Health and Social Risks of Waste Collectors in Bangladesh

Social Research

Student ID

• Md Ashfak Sayed – 14.1.20.0020• Saddam Hossain – 14.1.20.0040

Abstract• Statistics show waste collection to be one of the most dangerous

jobs, at times even more dangerous than police work, but consistently less dangerous than commercial fishing and ranch and farm work. On-the-job hazards include broken glass; medical waste such as syringes; caustic chemicals; falling objects from overloaded containers; diseases that may accompany solid waste; asbestos; dog attacks and pests; inhaling dust, smoke, and fumes; inclement weather, traffic accidents, and odors so foul that they can make one physically sick. Several geographical comparison studies have investigated cancer mortality and incidence around waste sites. Increased frequency of cancers in counties containing hazardous waste sites was found in two US studies, particularly for gastrointestinal, oesophageal, stomach, colon and rectal cancer.

Introduction• A waste collector is a person employed by a public or

private enterprise to collect and remove refuse (waste) and recyclables from residential, commercial, industrial or other collection site for further processing and disposal. Specialized waste collection vehicles featuring an array of automated functions are often deployed in Developed country to assist waste collectors in reducing collection and transport time and for protection from exposure. Waste and recycling pickup work is physically demanding and it exposes workers to a number of occupational hazards.

Literature Review• S M Alauddin is Development Researcher, working with Practical Action, Bangladesh. Wrote on Daily Sun (31

October, 2015)

Dhaka is one of the mega Cities of the world, most populous and the 2nd worst city in the world for living, despite being the capital city of Bangladesh, home to about 20 million people. Rapid and unplanned urbanization is causing many problems like rapid growth of slums, pressure on infrastructural services along with different social problems. This mega city produces around six thousand tons of domestic waste every day (Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC)-3,300 tons/day and Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) about 2,700-2,800 tons/day), which is a big problem for the City Corporations to manage. It causes air and environmental pollution and health hazards to the city dwellers. But, generation of such huge amount of domestic waste can be a big resource for the country, rather, than being a problem, if it could be properly managed and utilized. The domestic waste has high potential for generation of bio-gas, organic fertilizer, electricity and waste water for irrigation along with huge employment for the urban poor, who are continuously migrating to the city in search of work from different parts of the country driven by the opportunity of work as well as disasters and poverty. Most of these people find shelter in slums and start working as rickshaw pullers, hawkers, construction workers, garment workers, street food vendors, domestic waste pickers, etc. This article will focus on the capacity of domestic waste management of the City Corporations (CC), technological changes in waste management, problems and its potentials to development. Practical Action, from the perspective of Technology Justice, recently (April to June 2015) conducted a study entitled “Technology and the Future of Work” in five cities across Asia, Africa and Latin America in the urban waste, energy, transport and ICT sectors aiming at assessing technology disruptions, identifying emerging technologies and its impact on work and income opportunity, as well as how this may influence work opportunities for the waste pickers in future i.e. thousands of informal laborers engaged in the sectors. The information of the study partially contributes to this article. The article, again, will represent the situation of DSCC, as it is mostly based on its information.

However, it may be helpful to understand the overall domestic waste management situation in Dhaka City. The article doesn’t include discussion on industrial, medical and human waste.Despite of huge limitations of the City Corporation, it has raised its capacity of waste collection over the time.  The domestic waste collection rate has been significantly increased from 35% in 2005 to 70% in 2015 in Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC). The waste generation in DSCC is 3,300 tons/day. But, it has the collection capacity of total 2200 -2300 tons/day along with collection and recycling of another 300-350 tons/day by Private Sector, while, about 2000 tons of waste are left/day by DSCC, which creates environmental pollution and blocking the drainage system in the city. Each City Corporation (CC) has one central Waste Disposal Centre. The DSCC’s one is at Matuail, Demra, Dhaka and DNCC’s one (50 acres) is at Amin Bazar, Dhaka.  The area of Central Sanitary Land Fill Station of DSCC, Matuail is 100 acres that was started 10 years back with 50 acres of acquired land, which left discarded in 2005 as it was filled up with waste. There was no scope for further disposal of waste there and DSCC truck drivers started disposing waste in adjacent areas. At such a situation, another 50 acres of land were acquired and converted the waste disposal centre to a Sanitary Land Fill Station (practically, Controlled Station) in early 2006. The dump station, from its original ground level has reached to a height of 22 meters i.e. equivalent to a six storied building, while some areas are still left. The entire places are about to be filled up with waste by the next 1.5 – 2 years. Government has begun the process of acquiring another 82 acres of land adjacent to the old station, where CC has a plan to establish a Waste to Energy Plant in 32 acres as soon as possible. The plant will produce pillate with the waste that will be used as substitute of coal. The plant will have a modern treatment centre as well. The rest, 50 acres of land will be used for dumping of domestic waste. The plant will use 2000 tons of domestic waste from City Corporations’ every day collection and 1200 tons from the Matuail Land Fill Station for preparation of pillate. However, there is no such initiative yet from the government as informed by the DSCC people. It was learnt that Bangladesh Government had a contract   with the Government of Italy for a plant ‘Waste to Electricity’ which, has been cancelled. Government may take initiative and cooperate City Corporation regard to establishing such projects for effective management and use of the huge potentials of domestic waste.

There have been important technological changes over the last two decades. At domestic level, earlier basket was used for domestic waste collection and gradually shifted the technology to pull/push cart to van and, to improved van, mainly. Bull cart was used for waste collection in the City Corporation level up to 1980/81 and shifted it to Container in 1996, later Compactor Truck, recently Bulldozers have been introduced by City Corporation. But, these are extremely inadequate.

Open trucks are still being used largely as the container trucks and compactor trucks are inadequate. Three types of dustbins are available in the City Corporation areas. RCC dustbin was prevalent earlier (still exist- about 1%), continued with tin made dustbin for long time. Then, container, made of heavy iron/steel sheet was introduced in mid-nineties and very recently, introduced Secondary Transfer Station (STS), though one or two only (one at Kalabagan). For STS, finding place is a major challenge. However, City Corporation has a plan to shift all its container dustbins to the STS away from the roads. If sufficient STSs can be established, domestic waste management will be improved. There will be no containers on road side, which, amongst many, a cause of traffic jam as well. The city people will not see any dustbin on roadside; get bad smell and pollution free air and environment reducing health hazards. But, again, the question arises how long it will take? There are two computerised weighing bridges for taking weight of the truck filled up with domestic waste and thus, getting the total amount of waste dumped by City Corporation trucks every day. This system has enabled City Corporation to measure the amount by every zone, even how many times a truck delivers waste each day. But, the City Corporation lacks adequate number of trucks for transportation of its huge domestic waste generated every day. It has a total of 135 open trucks and 16 compactor trucks in DSCC. They have to collect waste from 850-950 open spots along with 322-330 containers from 170 routes in the DSCC (about 240-245 in DNCC). By 151 trucks (open and compactors), it’s really difficult to cover the entire routes to collect all the waste from all the spots and thus, about 2000 tons of waste remained left every day. The trucks are extremely inadequate to collect, manage and transport the huge waster every day from the city. Again, most of these open trucks are very old (20-25 years) and is supposed to be discarded within next 2-3 years leaving the waste collection at a critical situation. In the last 10 years, City Corporation purchased only 10 trucks. The compactor trucks joined the transportation system in 2008 with assistance under a JICA Project. The DSCC, as learnt, will increase its transportation facilities under the Green Dhaka Master Plan 2016-2030. They have a plan to replace all the old open trucks with compactor trucks gradually under the Green Dhaka Master Plan. But, how long it will take is uncertain. The Clean Dhaka Master Plan 2010-2015 is about to be ended. Under this plan, with support from JICA, DSCC worked for strengthening waste collection capacity, strengthening final disposal capacity, improving community participation and human capacity in DSCC (JICA, 2015). It wants to ensure safe city environment under by addressing the four pronged strategies under the Green Dhaka Master Plan, though DSCC wants to ensure a safe environmental pollution free city by 2021. The amount of solid waste is estimated to be increased to an amount of 5,700 tons/day in 2019 entailing a risk of widening the gap between the needs and the capacity.        

In the current central dump station at Matuail, there exist waste water collection and treatment facilities, a total of about 2,50,000 litres of waste water is treated/day, which, is used for irrigation purpose only in the adjacent areas. This can be increased many times. Parts of the dump station filled up with waste turn into semi-aerobic land within 2-2.5 years, where vegetables are grown. It reduces 10-12% of methane gas, which is a very good achievement in environmental perspective, the City Corporation (CC) people informed.The DSCC has a total of 5,200 cleaners (in two City Corporations, the number may be about 9,500), who clean up roads and drainage only and not at all involved in domestic waste collection. These cleaners are employed by the City Corporation, but extremely low paid. DSCC didn’t recruit any cleaner in the last 10 years despite of huge increase of population and waste in the city. In the last years, three more Wards have been created in DSCC, where, cleaning up of roads and drainage are being done by 60 hired labourers on daily basis. DSCC is trying to recruit new cleaners in these Wards and to increase numbers in the entire City Corporation. The cleaners clean up the roads and drainage manually with broom, belcha (shovel), push cart, etc. But, now the cleaners use vacuum machine for cleaning the VIP roads only. They often use mask to protect them from dusts. The Inspectors supervise the cleaners and domestic waste collection by the truck drivers from spots of different mahallas/wards. However, they have no involvement, supervision or support to the Primary Collection Service Providers (PCSPs), other than selection of local waste dump spot/waste container place. There are 155 PCSPs in the DSCC with a total of 772 vans (normal and improved). The number of domestic waste pickers involved in waste collection is 1390 (DSCC, 2015). But, the actual number may be more than double, approximately about 3500 (including DNCC, the number may be around 6,500). The small entrepreneurs (PCSPs) working under approved PCSPs have not been calculated. Again, mostly 3 labourers are engaged in each van. A big portion of these waste pickers are child labourers, which, probably, City Corporation didn’t count.These waste pickers play the key role in domestic waste collection and thus, helping the City Corporation to keep the city clean, where the Government/City Corporation has no support at all and even, to look after their problem. They collect waste from door to door with big drum/pots, gather in their vans and dispose those at the local dustbins/containers. The city dwellers pay certain amount, mostly, Tk.30-50 per household/month, which may be varied by areas. This is the income by the PCSPs. The City Corporation trucks collect the waste from the local open spots and containers by replacing blank one and carry to the central dump station at Matuail and Amin Bazar for disposal. The PCSPs are private entrepreneurs having own investment and vehicles, mainly, van (tri-cycle) for transportation of waste, along with other instruments.

• They sometimes work as waste pickers and often employ labourers with monthly salary basis. However, they have to pay illegal tolls to the local political leaders/influential people. Beside the PCSPs, some NGOs also work for waste collection by employing labourers. Waste collection is difficult from slum areas since many of them don’t want to pay as reported by the Programme Coordinator of Dhaka Ahsania Mission. There often exist no container dustbins in slums and due to very narrow path collection of waste by vans is difficult. NGOs mostly collect waste from slums. However, technology changes have brought multiple benefits to the labourers regard to reducing hard physical labour, health and environmental hazards, trust and confidence of citizens, increasing work opportunities, income and comfort in work. Each City Corporation is divided into five zones with Zonal Office set up. People interested to work as PCSPs need to apply to the Chief of Waste Management Department of the City Corporation, who approves their application upon investigation reports by the Inspectors responsible by zones. The PCSPs with higher capacity of investment receive approval from Waste Management Department. However, there is no hard and fast rule that one has to have more than one van to work as a PCSP. But, there is evidence of working with own van, but under certain PCSP, who enjoys higher benefit/ wages than the employed waste pickers. City Corporation provides approval to the PCSPs only, but no other supports or supervision. The entrepreneurs do the supervision and management of door to door waste collection to disposal to the local spots. The City Corporation can involve the Ward Councillors to cooperate the PCSPs. But, there is no such initiative. There is no unique system for distribution of areas for the PCSPs; rather, there is control by the local political leaders and influential. There are many evidence of controlling certain area by the local political leaders. The PCSPs have to take permission (verbal) from them to work and have to pay on regular basis. Without any investment, the local political leaders/influential people have been taking tolls from the poor PCSPs/entrepreneurs. City Corporation knows of it, but they have nothing to do, as they reported. This issue is critical and should be taken care of with importance to facilitate the domestic waste collection with higher involvement of the poor informal labourers/entrepreneurs. There are some well off people as well, who have good investment, even 20-30 vans are engaged in domestic waste collection, manage big area, employ labourers for each van on monthly salary basis, manage the work and make benefit. But, there are many PCSPs with 1-3, 4-6 and even higher numbers, sometimes more than 10 vans engaged in waste collection. PCSPs having 1-3, even more vans often work under certain PCSP, who has higher investment and approval from City Corporation. Such small entrepreneurs have to give some part of his income to the PCSP. Majority of the waste technology (63%), i.e. van is owned by the individual entrepreneurs/PCSPs, while, the rest 37% by joint ownership i.e. cooperative/group approach (Practical Action, 2015).

There is scope to work with technology supports for the extreme poor category of people involved in waste collection. There is high demand for large and improved/modified vans by the waste pickers. There may be an Institution to deal with and facilitate the sector with required financial, technical and technological supports with effective involvement of the growing urban poor people, which may create more employment for them.      Mostly, the poor and the extreme poor people are involved in domestic waste collection. A number of factors work to being involved in this profession, such as, people by born or through relatives come to this profession; people without finding any job get involved with domestic waste collection through friends/relatives or by any other source; rickshaw pullers and day labourers shift their profession and join in waste collection through friends/ relatives; sometimes, labourers are employed by NGOs also. Majority of the waste pickers (60%) are wage labourers, 27% self employed, but don’t have any labourers, while only 13% are also self employed having hired labourers (Practical Action, 2015). Over 70% waste pickers earn Tk.5,000-12,000/month, about 20% earn Tk.12,000-48,000/month, while, only 7% earn below 5,000/month. The amount varies by areas. Most of the waste pickers earn 5,000-10,000 (Practical Action, 2015) by selling plastic bottle/pots, rubber, silver, aluminium, iron particles, etc. as extra income beside their wages. Many waste pickers earn even more than 15-20 thousand taka/month. Most of the waste pickers consider the work positively, while, some don’t like it and want to shift to other profession if they find any suitable options. The social attitude towards the waste pickers is negative and they need inclusion. Women participation is negligible in domestic waste collection, except a very negligible percent engaged by few NGOs, mainly for separating perishable and non-perishable items to produce organic fertilizer. The organic fertilizer has a growing market in Bangladesh against the increased use of chemical fertilizer, which is harmful for soil fertility, soil health and regains lost fertility. It can reduce the dependency on chemical fertilizer and even earn by exporting those. There is great scope and necessity for improvement/ modification of existing low-cost technologies, adopting emerging technologies within capacity, or introduce low-cost improved new environment friendly technologies beneficial to the cause of easy operations, less physical labour, increase of income and their easy maintenance. There remains scope of entrepreneurship development with informal labourers in the sector as most of them are employed by the private entrepreneurs mainly. Besides, the endless generation of domestic waste has high potential for production of bio-gas and electricity to meet their growing demand and contribute to the development. But, for this, the country need policy and investment in the sectors, introduce improve waste management system including area distribution; support the poor and extreme poor with financial and technological supports.

Such initiative can significantly contribute to the economic development in the country through effective use of the domestic waste, create huge employment for the urban poor, bring them out of their poverty cycle, better management of domestic waste for a safe city free from environmental pollution and health hazards and make the city a liveable and suitable one for its dwellers, as the City Corporation wants to ensure by 2021. Under Green Dhaka Master Plan 2016-2030, government may take necessary actions for better and productive waste management, making effective the Sanitary Land Fill Station with modern treatment plant. Government may seek supports from development partners and collaboration through public private partnership approach. It needs to increase its human, technical and technological capacity on priority basis.

• The presented study was conducted in Mirpur 1, Mirpur 10 and Shyamoli. Specifically on the Waste collectors. Our methodology was a combination of Observation, Surveying and Focused group discussion. We had to choose purposive sampling of 30 respondents. Which is standard for a quantitative study. Based on a semi-structured questionnaire, the data was collected through face to face interview.

Methodology

Our Main objective of this study was finding out the details about Health and social risks of a Waste Collector. Although we tried to find out the financial stand point and any special benefits they receive at all.

This study will present the answers for following questions:

1. How much they earn? 2. What kind of diseases they often fight with? 3. Why they’ve chosen this profession? 4. Does society offers them any special benefit? 5. What are the Safety Equipment usage rate?

Objectives

Results of our study

Total Respondents: 30 People

Diseases they face often

7%

Total Respondents: 30 People

Why they’ve chosen this profession?

• 100% of them responded that they don’t have any other options.

Does society offers them any special benefit?

What are the Safety Equipment usage rate?

Conclusion

Government, Policy Makers and Entrepreneurs Should provide Safety Equipments and Increase the wage of Waste collectors. So that they can have a good and healthy life.