An Approach for the Selection and Evaluation of Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management in Bangladesh

Abstract

Bangladesh, one of the Least Developed Asian Countries is facing very complicated situations for the management of vast quantities of municipal solid waste (MSW) generated by urban communities. Due to the absence of an integrated system there are many loop holes and constraints in the existing waste management practice, which ultimately fails to improve the overall system. This study provides information about the present situation of MSW and its characteristics, management practices and limitations in the six city corporations of Bangladesh, namely Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Barisal and Syihet. The key issues needs to be addressed for an efficient waste management system and the limitations of the present system are also identified and illustrated here explicitly. For an integrated management of MSW, the study discuss several options such as cost benefit analysis, life cycle analysis and multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) and propose a spreadsheet tool for an integrated management system based on the MCDA. The tool is suggested for the verification of suitability and sustainability of the adopted approach. The proposed approach is based on series of spread sheets of waste system components such as contain & collect, sort & recovery, transfer & treat and dispose & make safe, and aspects of evaluation such as source & streams, cost & return, health & environment and community & structures. The spreadsheet can be used in two ways῾WasteCheck’—where the body of the table is used to highlight the most significant questions and ῾WasteCase’—where the body of the table is used to highlight the most pertinent answers relating to the ῾usiness and sustainability’ justification. The selection and evaluation tools is then adopted theoretically for a case study city, Khulna, the third largest city of Bangladesh, to check its sustainability based on local needs and associated aspects. New terminology WastePoint for on-site disposal facility. WasteNode for waste transfer facility, StrategicSite for ultimate disposal facility is adopted in the study for better understanding and clarity. As the six study cities show a remarkable degree of similarity with respect to financial aspects, technical aspects and human resources development,the selection and evaluation approach can be easily extendable for other city corporations of Bangladesh as well.