Stakeholders say that although the practice of separating, reusing and reusing waste at its source has started, the challenges are compounded by lack of public awareness, lack of necessary infrastructure and lack of long-term planning.
What you should know
Biratnagar Municipal Corporation has entered into a service contract with three private organizations for waste management under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) concept.
According to the metropolis, 'Nepal Phulbari' from wards 1 to 5 and 19, 'Environment for Health and Peace Nepal' from wards 6 to 11 and 'Sagarmatha Multiple Services' from wards 12 to 18 have been entrusted with waste collection and management.
Punam Kumar Dahal, Head of Sanitation Management of the metropolis, emphasized service effectiveness, access and collaboration with the community and an agreement has been made with these organizations . Those organizations collect waste through a door-to-door membership system and provide the service twice a week. "They also charge a separate service fee from the members for picking up garbage from the house", Dahal said.
For the services of waste management, the metropolis has been providing 88,000 rupees per month to Nepal Phulbari, 3 lakh rupees to Everest Multiple Services and 1 rupee per month symbolically to Environment Nepal for health and peace. "The metropolis has also provided 10/10 sanitation workers as additional technical support to the institutions," said Dahal.
About 100 metric tons of waste is produced in Biratnagar daily. All the collected waste is dumped at the temporary dumping site near Barampura village near Kesalia river located in Ward 6 . The place being used for waste management is about 2 bigha area, which is leased by those private organizations.
Currently the dumping site is operating without a permanent structure . During the rainy season, the environmental risk increases and there is a problem of bad smell spreading. It is said that the metropolis is looking for an alternative landfill site for a long-term solution. However, no one agrees to provide land to build a dumping site . "Not only in the metropolis, there is a problem of dumping sites all over the country", said Dahal. Stakeholders say that despite the practice of separating, reusing and reusing waste at the source, lack of public awareness, lack of necessary infrastructure and lack of long-term planning have added to the challenge.
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