Why Waste Management is Necessary For Bangladesh

  • The growing demand for effective, speedy and smooth production, supply and consumption of green and clean energy for domestic consumption, factory and industrial uses, socio-economic and cultural development and street lighting within municipal areas, and serving small scale irrigation and agro-based projects have led to a high demand of Waste to Energy project in Bangladesh.

  • Despite this, continuous depletion of conventional fossil fuels, scarcity of alternative energy sources, global warming and green house effect, due to excessive emission of carbon-di-oxide and other harmful gases in the atmosphere, crisis are deepening and hindering the government’s effort to fulfill the supply of green and clean energy needs.

  • One of the options to solve the stated problem is by introducing and implementing Waste-To-Energy (WTE) project, which in general, can convert or process any type of wastes into energy.

  • Apart from being an alternative energy resource, WTE is also able to relieve the severe environmental pollution, unhealthy environment, haphazard and indiscriminate dumping of wastes, manually collecting, sorting and segregating of wastes, use of poor and vulnerable women, underage children and wage laborors in waste collection without safety an healthy measures and lack of wearing proper aprons, gloves, glasses and shoes, and lack of scientific management of wastes in the country.

  • Therefore, this project would help to produce clean energy, which would have positive economic, social, cultural and environmental impacts of WTE in the country.

  • As organic wastes are also concern in the arena of waste management in the country, this project would focus on managing and using the sewage sludge, hospital wastes, domestic waste and municipal solid wastes (MSW) as potential raw materials of energy.


WHY WE PROPOSED WASTE MANAGEMENT

    1. Domestic wastes normally generate as a consequence of household consumption and various activities such as the cleaning, cooking, repairing empty containers, packaging, huge use of plastic carry bags etc. Many times these waste gets mixed-up with other wastes too.
    2. There is no system of scientific collection, sorting and segregation of organic, inorganic and recyclable wastes at household level.
    3. Door-to-door collection is practiced in a most unhealthy way and the community collection bins are poorly managed and are usually no more than open dumps on the roadside by the collectors for sorting, segregating and dumping.
    4. The lack of scientific handling, management and utilization of Domestic Waste from households are causing adverse effect on the public at large and this deteriorates the surrounding ecology, environment and biodiversity as well as residential environment to a greater extent.
    5. The challenge of Domestic Waste management and utilization is now drawing increasing attention of the policy makers and planners as huge garbage is lying down in a most haphazard way beside the roads, streets, drains, cannels, footpaths, riverside, dustbins and on the ground which is causing threat to the physical environment as well as endangering public health.
    1. Medical waste is generated from biological and medical sources and activities, such as the diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of diseases.
    2. Medical waste or bio-hazardous wastes are even more dangerous to the general public. This is because medical waste items include materials such as bodily fluids, tissues and sharps that can cause disease.
    3. Medical waste also includes potentially contaminated needles, scalpels, lancets and other devices capable of penetrating skin. The solid wastes are also emerge during production of medicine. Harmful hospital wastes composed of waste group of infectious, pathological, cutter-piercing, gene toxic, pharmaceutical, chemical, heavy metal and radioactive waste.
    4. Because of the hospital waste; hospital staff, clinical waste carriers and people are at risk, also the wastes cause hepatitis A-B-C, AIDS, typhoid, bronchitis, anthrax, infection diseases and allergy etc.  The adverse effects of the medical wastes on the environment, including mostly human, animal and fish health are beyond narration.
    5. In response to this growing problem, the proposed, ‘Waste to Energy Power Plant’ would be quite effective in utilizing the medical waste in generation the electric power and also able to minimize the negative and adverse impacts of medical wastes, hazards and the residues of all.
    1. The effects of industrial pollution are far-reaching and liable to affect the ecosystem for many years to come. Most industries require large amounts of water for their work. When involved in a series of processes, the water comes into contact with heavy metals, harmful chemicals, radioactive waste, and even organic sludge.
    2. Industrial effluents aggravate soil pollution to a greater extent and destroy the top soil fertility, agricultural production, local vegetation, standing crops, etc. It also causes chronic health issues to the people that come in contact with such soil on a daily basis.
    3. Industrial effluents also create severe air pollution that lead to a steep increase in various illnesses and it continues to affect us on a daily basis. With so many small, mid and large scale industries, locally, air pollution has taken the toll on the health of the people and the environment.
    1. All the used plastic bags, bottles and other objects eventually end up in canals, water reservoirs and drain. After some time, they become partially or completely clogged and can’t deal with a huge surge of water, thus increasing risks of causing great material damage and even losing lives.
    2. The detrimental effects of plastic on soil are well explored in our country mostly because it is through land that plastic and its particles end up in water, more specifically, the plastic objects are blown away into drains, canals, rivers, water reservoir, ponds, lakes, seas, bays etc.
    3. Moreover, having plastic in soil is not good for plants nor the animals since it obstructs their development.