Study on solid waste management of Barisal city corporation

Abstract

The rapid growth of population together with increase in urban areas and changes in consumption is a common phenomenon world wide and especially in developing countries. In conjunction with rapid growth of cities, the exponential growth of solid waste along with its environmental impacts is among the most critical problems that large cities in developing countries face now-a-days. Also, huge quantities of energy and resources are being wasted through the improper handling and disposal of solid waste in developing countries. The study revealed that, Barisal City Corporation (BCC), responsible for management of solid waste of Barisal city is inefficient and unsatisfactory. The total amount of domestic solid waste generated is about 140 tons per day from 4 lakh residents. Due to uncontrolled recycling, mostly by scavengers, BCC can handle nearly 45% of the generated solid wastes. With limited resources in terms of money, skilled manpower and logistics managing such bulk volume of solid waste is difficult. Moreover, transportation of solid waste through open Truck and Rickshaw Van results in public nuisances due to irregular cleaning of open bin. These uncollected and untreated wastes are left to rot, which pose a threat to the public health, environment as well as the ecology. It is found from the study that domestic waste generation rate of BCC is 0.265 kg/ capita/day. It is also observed that domestic waste generation rate from medium income residential area is higher than that from slum areas. The average inorganic waste generation of high income group is higher than that of slum areas. It is also found that, the amount of recyclable waste that is generated from low income people is very less. They try to sell it to the Hawkers and don't like to throw it to the bins. This also expresses that the waste generation rate varies with respect to income level of the people. It is found that, the waste generation rate during rainy season for high, medium and low income groups of BCC are 0.33,0.24 and 0.23 kg/capita/day, respectively during summer season is 0.30, 0.19 and 0.18 kg/capita/day. It is also observed from the surface water quality analysis from the disposal site that these samples have high organic loading.