Observer BD | 29 November 2018

Everyone desire to live in a clean city and fresh air. People are coming to Dhaka for finding better job, for that population of Dhaka city is increasing day by day. As the population increases, the amount of waste is increasing and it causes various environmental pollutions. The solid waste of Dhaka is not well managed, due to rapid population growth. In Dhaka city a huge amount of waste generated but we don’t have enough resources to manage it.

Hotels and restaurants waste, waste from industrial factories, medical waste, kitchen waste, vegetables wastes, bloods of slaughterhouse, printing press etc. are the main sources of waste in the city. Among these, the risky waste is medical waste. Medicals waste includes samples of saline bags, syringes, blood, stools, urine, cough, sputum etc. Some parts of the body’s diseased organs, these phenomena are highly contagious and dangerous. These wastes carry deadly germs, among which hepatitis and HIV are one of the major.

According to the World Bank survey, every day in Dhaka city 7,000 metric tons of waste is produced, of which about 1 thousand metric tons of waste is produced from the medical and business establishments and its dumping only 50-60 per cent , the remaining 40 per cent of the waste is illegally thrown into the river, beside the house, drainage, road side, in open spaces, canal, wetland etc. Every day per capita 560 grams of waste is produced in the city. The produced waste include plastics, paper, glass, metal and organic waste etc.

We can turn a huge amount of solid waste into resource. The proper use of waste can be ensured by converting and recycling process. It is possible to produce biogas and electricity from waste. At the time, more than 35 countries in the world used waste for power generation plants, among them are Denmark, Switzerland, France, America and Spain of the top countries.

Waste management refers to the collection, transport and removal of all the waste in any area. Two conventional methods for waste management are Area method and Trench Method. Although the area method is applied to Landfill sites in Dhaka city end of the day it was left freely instead of with soil cover. Dhaka city has two separate landfill sites for waste dumping. One site is under the south City corporation and another is north City Corporation. The Matuil landfill is being used for the waste dumping of South City Corporation and Amin bazar landfill is being used for the waste dumping of North City Corporation. Under these two city corporations, there are 7,500 employees, who clean the road every day, collecting waste from home and transfer it to secondary transfer station. On behalf of two City Corporations, about 11 thousand dustbins were installed in the footpath in 2016-17 but now all these dustbins are damaged.

A survey conducted by Department of Environmental Science of Stamford University Bangladesh found that 1.80 tons to 2 tons of medical waste are produced from only Dhaka Medical College Hospital, out of which 65 per cent of the hazardous waste. The people who are working as cleaner in the hospital, most of those involved in the waste discharges work without any safety material such as gloves, gumboot, mask etc. The workers often suffered severe injuries during the collection of sharp wastes (broken glass, needle).

In 2009 poverty alleviation strategies of the government of Bangladesh mentioned the poor waste workers of the city suffering from severely damaged by medical waste. For these reasons, they are completely infected with various diseases. These include typhoid, cholera, dysentery, HIV infection and various types of jaundice, pneumonia, malaria etc. According to World Bank’s Country Environmental Analysis 2018 report, 80,000 people die every year in environmental pollution, where 18000 deaths in the Dhaka city due to environmental pollution.

Not only the city corporation’s initiative but also mass awareness is required. Everyone needs to be aware to reduce solid waste. To ensure a safe, healthy and beautiful environment, the practice of waste disposal should be stopped. Everyone should be aware and not to dump waste in the river, canal, wetland, pond, open space etc. If we stop doing these things, it will reduce the amount of environmental pollution and health risk. The educational campaign should be taken. It is very important to provide information, education, and motivation to the public about managing the solid waste. With wide publicity by highlighting the negative aspects of solid waste we have to come forward to solve this problem.