Welcome toWaste

Management, Urban Resilience

and Climate Change

Waste Management

Until recently, environment was not an issue in a developing country like Bangladesh and waste management was definitely not the prime concern of environmentalists and the government, when the awakening to the issue finally did happen. It is only in very recent times, when certain NGO’s started working and highlighting the pathetic state of municipal waste services provision in the country, that the decision makers realized the importance of this particular aspect of environmental management.

Dhaka city is facing serious environmental degradation and public-health risk due to uncollected disposal of waste on streets and other public areas, clogged drainage system by indiscriminately dumped wastes and by contamination of water resources near uncontrolled dumping sites.

Solid Waste Generation Per Day

Residential Commercial Industrial Hospital & Clinical0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2000

1718 Tons

722 Tons835 Tons

255 Tons

Impact of Solid Waste Disposal on Environment

Open air dumping creates unhygienic and poses enormous threat to the people.

Causes aesthetic problem and nuisance due to nauseating pungent odor.

Promotes spreading of diseases. The situation further aggravated by the indiscriminate disposal

of Hospital and Clinical Waste. Presence of extremely high level of Total and Facial coliform. Pollute water bodies. Carbon dioxide and Methane produced from solid waste are

extremely harmful to the environment.

Steps Taken by Dhaka City Corporation Giving permission of PCSP (Primary Collection Service Provider)/ door

to door waste collection from household /Van services.

Collect solid waste from domestic, business, hospital, street, public toilets and drains.

Provide dustbins and other receptacles for accumulating the waste.

DNCC cleaners clean the roads, drains and sewerage lines.

Collection and transportation of medical waste.

Development of  hospital waste landfill

Development of sanitary landfill

Manage the private solid waste management and NGO based solid waste management

Urban Resilience

Dhaka is one of the most densely populated city in the country, perhaps in the whole world. But it wasn’t that dense 3 decades ago. The influx has been happened mainly due to affect of climate change and natural disasters.  Historically a major portion of south-west of Bangladesh is single cropped.  But due to increasing salinity at the ground and scarcity of irrigation water has negatively impacted agricultural production and the farmers and agricultural wage labors have lost their livelihood thereby. On the other hand, the coastal belt is highly vulnerable to natural disasters. Once a disaster hits, the affected population doesn’t have immediate recovery and restoration of their livelihoods. These two groups of people eventually migrate to the large cities, in most cases to Dhaka for survival without knowing the opportunities much.

Some Key Aspects of Dhaka

Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital - rapidly urbanizing megacity in a most densely populated and poorest country.

30% of total population live in slum settlements.

Tenure insecurity/ evictions; gang lords - exorbitant rents and charges for basic services.

Poor quality and densely built housing; basic public infrastructure non-existent or very limited.

Flooding and water-logging, due to poor drainage; windstorms; earthquake risk - unplanned urbanization and sub-standard building; urban fires, often believed to be ignited intentionally; climate change impacts already evident.

Water, sanitation and hygiene condition for the slum dwellers are critical. They suffer from lack of pure drinking water, sewerage system, latrines, etc. Reproductive health services is also inadequate in spite the government has very strong commitment to address these issues.

Regular Scene of Dhaka during Rainy Season

Government should take necessary steps

The short term employment schemes like cash for work and food for work is not promoted to the urban poor people whilst enormous opportunity remains. This ‘neo urban’ population can be utilized for maintenance of public utilities such as drains and ponds cleaning, road repairing and maintenance, latrine construction, etc. Also, they can be provided with micro and small enterprise development opportunities.

Government has to ensure essential services to the urban slum dwellers. These people have very lower voice to raise. But the role of civil society needs to be stronger and they should be particular in raising the issues for the urban poor rather than creating lucrative national agenda.

Climate change in Bangladesh

Climate change in Bangladesh is an extremely crucial issue and according to National Geographic, Bangladesh ranks first as the nation most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change in the coming decades.

Effects

It is projected that, by 2020, from 500 to 750 million people will be affected by water stress caused by climate change around the world. Low-lying coastal regions, such as Bangladesh, are vulnerable to sea level rise and increased occurrence of intense, extreme weather conditions such as the cyclones from 2007–2009. In most countries like Bangladesh, yields from rain fed agriculture could be reduced to 50% by 2020. For a country with increasing population and hunger, this will have an extremely adverse effect on food security.

Food Security

Climate change threatens the agricultural economy which although counts for just 20% of GDP, contributes to over half the population’s labor force. In 2007 after a series of floods and cyclone Sidr, food security was severely threatened. Given the country’s infrastructure and disaster response mechanisms, the food yield situation got worse. The loss of rice production was estimated at around 2 million metric tons (MT) which could potentially feed 10 million people. This was the single most important catalyst in the 2008 price increase which led to around 15 million people going without much food. This was further worsened by cyclone Ailla.

National and International PoliciesIn an effort to be a ‘Middle Income Country’ by 2021, the country is focusing on increasing agriculture production, productivity, water management techniques, surface water infrastructure irrigation, effective fisheries and promoting poultry and dairy development. Biofuels fit into this scenario by acting as machinery fuel as in 2006 the Ministry of Agriculture provided 30% subsidy for diesel to run irrigation for farming, further proposing 7,750 million BDT fiscal disbursement to help almost a million farmers with machinery fuel.

Foreign Aid and Funding

Various countries have pledged to provide funding for adaptation and mitigation in developing nations, such as Bangladesh. The accord committed up to $30 billion of immediate short term funding from developed to developing countries to support their action in climate change mitigation. This funding is available for developing nations to build their capacity to reduce and respond to impacts of climate change.

The private sector of Bangladesh alone contributes more than 85% of current investments for a low carbon economy. In order to maximize any future contributions from this sector, the public sector needs to overcome the political and bureaucratic barriers the private sector has to face towards a low carbon future.

Thank You!