Abstract:
Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, with an inhabitant close to 10 million, undergoes regular
environmental problems, which are linked to inefficient solid waste management system. The
objective of the study was to establish the waste generation rate of Banani, Gulshan Baridhara
and lJttara Model Town area to plan an efficient solid waste management system. The other
major objectives were analysis and design of solid waste management system with an
emphasis on collection and disposal and to determine appropriate methods and means to
Improve collection and minimization of cost of collection, transport and disposal of solid
waste.
Domestic waste generation rate was estimated from Sector-4 of lJttara Model Town through
house to house collection by rickshaw van. Population of each household was also determined
from questionnaire survey. Commercial waste from five Chinese restaurant of lJttara model
town. Hospital wastes from one private medical college hospital and three clinics were also
collected. Street sweepings, a significant waste volume were also determined from different
locations of lJttara model town.
Domestic waste generation rate was found to be 0.60 kg/cap/day, commercial wastes 0.55
kg/cap/day, clinical wastes 1.75 kg/cap/day and street sweeping wastes 0.16 kg/ meter/day.
Due to resource constraint in collecting samples from door to door, and due to constraints in
analyzing the samples in the laboratory the sample size was kept purposefully small and may
not be statistically representative of the study area. Thus, the results obtained on generation
rate should be used with caution remembering that these data will be more applicable for the
areas and the communities having same characteristics as the study area. Physical composition
analysis of domestic waste shows that major portion is food waste (72.5%) and polythene is
the second largest fraction(l3.70%). Waste stream analysis shows 58.70% domestic, 7.90%. commercial, 0.32% clinical and 33.08% street waste. Monitoring well were installed at
Matuail and Mugdha landfill. Leachate samples were collected and analyzed at Environmental
Engineering Laboratory. Analysis of ground water near landfill site (about 300m average)
found to be free from contamination. It may be concluded that the presence of natural clay
under the fill acts as a sealer and protects the aquifer.
From cost analysis it was found that transportation cost is about 49%, primary collection is
about 31%, disposal is about 20%. DCC's 75% cleaners are engaged in street sweeping actives
who are under utilized and consuming major portion of yearly allocation. Street sweeping
waste collection cost is 8 times higher than the primary collection cost. It was also found that
house to house domestic waste collection and street sweeping by private contractor were less
costly, than the present practices of DCC. Demountable container carrying trucks were
underutilized in zones 1,2,3,4 and 5. This indicates that transportation by 5 ton capacity open
truck may be cheaper than 3 ton capacity demountable container trucks. Installation of
modified transfer station at Gulshan area may be economical compared to the present
operation of transporting each truckload of waste to the Matuaillandfill area. It was also found
that formal practice of resource recovery and recycling could earn approximately Tk.
71.91/ton of solid waste.
