Municipal Solid Waste Management

Nepal is one of the least urbanized countries in the world where more than 80% of the total population live in rural areas. In recent years, the rate of urbanization became rampant which ultimately accelerated immense pressure on municipal services, especially on managing the ever increasing amount of wastes. Due to lack of technology, infrastructure and financial capacity management of increasing amount of solid waste has become a major challenge in municipalities of Nepal. The indiscriminate dumping of solid wastes already affected the urban environment by creating a serious occupational health and environmental hazard to the vicinity of the dumping sites. However, there is great possibility of recovering methane from the landfill sites since the typical Nepalese municipal solid waste contains more than 65% of organic wastes. Despite having enormous potential of generating electricity from hydropower, Nepal is facing acute shortage of energy. Therefore, comprehensive scientific research and development is necessary for making solid waste to environmentally friendly by converting waste to the energy.