The Present State of Municipal Solid Waste Management in Kathmandu, Nepal

Abstract

In order to examine the present state of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Management in Kathmandu (Nepal), field-survey was conducted two times in 1997 and 1998. The first-hand data and information, regarding various aspects of MSW management covering waste generation, collection, transportation, final disposal, recycling and regulation/legislation, were collected from several governmental and municipal sections.
The structure of the poor MSW management, which caused severe degradation in urban environment aesthetics and public health threatening, was analyzed by categorizing into three hierarchical levels: the primary, the internal, and the external factors. Improvement in management of operation, of man-power/labor and of waste dumping site was suggested to be the nearest crosscut to betterment of MSW management in Kathmandu Valley under insufficient financial constraint.