Waste Trails: travelling with the household waste in Kathmandu

The South-Asian region, home to nearly one quarter of the worlds’ population, is witnessing fast urban growth, economic development and growing consumerism, resulting in a rapid increase of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) that is expected to nearly triple between 2010 and 2025. At the same time, MSW management remains inadequate, leading to a wide range of local environmental problems that accumulate to a wide reaching global environmental issue that calls for systematic local but also global solutions.

The South-Asian region, home to nearly one quarter of the worlds’ population, is witnessing fast urban growth, economic development and growing consumerism, resulting in a rapid increase of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) that is expected to nearly triple between 2010 and 2025. At the same time, MSW management remains inadequate, leading to a wide range of local environmental problems that accumulate to a wide reaching global environmental issue that calls for systematic local but also global solutions.

The r4d project “Challenges of municipal solid waste management: Learning from post-crisis governance initiatives in South Asia” focuses on understanding, analysing and promoting the political and socio-cultural processes of MSW management initiatives that are necessary to enable the functions of MSW systems. It assesses opportunities in MSW governance to strengthen horizontal and downward accountabilities in combination with localising the material waste chain and rendering it more circular.

Contact: Yash Man Karmacharya, [email protected], Ward no-2, Gusingal, Sanepa, Lalitpur District, GPO – 8975, EPC – 1916 Kathmandu, Nepal
Pia Hollenbach, [email protected], Université de Lausanne, Institut de géographie et durabilité, Mouline – Géopolis, CH – 1015 Lausanne

Project: r4d project “Challenges of municipal solid waste management: Learning from post-crisis governance initiatives in South Asia”

Context: The Photo Gallery is a joint effort of Yash Man Karmacharya (CIUD Nepal) and Pia Hollenbach (UNIL). Pia joined the fieldwork phase in Nepal in November 2019. Together, Yash and Pia went on the “Waste Trail”. The photos visualise the encounters they had and the experiences and insights they gained.

This Photo Gallery was submitted in the r4d call for photo galleries in December 2019 and selected for publication by an international jury. This contribution emerges from the r4d project Municipal Solid Waste Management, financed by the r4d programme (http://www.r4d.ch).

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