Inadequate budget obstacle to urban waste management
Inadequate dumping area, low budget provisions and poor public awareness are the main obstacles to quality waste management in the country's cities and municipalities, concerned local government officials have said in a survey.
The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics has conducted the survey and published the result on Monday.
Officials from eleven of the country's 12 city corporations cited inadequate landfill sites and budget allocations as the factors behind poor waste management in urban areas. About 90.24% of the country's paurashavas, or municipal corporations, point to dumping area shortage for waste management difficulties while 89.02% put the blame on low financial support.
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The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics report said that overall waste management expenditure as a percentage of GDP was 0.07, and 0.08 for the financial years 2018–19, and 2020-21, respectively – implying a small increase in GDP share in two years.
From 2018-19 to 2020-21, the average cost of waste management per capita increased by 13.02%.
According to urban planning experts, more attention and resources need to be devoted to waste management for ensuring the country's environmental sustainability.
For the fiscal years 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2020-21, as much as 80,03,627 metric tons, 71,99,224 metric tons, and 74,13,839 metric tons of solid waste were generated, respectively, in 12 city corporations and 328 paurashavas.
In the same years, the average landfill operation costs per metric ton of waste were TK2986.32, TK 3937.27 and TK 3848.94, respectively.
The landfill cost increased significantly from 2018-19 to 2019-20 but decreased slightly in 2020-21.
In 2018-19, the per capita per day waste generation was calculated at 0.58 kilograms. In both 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, the waste generation per capita per day was 0.50 kilograms.
In the financial years 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2020-21, the waste management costs per capita for 340 municipalities were TK 493.78, TK 539.39, and TK 558.08, respectively.
In all the 340 municipalities, the amount of solid waste generated per day per square kilometer was 3.21, 2.89 and 2.98 metric tons in 2018-19, 2019- 20 and 2020-21.
