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History of organic waste management in the Kathmandu valley

Until 1960, almost all of the waste in Kathmandu was organic and became recycled by processing it to compost. Traditionally the waste generated in households was sold directly to the farmers or it was placed in so called ‘saagas’ (‘saa’ means compost and ‘gaa’ means pit).

These 'saagas' were located between the houses. Today, the ‘saagas’ have vanished and the composition of solid waste has changed because of the introduction of new materials e.g. plastics, paper, and glass (UNEP, 2001). This development started with the introduction of the water closet in Kathmandu (around 1960) when all faeces came into the rivers without any treatment. As rivers were polluted the peoples attitude towards the formerly holy rivers and the environment changed. Since that time most people dump their waste on the streets, in public places or in the rivers (Zimbelmann, 2006). This development culminates in the fact that the city government nowadays officially runs dumping sites in the rivers flood plains. Another indicator for the direction of Kathmandu's organic waste management development is the sharp increase in the use of chemical fertilisers. This also indicates that the practice of recycling waste and faeces to produce organic fertiliser has disappeared and most people and farmers are using chemical fertilisers instead (UNEP, 2001). This disastrous situation led already in the 1980s to some research projects related to waste management and organic waste management. At that time a comprehensive GTZ (German Technical Cooperation) project was indicated in the Kathmandu valley. The project clearly showed that a large scale composting plant would make sense and that the people would use compost as well as pay for it. It was possible to produce compost of a good quality by only having a simple manual sorting.

Copyright:	© European Compost Network ECN e.V.
Quelle:	Orbit 2008 (Oktober 2008)
Seiten:	8
Preis:	€ 0,00
Autor:	Dipl. Ing. Christian Springer Prof. Dr. Ing. habil. Werner Bidlingmaier
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