Solid wastemanagement in Nepal

This paper reflectsthe existingmanagement systemspracticed in variousareas of Nepal inmanaging solid wasteand containsinitiatives ofmunicipalities;national and localNGOs/CBOs; publicand private entities.This paper helps totransfer the lessonsand existing practicesregarding soild wastemanagment andencourages urban,peri urban andemerging towns forsimilar initiatives inurban sanitation.

December 2008

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WaterAid/Marco Betti

Solid waste is an byproduct ofhuman activities which tends toincrease with rapid urbanization,improved living standards andchanging consumption patterns.Management of increasing amountsof solid waste has become a majorchallenge in many cities indeveloping countries. If solid waste isproperly used, it can be a valuableresource, but if it is not effectivelymanaged, it can result in seriousadverse impacts on environment andpublic health. Solid wastemanagement is therefore a criticalcomponent within urban sanitationand it is also one of the mostimportant and resource intensiveservices provided by municipalities.According to a survey done byNepal's Central Bureau of Statistics(CBS), most urban residents considersolid waste management as the mostimportant environmental problem inurban areas of Nepal.

In Nepal, urbanization is increasingat an alarming rate putting immensepressure on municipal services,particularly to manage the everincreasing amounts of waste. Atpresent most of the wastesgenerated in municipalities are notbeing adequately managed therebycreating a serious health andenvironmental hazard, particularly in

Background Shova Maharjan fromSiddhipur front to the

compost bin

WaterAid/ Marco Betti

the slum and squatter areas, wherethe residents have less capacity topay for better services and are oftenignored by the official agencies.Therefore, poor urban settlementsare most affected because ofindiscriminate dumping and lack ofopen spaces.

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According to the 2001 census, only about 15percent of Nepal's total population live in urbanareas. However, because of the lack ofemployment opportunities in rural areas andthe concentration of many facilities and servicessuch as education and health care in urbancentres, the rate of urbanization is very high.With rapid urbanization and changingconsumption patterns, solid wastemanagement has become a major challenge inmost urban centres in Nepal, particularly thelarger ones. According to CBS (1997), only 17percent of urban households have their wastecollected by waste collectors. Furthermore, inlow-income households, indicated by houseshaving no toilets, only 2 percent of thehouseholds have their waste collected. Openwaste piles are a common site and the work ofmunicipalities is often limited to sweeping thestreets and dumping the waste in the nearestriver or vacant land. Modern wastemanagement techniques, such as sourceseparated door-to-door collection systems,material recovery and recycling facilities,sanitary landfilling, and private sectorparticipation have not yet been introduced inmost municipalities.

According to the Local Self-Governance Act,1999, municipalities are responsible formanaging solid waste, but municipalities in

Nepal generally do not have the necessaryskills or resources to manage the waste in theproper manner. This act has empoweredmunicipalities to take every necessary actionat local level. On average the 58 municipalitiesin the country are spending about 13 percentof their total budget on waste managementrelated activities (SWMRMC, 2004), but inmost cases this amount is not being spent inan efficient manner.

Management of solid waste is a growingconcern in Nepal as urban population densitiesincrease and flat usable land is in short supply.Although small urban centres were declared tobe municipalities, they suffer from a lack ofinfrastructural, technical and financial resourcesto tackle the problems of waste management.With increasing public awareness about goodhealth and a clean environmental sanitation,solid waste management has now become thepriorities of the municipalities in Nepal.Municipalities, for managing the waste, areexpressing their desire to develop final disposalsystem even though collection systems are stillnot in place. They are also promoting wastereduction, reuse, and recycling among thecommunities.

However, in spite of the many challengesfaced by municipalities, in some urban areas,municipalities have joined hands with localcommunities and the private sector tointroduce innovative approaches for wastemanagement that are cost effective andefficient. These include door-to-doorcollection system in some areas of Kathmanduand several other municipalities, plasticcollection and recycling systems withcommunity and private sector participation inHetauda and Bharatpur, composting inKathmandu and Bhaktapur, medical wastemanagement in Hetauda and landfilling inTribhuwannagar. The challenge now is toreplicate and scale up these good examples.This paper has been prepared to documentthese positive experiences and transfer theirlessons to other municipalities and encouragesimilar initiatives in urban sanitation.

Solid Waste59%

Air Pollution7%

Water Pollution5%

Other4%

Seweage25%

FIGURE 1: PUBLIC OPINION ON MAIN ENVIRONMENTALPROBLEMS IN URBAN AREAS

Source: CBS, 1997

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Effective solid waste management is morethan just cleaning the streets or collectingwaste and dumping of the collected waste,as practiced by most municipalities. Itrequires efficient combination of variouscomponents of solid waste management inan integrated manner. Integrated solid wastemanagement is therefore a process ofoptimizing the waste management system asa whole with application of a variety ofsuitable technologies. This includes thefollowing activities:

Reduction of the amount of wastegeneratedProper segregation and storage of wasteat sourceEfficient waste collectionStreet sweepingWaste transfer from preliminary collectionvehicles to haulage vehiclesTransportation of wasteWaste composting and recyclingLandfillingHazardous waste managementPublic education and participation

Integrated solid wastemanagement

Formulation and enforcement of policiesand regulationsOrganizational managementFinancial management

In order to ensure that all aspects of integratedsolid waste management are addressed andthe system as a whole functions effectively andefficiently, municipalities need a proper strategyas well as sufficient human and financialresources to implement the strategy. In 1998,Kathmandu Metropolitan City had drafted aSWM strategy which aimed to establish a cost-effective, environmentally sound and efficientintegrated solid waste management systemwith active community as well as private sectorparticipation. In order to achieve this goal, thestrategy had eight objectives which are shownin Figure 2. The strategy is clear andcomprehensive and it provides a direction forfuture activities. However, the strategy has notbeen fully implemented because of theabsences of proper plans, adequate resourcesand effective monitoring. Therefore,municipalities need to formulate effectivestrategies for integrated solid wastemanagement and back it up with annual plansand programmes as well as effectivemonitoring systems.

FIGURE 2: STRATEGY FOR INTEGRATED SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

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Public education

Appropriate policy/law and enforcement

Special/Hazardouswaste management

Sanitary landfilling ofnon-recyclables

Maximize compostingand recycling

Efficient transfer andtransportation

Effective collection

Environmentally sound, costeffective, and efficientintegrated solid waste

management system withmaximum community and

private participation

Effective managementand monitoring

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Waste collection is generally considered tobe the most important component of anywaste management system because it is themost expensive and visible part of thesystem. Therefore, properly designed andexecuted waste collection systems can resultin significant savings and reduction inenvironmental and public health risks. Thefollowing issues generally need to beconsidered in designing a waste collectionsystem:

Containerization and on-site storage ofwasteSource separationCollection mechanism (roadsidecollection, door-to-door collection,communal containers, on-time collectionetc.)Cleansing of streets and other publicplacesTime of collectionType of vehicles used for collectionFrequency of collectionRoute planningNo. of staff used for collectionSpecial collection for bulk wastegeneratorsSeparate collection for special wastesuch as medical waste and householdhazardous wasteTransfer of waste from primary collectionvehicles to larger vehicle for secondarytransport

In Nepal, however, waste collection systemsare not properly planned to effectivelyutilize available resources. It is estimatedthat the 58 municipalities in Nepal generateabout 1,369 tons of municipal waste perday or 500,000 tons per year (SWMRMC,2004). Less than half of this gets collectedand almost all of the collected waste isdumped haphazardly in a crude manner. Inmany municipalities, waste generatorsgenerally dump the waste on the streets at

Waste collection system

any place at any time and sweepers collect thewaste and pile it up at a certain location before itgets scooped up again and placed in a vehicle fortransportation. This multiple handling of wasteduring collection makes the entire systeminefficient and ineffective. Although manysweepers clean the streets, the streets aregenerally dirty because all the waste does not getpicked up and waste is dumped on the streetseven after they are swept.

However, several municipalities have taken theinitiative to introduce waste collection systemsthat are more efficient and effective. Some havedistributed bins to encourage proper storage ofwaste at source and several municipalities haveintroduced door-to-door or on-time collectionsystems, where waste is transported straight fromthe source to a collection vehicle at a given time.This avoids the need for multiple handling ofwaste and also reduces the cost of streetsweeping. In Kathmandu, it is now estimated thatmore than half the household have this type ofsystem. In most cases, this service is beingprovided by private sector or community groups.This also makes it easier to collect service fee fromthe users, which is essential to make the solidwaste management as a whole financiallysustainable.

Although very few attempts have been made in Nepalto implement source-separated collection systems,experiences from other countries show thatseparation of waste at source makes recycling ofwaste much easier. Source separated collectionsystem may be a bit more complicated because

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Solidwaste collection inBirgunj Sub-Metropolitan CityENPHO

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different types of waste have to be collectedseparately, but the savings due to increasedrecycling will make the system as a whole moreefficient. Consumer surveys have indicated thatmost people are willing to separate their wasteat source, provided that the waste is alsocollected separately. Similarly, waste collectorsare also willing to collect waste separatelybecause of the income they can make fromselling recyclable materials. In fact most wastecollectors from private operators sort the wasteas soon as they receive it and put recyclablescrap in separate bag, which is an informalsystem of source separation. Therefore, itwould be wise for municipalities to introduce asystem in which waste has to be sorted at thesource by the generators themselves into atleast two components - organic and inorganic.As the inorganic component is generally less involume and does not degrade it can becollected only once a week. This will make thecollection system more efficient and costeffective.

Once waste is collected in primary collectionvehicles such as handcarts, rickshaws ortractors, it often needs to be transferred tolarger vehicles for transportation to treatmentor disposal sites. This transfer process isusually inefficient and ineffective because thewaste from the primary collection vehicle is

normally dumped on the ground and thenloaded on to the haulage vehicle manually orusing a loader. A more effective method is totransfer the waste from the primary vehicledirectly on to the secondary transport vehicleby collecting the waste in detachablecontainers, such as sacks or bins within theprimary vehicle which can be lifted manuallyand emptied into the secondary vehiclewithout having to put the waste on theground during the transfer process. Anothermethod is to use a split-level transferprocess, where the primary collection vehicleis tipped to allow waste to fall in to thesecondary vehicle that is placed at a lowerlevel. Such transfer operations are practicedin a few locations in Kathmandu.

Source separatedcollection

Recycling of solid waste as a resource willreduce the amount of waste that needs to bedisposed as well as the cost of wastemanagement. The potential for recycling thewaste generated in Nepalese municipalities ishigh because most of the waste is recyclableand technologies for recycling most of thewaste is readily available in the country.Furthermore, there is a market for mostrecyclable materials because of the demandcreated by the formal and informal privatesector involved in this sector.

Composting and recycling On average, about 70 percent of thehousehold waste generated in Nepalesemunicipalities consists of organic matter,while about 20 percent consist of recyclableinorganic materials such as paper, plastic andmetal, and about 10 percent is inertmaterials. As about two thirds of the wasteis organic, recycling of organic waste throughcomposting or the application of otherappropriate technologies can play animportant role in waste management.Composting of organic waste can alsosignificantly reduce the cost andenvironmental impacts of waste management

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as organic waste in dump sites invitesproblems such as smell, leachate, methanegas and scavengers. Similarly, separation oforganic waste also helps keep the inorganicwaste such as paper and plastics clean,which in turn increases their market valueand potential for recycling.

Composting is a simple and effective way ofrecycling waste that is already beingpracticed by many people. There are severaldifferent ways to compost waste such asaerobic composting in piles or windrows,composting in bins or vessels, and vermicomposting. Similarly, in terms of scale,composting can be done at the householdlevel, institutional level, community level ormunicipal level. Household and institutionalcomposting systems are designed to cater tothe needs of a single house or institution,while community scale plants may treat up to3 tons of waste per day, while at themunicipal level usually large mechanizedplants treat the waste from a wholemunicipality or part of the municipality.Although there aren't any large scalecompost plants in Nepal, BhaktapurMunicipality has a small plant with a capacityto process about 6 tons of waste per day andseveral municipalities such as Kathmanduand Hetauda are promoting community andhousehold composting. Hetauda is also inthe process of setting up a 3 ton per daycompost plant with community and privatesector participation.

Although Bhaktapur municipality's compostplant is not operating at full capacity, themunicipality has been operating the plant formore than 20 years and it is managing part ofthe municipal waste. The compost plant has alarge platform where waste is piled to formlong windrows that are about 2 meters wideand 1.5 m high. The windrows are turnedmanually about once every month. EffectiveMicrorganisms (EM) is occasionally placed onthe piles to assist in the degradation process.

After a few months, once the compost ismature it is screened manually using inclinedscreens and the final product is sold tofarmers. Although there are amplepossibilities to improve the quality of thecompost and expand its market to make thecompost plant sustainable (Tuladhar andBania, 1997), this is still a good example of aninitiative by a municipality to reduce andrecycle waste. It demonstrates thatmunicipalities can compost solid waste usingvery simple methods and with minimalinvestment. It also shows that in order toestablish a sustainable composting system,more effort needs to be placed on preparingthe waste for composting, controlling thecomposting process by ensuring adequateaeration, and properly marketing the compost.

Several NGOs such as WEPCO in Lalitpur andNEPCEMAC in Kathmandu, and somemunicipalities are also practicing communitycomposting. In these systems, the waste iscollected through door-to-door collectionand then composted in piles or in large

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Compost bin: A womenfrom Khadipakha

squatter communityputting the solid waste

in the bin

WaterAid/ Anita Pradhan

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vessels or chambers. The compost is packedin bags and sold in the local market.Kathmandu Metropolitan City has alsoestablished a vermi composting system witha capacity to process about 1 ton ofvegetable market waste per day.

In order to promote household composting,several municipalities are selling compostbins of various sizes at subsidized rates.Kathmandu, for example has sold more than2000 compost bins of 100 litre capacity.The bins are designed to be attractive, lightweight, durable and large enough to handlewaste from one household. The bin has twocompartments - the top one for waste andthe bottom one for compost. In order toallow natural aeration, the bin has holes onthe sides and a bar screen between thecompartments. The municipality is currentlyselling the bins along with a set of necessaryaccessories, including a set of tools, ascreen and a bottle of EffectiveMicroorganisms for Rs. 750. The actual costfor the complete set is Rs. 1032. Similarly,other municipalities such as Hetauda andLaliptur are also selling compost bins.Kathmandu Metropolitan City also sellsvermi composting kits, consisting of aplastic tub; a set of 300 worms of thespecies Eisenia foetida, bed material for theworms and a half-day training for Rs. 500.Such measures encourage households toreduce waste at source by practicinghousehold composting.

Anaerobic digestion of waste to producebiogas and slurry is another way to recycleorganic waste. In rural Nepal, thousands ofhouseholds have set up domestic biogasplants to manage their waste, mainly cowdung and toilet waste, and produce biogasfor use as a cooking fuel in their kitchen.More recently, some organizations andinstitutions have also started producingbiogas from vegetable market waste andkitchen waste in urban areas.

As for inorganic waste, most of the plastics,metal and paper in the waste stream can berecycled by private sector in Nepal. Somemunicipalities such as Hetauda andBharatpur have initiated separate plasticwaste collection programmes. Both Hetaudaand Bharatpur Municipalities have joinedhands with local community groups and theprivate sector to start a plastic wastecollection programme. In these municipalitiesa simple metal hook called "suiro" isdistributed to households so that they cancollect their plastic waste. The plastic iscollected once every fifteen days or as andwhen required. The collected waste is takento industries for recycling.

With support from WaterAid in Nepal, UN-HABITAT, Practical Action and Lumanti SupportGroup for Shelter the people of Lamku inBharatpur municipality have setup a 40m3

biogas plant. The installed biogas planthelped to manage the waste generated (fromsquatter community; vegetable market andnearby dwellings) through anaerobicdigestion process and produce biogas forlivelihood linkage from waste. The gasgenerated from this plant is being utilized bythe poor squatter community for lighting aswell as for cooking.

Biogas plant at Lamku,Belchowk, Bharatpur

Municipality

WaterAid/ Kabir Rajbhandari

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Sourceseparation atHetaudaHospital

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Medical waste from hospitals, clinics and othersources can be very hazardous as they can beinfectious or can contain various chemicals.Although the total amount of such waste isnormally a small portion of the overallmunicipal waste stream, they need to beseparated at source and managed properly sothat they do not contaminate other waste orpose a public health risk.

Hetauda Municipality has developed a simpleand effective way to manage the medicalwaste generated in the city which can be asuitable model for other municipalities. Alldrug stores, clinics and pathology labs in the

city separate theirwaste in to threecategories -ordinary,hazardous andsharps - and themunicipality hasjoined hands with

Medical waste management

a local NGO to provide a separate rickshawfor collecting the hazardous medical wasteon a daily basis. Currently, the hazardouswaste is taken to a location away fromhuman settlements and burned, but themunicipality is in the process of constructinga double chambered incinerator at thepremises of Hetauda Hospital to manage thewaste. The service fee (Rs. 50 to 200 permonth) collected from the waste generatorsis sufficient for operating the system.Hetauda's medical waste managementsystem is therefore a simple and sustainablesystem.

LandfillingWhile most municipalities in Nepal are simplydumping their waste in rivers or other publicplaces, Tribhuwan Nagar, a mid-sized town inwestern Nepal has demonstrated that anenvironment friendly sanitary landfill can bebuilt and operated successfully through apartnership between local community and themunicipality. Tribhuwan Nagar is one of onlythree municipalities in Nepal that has anengineered landfill for waste management; theothers are Kathmandu and Pokhara. Whatmakes Tribhuwn Nagar's effort unique is thatthe landfill was built through local efforts and itis currently being managed by a communitybased group with active involvement ofmunicipality and the private sector. While thelandfill in Kathmandu and Pokhara often faceproblems and conflicts with the localcommunity, the Tribhuwan Nagar landfill hasbeen operating smoothly since its

establishment and has become a model forother municipalities in Nepal.

The landfill, which is spread over 20 ha of landat Karauti Danda in ward 9 of Tribhuwan NagarMunicipality, was established in 2005. Thelandfill is connected to the main town, which is

Karauti Danda Landfillat Tribhuwan Nagar

Medical wastecollection at HetaudaENPHO

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about five kilometers away by a paved roadand there are no houses in the immediatevicinity of the landfill. About five tons of wasteis collected daily by the municipality andbrought to the landfill in covered vehicles. Atthe landfill the waste is first sorted to removeplastics and other recyclable materials. Theorganic waste is composted in pits and theremaining waste is landfilled and covered withsoil. The landfill has drains for collecting stormwater runoff and leachate along with a facilityfor treating leachate. Although the treatmentfacility is not functioning as the amount ofleachate produced is very small, it is a goodinitiative. The area designated for wastedisposal is surrounded by a buffer zone withforest as well as a garden. The landfill also hasmany bee hives and a sunflower garden forthe bees, which adds to the aesthetics of thearea. Overall the landfill is clean and wellmanaged.

The special features of the Karauti DandaLandfill at Tribhuwn Nagar are as follows:

The landfill is spread over a large area thatcan accommodate waste for many years.As the landfill is only about 5 km from thetown centre the transportation cost isfairly low.Although the landfill is located withinward 9 of the municipal, the landfill doesnot have any settlements nearby.

The landfill has a barbed wire fence around itto clearly demarcate its boundary and onlyauthorized persons are allowed to enter thelandfill.The landfill also has facilities for wastesegregation and storing of recyclable materialssuch as plastics.Organic waste is composted within the landfill.Runoff and leachate is collected by a networkof drains and the landfill also has leachatetreatment system.A buffer zone that includes a forest and gardensurrounds the landfill.A sunflower garden and numerous bee hivesmake the landfill very attractive.An office building has been built foradministrative purposes as well as convenienceof the staff.The landfill is managed by a committeeinvolving local community, municipality and thelocal chamber of commerce.

Source: SWMRMC/ UN-HABITAT (2008)

Private sector participationPrivate sector participation (PSP) in solidwaste management can improve efficiency,reduce the need for municipal investment,and share risks associated with introducing anew technology or system. In spite of theseclear benefits, many municipalities have notbeen able to take advantage of PSP in wastemanagement. Some of the main challenges inintroducing PSP in solid waste managementare as follows:

Lack of policies and guidelinesInadequate planningLack of capable and reliable private partiesInsufficient coordination betweenmunicipalities and private partiesResistance from municipal staff, who fearloosing their jobs and are satisfied with thestatus quo.

However, some municipalities includingKathmandu, Biratnagar, Hetauda, Bharatpur andKirtipur have introduced PSP in waste

Sunflower garden ENPHO

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Public participation

As waste is generated by the people, theirparticipation is essential to ensure a wellmanaged system. Some municipalities haverealized this fact and initiated programmes toeducation local communities and involvethem in waste management. KathmanduMetropolitan City has a separate CommunityMobilization Unit (CMU) within itsEnvironment Department that is working withvarious community groups, youth groups andschool children to raise awareness andprovide training and necessary support foreffective solid waste management. CMU'sprogrammes include the following:

Children and Environment - CMU hasassisted 50 local schools in establishingnature clubs, building capacity of clubmembers and organizing various activitieswithin the school and surroundingcommunity.

management. In most cases, the involvementof private sector has been in the form ofmanagement contracts where a privatecontractor is given the responsibility ofcollecting waste from a certain area for afixed fee. This is the simplest form of PSPwhereby the responsibility for wastecollection or transportation is given to aprivate party and it usually does not involvecollection of service fee from wastegenerators. This form of PSP may reduce thecost of waste management to a certain extentbut it requires effective monitoring by themunicipality. In some municipalities, such asHetauda and Kathmandu, franchise system ofPSP has been introduced, whereby a privatecompany is given the responsibility to collectwaste as well as service fee from wastegenerators in a designated area such as award. This form of PSP usually results in lesscost for the municipality and the serviceprovider becomes more accountable to thepeople. Another form of PSP is theconcession system whereby private sector

invests in waste management relatedfacilities such as compost plants andoperates it for a certain time. AlthoughKathmandu Metropolitan City initiated theprocess of inviting the private sector toestablish a compost plant and also signed amemorandum of agreement with a privateparty for this purpose, it was not successfulbecause of the lack of support from allstakeholders. Experience on PSP so farsuggests that some municipalities have beensuccessful in involving the private sector inwaste management but these efforts need tobe carefully monitored and evaluated toimprove their performance and scale up theinvolvement of private sector.

Explaining compost

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City Volunteer - About 100 youth have beentrained to become "City Volunteers" (CV) whowork as a link between the municipality andthe community to promote householdcomposting and recycling and communityinvolvement in keeping their neighbourhoodclean.

Street drama bychildren

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Although proper management of solid wasteis essential for urban sanitation, manymunicipalities are struggling with thisproblem. Municipalities are spendingsignificant resources to address this problem,but the overall situation is far fromsatisfactory and rapid and haphazard urbangrowth is making the problem worse.However, several municipalities havedemonstrated ways to effectively managewaste using simple measures such as door-to-door waste collection, promotion of

Conclusions household composting, distribution of"suiro" for plastic collection, separatemanagement systems for hazardous wasteand operation of an effective landfill withcommunity participation. Almost all thesesuccessful efforts have been initiated locallywithout much external donor support butwith plenty of support from localcommunities and private sector. These bestpractices demonstrate that local initiativeswith extensive participation of localcommunities and private sector can go a longway in addressing the problem of solid wastemanagement in urban areas.

Considering the serious challenge currentlyfaced by all municipalities in managing theirwaste and the large amount of resourcesthat is being wasted in this process, there isan urgent need for municipalities to learnfrom the few successful innovative practicesand replicate them. For this to happen, thefollowing steps need to be taken:

All municipalities should developstrategies to establish effective andefficient integrated waste managementsystems with private sector andcommunity participation. The centralgovernment and other partners canprovide technical support and guidancein this process. Furthermore, as theexperience from Kathmandu has shown,

The way ahead

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the strategies have to be formulated in aparticipatory manner and they have to befollowed up with annual plans andbudgets and the progress should becarefully monitored.Municipalities need to design systemsthat will maximize separation andmanagement of waste at source in orderto reduce the total amount of waste thatis disposed and the cost associated withit. This will require active engagementwith local communities to raiseawareness, skills and motivation to dohousehold composting and recycling.Source separated collection systems,distribution of compost bins and "Suiro"system for plastic waste collection areinnovative systems that have been triedout and can be replicated.

Community Participation and Training -CMU is works with community groups andprovides them technical and financialassistance where necessary. It has alsoformed and supported Ward EnvironmentCommittees in several wards.Demonstration of EnvironmentalTechnologies - CMU is promotingtechnologies such as compost bins andvermi compost kits.Community Recycling Centres -Community Recycling Centres have been

established to encourage and assist people inrecycling their waste.Mass Education - CMU is reaching out tothe general public through radioprogrammes, message boards and regularexhibitions.

Several municipalities have established hundredsof Tole Lane Organizations at the local level, whichare being mobilized to promote recycling andwaste management at the household andcommunity level.

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As waste collection is the most expensivepart of any waste management system,municipalities need to increase theefficiency of their waste collection systems.This may be done by introducing on-timeor door-to-door collection system. Thepractice of dumping waste on the street sothat it can be swept and collected has tostop as it is highly inefficient and results inenvironmental pollution.In order to maximize waste recycling theprivate sector should be encouraged toset up and operate waste recycling andcomposting facilities.Non-recyclable waste should be managedin sanitary landfills with appropriatesystems for pollution control such asbuffer zones, proper drainage, andcovering material. The landfill atTribhuwan Nagar can be used as a model.

Hazardous medical waste should not bemixed with ordinary waste. They shouldbe collected and managed separately.Hetauda Municipality has demonstratedhow this can be done in a simple and costeffective manner.As the cost associated with municipalwaste management can be very high, themunicipality should seek ways to optimizethe system and collect service fee from thepeople to in order to ensure that the wastemanagement system as a whole isfinancially sustainable. The private sectorand community groups can be involved inwaste management to reduce cost andincrease efficiency. However the process ofinvolving the private sector should be clearand transparent and the municipalityshould carefully monitor the performanceof the private operator.

ReferencesCBS, 1997: Urban Population Survey 1996, Central Bureau of Statistics, His Majesty's Government of Nepal, Kathmandu.

SWMRMC, (2004): A Diagnostic Report on State of Solid Waste Management in Municipalities of Nepal, Solid Waste

Management and Resource Mobilization Centre, Lalitpur.

Tuladhar, B and Bania A, 1997: Technical and Economic Analysis of Bhaktapur Compost Plant - Nepal, Urban Waste Expertise

Programme (UWEP), WASTE, Gourda, Netherlands.

Pokhrel D. et al (2005): Municipal Solid Waste Management in Nepal: Practices and Challenges, Waste Management 25 (555-

562), Science Direct

Nippon Koei & Yachiyo Engineering (2005):The study on the Solid Waste Management for The Kathmandu Valley, CKV study

report, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) assistance to Nepal.

SWMRMC/UN-HABITAT (2008) 10 Steps for a Clean City Technical Guidelines for Solid Waste Management in Nepal (Draft), Solid

Waste Management and Resource Mobilisation Centre, Lalitpur, Nepal

12www.endwaterpoverty.org.np

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