DCC gears up for waste management

. PHOTO: Syed Zakir Hossain

A team from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is conducting a study to prepare a master plan on waste management and has recommended that DCC's new division will be able to utilise the components of the plan to manage waste.

The study will include household, industrial and medical wastes to chart planning on collection, transportation and disposal of solid wastes by 2015.

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The decision and plan were revealed by DCC officials and the JICA study team at a seminar on "Institutional Development for Solid Waste Management," co-organised by the DCC and JICA in a city hotel on June 16.

Habibur Rahman, DCC's chief executive officer, said that according to the JICA study team recommendation, the proposal was sent to the Local Government Division (LGD) and the LGD has taken a firm initiative to establish the waste management division.

Dr Katsuhhide Nagayama, leader of the study team, spoke briefly of the objective and areas of study, including framework, waste collection, community activities and institutional issues.

Md Abdullah, deputy chief of LGD, Naoki Hara, member in charge of JICA study team, and Professor Mujibur Rahman of the department of civil engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) Sohel Farouquie, chief conservancy officer of DCC and engineer Anwar Uddin Patwari, coordinator of solid waste management cell, also spoke.

The Tk 13.3 crore study, funded by the Japanese government, started last December and will cover an area of around 360 square kilometres under the DCC and its new urban areas. The master plan will be complete in March 2005.

A DCC team comprising engineers and officials will assist the JICA study team in preparing the master plan, which will help develop the capacity of agencies responsible for solid waste management, raise awareness of stakeholders and facilitate coordination among the DCC, NGOs and community committees.

Waste management is not well organised and it remains unutilised although it has a high organic content, a speaker said.

DCC men collect only 42 percent of about 5,000 tonnes of solid waste a day, while the rest remains spattered along the streets and other places.