Low-Cost Strategies to Improve Municipal Solid Waste Management in Developing Countries: Experimental Evidence from Nepal

Abstract

Many cities in developing countries lack adequate drainage and waste management infrastructure. Consequently, city residents face economic and health impacts from flooding and waterlogging, which are aggravated by solid waste infiltrating and blocking drains. City governments have recourse to two strategies to address these problems: a) ‘hard’ infrastructure-related interventions through investment in the expansion of drainage and waste transportation networks; and/or, b) ‘soft’, low-cost behavioural interventions that encourage city residents to change waste disposal practices. This research examines whether behavioural interventions, such as information and awareness raising alongside provision of inexpensive street waste bins, can improve waste management in the city. We undertook a cluster randomized controlled trial study in Bharatpur, Nepal, where one group of households was treated with a soft, low-cost intervention (information and street waste bins) while the control group of households did not receive the intervention. We econometrically compared baseline indicators – perceived neighbourhood cleanliness, household waste disposal methods, and at-source waste segregation – from a pre-intervention survey with data from two rounds of post-intervention surveys. Results from analysing household panel data indicate that the intervention increased neighbourhood cleanliness and motivated the treated households to dispose their waste properly through waste collectors. The intervention, however, did not increase household waste segregation at source, which is possibly because of municipal waste collectors mixing segregated and non-segregated waste during collection. At-source segregation, a pre-requisite for efficiently managing municipal solid waste, may improve if municipalities arrange to collect and manage degradable and non-degradable waste separately.

Concept of Food Circular Economy in Technical and Vocational Education: A Comprehensive Review

“…In addition, the limited allocation of budgets and resources for waste management prevents the implementation of comprehensive solutions (Carmen-Niño et al, 2023;Olukanni & Oresanya, 2018). Addressing this issue requires a multifaceted approach, including educational campaigns to raise awareness (Puertas et al, 2022), improving waste separation infrastructure (Nepal et al, 2023), collaboration with local authorities or organizations for efficient waste disposal (Budihardjo et al, 2023), and potentially integrating food waste reduction into the curriculum. Food waste can be interpreted as the loss of edible food at different stages of the food chain, including harvesting, production, processing, distribution and consumption (Zborowski & Mikulec, 2022).…”

Effect of Household Interventions on Promoting Waste Segregation Behavior at Source: A Systematic Review

“…Numerous studies have shown that waste segregation interventions at the source are effective [10,17,25,[57][58][59][60]. Some studies had a multi-group intervention group, with different strategies for each group to improve waste separation behavior [30,32,35,37,40,41].…”

“…Many cities in developing countries lack adequate drainage and waste disposal infrastructure. As a result, urban dwellers face the economic and health impacts of flooding and inundation, which are exacerbated by the infiltration of solid waste and the blockage of drains [10]. In the European Union (EU), 3.3% of respondents stated that they do not sort waste at all [11].…”

Measuring the Construction Efficiency of Zero-Waste City Clusters Based on an Undesirable Super-Efficiency Model and Kernel Density Estimation Method

“…Thus, the government should strengthen public-private cooperation, attract multiple investments, and reduce the cost of government management of solid waste during the entire process. Moreover, the construction of ZW cities should also simultaneously receive more investment [17].…”