generation to disposal. These processes generally involve generation, reduction, reuse, recycling, handling, collection, transfer and transport, transformation (recovery and treatment) and disposal. Transferring appropriate environmentally sound technologies and their effective implementation   can be helpful in addressing the environmental problem like solid waste management  However, experience from past have shown that the transferred technology from developed country will only be successful if it matches requirement of developing country.

The aim of this research is to critically evaluate the applicability of transfer of best practice for waste disposal/alternative management from England to case study area, Kathmandu. Literature review, case study and observation are used as methods to gather the information regarding current best practice in England and case study area, composition and tonnage of waste  in case study area. Semi-structure interview with waste experts from countries is used to validate the finding made from literature review, case study and observation. Research finds out that undefined solid waste, lack of public participation, ineffective legislation and financial investment are the main barriers for the transfer of technology from England to Kathmandu. Similarly, research also observes that segregation of waste, effective collection system, involvement of 3^rd sector in the form of scavengers will be effective tools for the effective management of MSW in Kathmandu.

Household waste segregation, Home composting, door stepping, awareness campaign, third sector involvement, dry recycling and Anaerobic Digestion (AD) are some of the best practice that has been followed by England, which can be transferred to case study area with minor adjustment making it suitable to perform whereas indigenous technique like vermin composting and suiro campaign which is applied in other part of Nepal with greater effect can also be applied in Kathmandu.

To assist the successful trans location of the best practice from England to case study area, this research has recommended a waste prevention plan that aims to reduce the total tonnage of the household waste focusing particularly on the organic and plastic waste arising from household. Among other advance technologies, research recommends using  AD as a method of municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal in future. Apart from obvious benefit of disposing waste, release of energy from waste is biggest advantage that AD posses over other technologies.

(Please let me know if you are interested in solid waste and want to have a look at my dissertation)