Syed Mahmood Anwar

SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT AND GIS

a case from Kalabagan area of Dhaka city, Bangladesh

(the MPhil Thesis of mine)

Contents

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problem statement

objectives

Study area

The present situation of solid waste managemnt in Kalabagan

Actors in solid waste management in Kalabagan

Use of GIS for selecting suitable locations of waste bins

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Summary of findings

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Refreences

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PROBLEM STATEMENT

The state of Solid Waste Management (SWM) in Dhaka city is a serious concern. As low as only 42 percent of the solid waste generated in Dhaka city is estimated to be collected by the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) (Majumdar, 1998). Majumdar, 1998 also revealed that 50 percent households do not use waste bins to throw wastes, rather they throw it either in drain, roadside or in any other improper manner. Besides the health problem, solid waste blocks the drainage system and creates flooding in the streets leading towards mosquitoes, bad odor and inconvenience. The geographical and climatic condition of Dhaka city is favorable for flood; hence, solid waste in streets and drains multiplies the impacts and miseries. Rotten and decomposed garbage make neighborhoods filthy, foul smelling and unhealthy. Flies, cockroaches and rodents thrive in such filth, and they are the known sources of many diseases. Uncontrolled and open dumping also cause frequent floods and threaten the contamination of water supply. In consequences, the growing problem of solid waste in Dhaka city is posing increasing threats to the health and well being of its residents. (Majumdar, 1998).

Kalabagan, a densely populated area with mainly residential landuse, is located in the central part of Dhaka City (Figure 4.1). As a part of Dhaka city, the picture of waste management is not different here compared with the other parts of the city. By realizing the overall waste management situation, it is seems that the actors in Kalabagan as well as in Dhaka city are not doing their job properly. Mohit 2000, already mentioned that all the households are not members of the house to house waste collection services. His statement indicates there might be some reason, for why the households regret to receive the service of the CBO. He also identifies that CBO is facing difficulties to throw the collected wastes to the community bins, as the bins are located at far distance. Mohit, 2000 also pointed out that DCC sometimes do not clear the bins timely and for this reason, the CBO waste collectors cannot throw the wastes properly.

In addition to the above problem regarding the actor’s behaviour, another problem area is regarding to the old technology and method that is exercised by DCC. Huda, 2001 mentioned that the DCC is running with old and inadequate technology for solid waste management. The working nature of the DCC heavily relies on bureaucratic procedures use incompetent and backdated management tools. On the other hand, municipalities around the globe with a set of efficient management staff, use modern technology to tackle urban solid waste management problems. So, there might be some implications of technology as one of the constraints of the improved and inadequate solid waste management in Dhaka city. Mohit, 2000 identified that, Kalabagan area is lacking community bins while there is no specific rule regarding placement of the dustbins or community waste collection places in Dhaka city (Bhuiyan, 2002). Geographical Information System (GIS) could be use in this particular case of problem. GIS tool is applicable in many varieties of areas of urban solid waste concern. The use of GIS is widely applied to design the waste collection routes and distributing the transfer bins in a community.

OBJECTIVE(S)

The general objective of the research is to find out whether GIS is the solution of SWM or not. The specific objectives are to:

1. Identify the present solid waste management practice by households and house-to-house waste collector in the study area.

2. Analyze the actor’s behaviour and the relationship among them in the solid waste management process.

3. Develop a GIS based model to propose the suitable locations of community waste bins.

4. Assess the role of GIS for solid waste management in the existing context.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

8.1 INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, I will show how a Geographic Information System (GIS) can be used to find out or propose optimum locations of solid waste collection places in a neighborhood. The ultimate goal of finding out the suitable location of waste collection places should be to improve the solid waste management system of a community. Whereas, a sustainable solid waste management system depends highly on how the actors participate. I have already discussed the actors of solid waste management in Kalabagan area and how they act and interact with each other. In this chapter I am focusing on the applicability of the GIS in the present circumstances from actor’s perspective.

8.2 HOW SOLID WASTE HAS BEEN MANAGED

Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) is the primary responsible authority for the solid waste management in Kalabagan as well as entire Dhaka city, whereas Samaj Kallan Parishad is responsible at Kalabagan neighborhood level. House to house waste collection system is offered by a Community Based Organization (CBO) named as the Samaj Kallan Parishad. Nevertheless 40.7 percent of the population is not participating to the house-to-house waste collection system. People can choose between throwing the waste by themselves or give the waste to the house to house waste collectors by being a member of house to house waste collection service or throw the waste by themselves to the waste bins. People are not satisfied with the service of the CBO due to some few reasons such as rudeness of the workers, ill-timed waste collection, and careless waste collection. The unsatisfactory waste management of the CBO gives very little improvement to the overall waste management of Kalabagan. Moreover, non-member households are in many cases found throwing the waste in inappropriate manner in non-designated places. DCC has insufficient legal and institutional strength to deal with the improper waste dumping by the inhabitants.

CBO is run by the non-professional management. The CBO is found much interested to collect the monthly charge from the households rather than to think about the improved and proper management of waste. In some cases, people become the member of house to house waste collection service not for the benefit of proper waste management but to get relieved from the waste burden.

Waste bins are located too far from the houses for most of the Kalabagan area. GIS interpretation shows that, many people do not find a waste bin even within a 400 meters walking distance. This explains the presence of lots of wastes being littered along the streets.

8.3 THE PERSPECTIVE OF ACTORS OF SWM IN KALABAGAN

Solid Waste Management (SWM) is a complex task, where the actors should play the role what they supposed to do in order to manage the wastes properly. According to Long, 2001, Actor’s Perspective requires probing more deeply into the social and cultural discontinuities and ambiguities inherent in the ‘battlefields of knowledge’ that shaped the relations between local actors. Actor’s Perspective theory suggested me to analyze the reasons behind the act, reaction, feelings, and comments of the actors. Thus I could reach at the cause of the solid waste management problem in Kalabagan. After analyzing the context from the viewpoint of different actors, I managed to see, why they are not participating to the solid waste management properly.

I have identified four major categories of actors in the solid waste management of Kalabagan area. The actors are the households, house to house waste collectors, CBO officials and the City Corporation officials.

Households

Households pay a minimum amount to become a member of house to house waste collection service. The member households are not satisfied on the house to house waste collection service due to some reasons like as untimely waste collection, bad manners of the waste collectors, careless waste taking. A bulk portion of households are not the member of house to house waste collection, they manage the waste themselves properly or improperly. However, monthly charge is not the prime reason for not being a member of the house to house waste collection service. Many believe that if they find a waste bin around them, it could be more effective to manage the waste rather to be a member of house to house waste collection service. People are aware of the impact of improper management of waste. In my view, a culture has been developed that people care only a little to throw the wastes properly. They do not care much about self responsibility for a common goal. One blames another for throwing waste improperly. In fact at all the levels among the actors, they blame one another than themselves.

Waste collectors

Waste collectors are not motivated for being responsible to the cleanliness of the street and proper waste management. They are just following the job routine. Consequently, it ends up with dropping of wastes from their cart in many places. In the process some wastes are left at the door of the households. Other factors include the traffic jam which sometimes makes delay to the waste collection and causes much trouble to dump the collected waste to the bin. Collectors do not find a waste bin at a short distance and the crowd road just makes their job lengthy. They do not get sufficient earning by the job. As a result, they are much interested to separate the recyclable items from the wastes rather that to manage the waste carefully, since they can earn some extra cash.

Community Based Organization (CBO)

CBO officials do not control the waste collectors strongly as they know that they do not pay them well. But, it is also true that, the CBO do not earn much to run the organization in a professional manner. The managers of the CBO have their own job apart from the waste management business. So, this volunteer job does not get enough priority to these local managers.

Dhaka City Corporation (DCC)

DCC employees, who are responsible for waste management service, are not working with professional attitude. They would like to see CBO taking the whole work at local level. Note that, they do not have proper guidelines and criteria for selecting CBOs for this job. DCC does not do proper monitoring on the waste management at field level. Moreover, modern and effective technology is lacking in DCC. When many developing countries are practicing GIS as a modern tool for waste management in their cities, DCC thinks GIS as simply a tool for map presentation. DCC does not have the skilled and trained manpower of GIS technology that can provide adequate support to the Conservancy Department of DCC for proper waste management. In these circumstances, the possible way to integrate GIS for solid waste management can be engaging consultant who can contribute independently. As for example, the consultant can check how the existing waste bins are serving the community. Then he can find out some suitable locations for the new waste bins. As first he can choose a smaller area of Dhaka city. Then DCC can implement the consultant’s proposal in that area and evaluate the performance of the proposal in the time being. GIS thus be integrated partially in DCC for solid waste management.

8.4 HOW GIS FINDS AN OPTIMUM LOCATION OF WASTE BIN

GIS is practiced for solid waste management elsewhere in the world including some developing countries but not in Bangladesh. I found that, DCC has no guidelines for locating waste collection bins in an area. They do not even have any proper instrument to analyze how the waste bin serves the people around. In these circumstances, I have used GIS to analyze the existing service area of the waste bins in Kalabagan and then select some suitable locations of the waste bins in the area.

I got the actor (household)’s view that, they need to have waste bin nearby or walking distance. Then I needed something that could help me to analyze the spatial and service coverage of the existing waste bins. With the GIS interpretation, I could easily analyze that the existing bins are too few and not located well to get a good service area. In addition, the service areas of the three existing bins are overlapping each other to big extent. GIS interpretation also shows that most of the Kalabagan area is not covered by the existing waste bins within acceptable distances.

GIS has been used to identify how much an area is covered by a bin at a certain walking distance. I have selected some locations of the waste bins and shown the service areas of those at a given distance factor say 150 meters of walking distance. I produced coverage of service areas where the individual service areas of waste bins are not overlapping each other and can cover the entire Kalabagan area. In other word, it can be mentioned as optimum distribution of the waste bins at a distance factor. GIS gives me an opportunity to produce different coverages with different service area covers at different distance factors and compare how many waste bins are needed in different cases.

8.5 SIMPLY GIS IS NOT ENOUGH

Optimizing the locations of garbage collection points to ensure efficiency and cleanliness is ambiguous. However, an improved solid waste management is not possible without an immense amount of grass roots interaction. I observed Solid Waste Management (SWM) is not simply a matter of technology or GIS. GIS in a way can deliver an ideal, preferable system but it cannot make things work without proper participation of all the stakeholders. When I worked with GIS to find out suitable locations for the waste bins in Kalabagan area, it seems that modern technology could solve the problem. However, in practical situation the work might not go with the theoretical result, especially where people and other actors act otherwise. In this case the analysis of the actor’s perspective in solid waste management in Kalabagan area becomes important. GIS can participate to the solution of problem by producing alternative technical solution, but there are some social factors and practical conflicts remain unconsidered.

Research regarding GIS has evolved from the initial focus on technical issues, but, more recently it is assessed within given contexts to understand the social outreach of the technology. One of the social benefits is ‘better’ decision making, which has always been considered as the promised output of GIS, but not much research has been done to understand how (and even if) the introduction of GIS technology impacts the decision process. (Duffy, 1998). The components of the decision-making are data, decision models, the decision environment and people. GIS in my case, shows in a simple way where to put the waste bins to cover the entire Kalabagan area. If we look to the input data for this GIS analysis, then we can see that it did not and cannot cover the social factors. GIS works as a tool for spatial analysis. Spatial analysis has a purpose to solve a problem, which lies in a society, thus it involves human, social, cultural and practical factors. Like in this study, the location of waste bins is not simply a spatial or physical matter. Many questions can come forward beyond the spatial aspect. When the authority goes to build the waste bin at a location in front of someone’s house, then he might oppose it. Again, the choice of different actors may vary. GIS could not combine the preference or experience of different actors like DCC, CBO, households to find out an optimum solution. Social and cultural practice has no effect in GIS analysis. If there are two areas with same physical settings but varied cultural or social characteristics, then GIS interpretation will produce same result for both the areas.

In spite of failing to analyze the social and cultural condition, the importance of GIS to improve the solid waste management is not insignificant. I have prepared maps showing the possible optimum locations of waste bins. Then it allows everyone to understand what the situation will be, where the waste bins will be located; how and from where the people can come to throw the waste. Simply the printed paper with the map can tell a lot to concerned people. Thus, many alternatives can be modeled with GIS to with and those would be effective means to discuss with different actors about the proposal.

GIS thus acts like a tool facilitating social interaction and discussion, which can produce understandable thematic map showing possible solution. As in this case, with the map, the official of Conservancy Department of DCC can realize where to put the waste bins, which areas are covered by the bins and how many of waste bins are required. Simultaneously, the waste workers can say something about whether the locations are suitable for them to empty their cart. They might have alternative choice which will cause to avoid congestion. When it comes to the household’s perspective, the representatives of the community can have a word about if there is anything to oppose or agree about the proposed locations of waste bins. The households may disagree about a location, then showing the map, it can be asked that which can be the alternative location for the waste bin? Because, nothing is comparable to the printed map for making people to understand clearly about a physical solution. The GIS makes it possible to combine the physical and technical aspects to find out the spatial solution and as well as the GIS facilitates to seat with the different actors with the produced map.

8.6 CONCLUSION

The solution, which comes out after GIS interpretation, might not work if the social, cultural and other malpractice will not be overcome. The actors need to behave, as they are supposed to. In a third world country like Bangladesh the systematic and well behaved actors may be expected in a remote future. So, any solution should be worked out within the frame out of the existing actor’s environment. Though the modern technology like GIS cannot have direct benefit for implementation work, but, it has fruitful utilization in other way when the authority needs to seat with different stakeholders to resolve the conflict among each other. However, the findings of the study broaden the opportunity for further study. As this study reveals that GIS can be used for solid waste management, then further study can be done about how the authority like DCC can be equipped with GIS. Moreover, concerned people can think about if there is any possibility to include social factors in conventional GIS programs. By understanding how the rational actor uses a GIS to transform information and the changes in the decision environment due to the introduction of the technology one would be able to improve GIS design, which in turn will lead to better decision-making, the ultimate objective for having the technology in the first place.

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