Improving the Collection Efficiency of Solid Waste in Peshawar using GIS Techniques

Abstract

ABSTRACT Many cities from Asian countries are facing serious problems in solid waste management. With increasing population, disposal problems are becoming more difficult in urban areas. Like many other countries due to heterogeneity of the municipal solid waste, its management and disposal is a forgotten area in large and densely populated cities of Pakistan. The current study was conducted in Peshawar city during June to September, 2010 by collecting samples from different areas/localities to estimate the generation rate and composition of solid waste. It was found that the average generation rate of household's solid waste is 0.467kg/capita/day which corresponds to 700 tons of solid waste per day. The segregated waste was found to be 38.5% food waste, 3.5% paper and cardboard, 8% plastics, 10.12% yard waste, 23.11% fines and 16.77% miscellaneous items. Geographical Information System (GIS) can be used as a decision support tool for planning waste management. It can be used to link this data for various uses. For this study GIS was used to analyze the existing waste management situation in Peshawar city. For this purpose, survey was conducted to locate the waste collection points and to assess the collection efficiency in different areas. The existing waste collection efficiency was 85% in Hayatabad, 21% in Town-I and 14% in Town-Ill. In order to achieve 100% efficiency 335 new collection bins have been proposed in the whole city in addition to 110 existing collection bins. The current management system is inefficient and requires plenty of measures to overcome the existing shortcomings which are discussed in detail. xii