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# Nation’s waste on the scale: The first Bhutan waste inventory report

#### Abstract

Knowing the quantity and the composition of waste is essential to designing and delivering sound waste management policies and waste management systems. Bhutan’s 12th Five-Year Development Plan emphasizes effective waste management as one of its key performance indicators and globally, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development emphasizes the importance of waste in two of its seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. In 2019, the Bhutan National Statistics Bureau undertook its first ever survey of solid waste management. The survey covered waste generating sectors including households, commercial units, institutes, health centers, industries, Government offices and vegetable markets. Results show Bhutan generated more than 170 metric tons of waste daily – equivalent to 170,000 kilograms of sugar. More than 50 percent of solid wastes came from households, almost 50 percent was food waste, and around 50 percent was potentially recyclable. The survey posed many challenges for Bhutan, a land-locked least developed country in the Eastern Himalayas in South Asia, yet provided the opportunity to strengthen stakeholder engagement in the Bhutan National Statistical System and delivered statistics which meet a practical use for Bhutan and its people.

## 1.Introduction

### 4.3Industries

The survey collected general solid waste generated from industries excluding toxic and hazardous wastes.

Industries generated nearly 6 thousand kilograms of solid waste daily or an average of a little over 16 kilograms of waste, per industry, per day. Around 40 percent of the industry waste comprised of paper related products and cardboards, followed by food waste (23%) and plastics (14%). Industries also generated rubbers, glass, metals, woods and other wastes.

Some of the issues faced by industries included lack of waste storage facility, absence of proper disposal sites and limited collection services. The majority of industries reported they were aware of relevant sections in environmental acts and regulations.

### 4.4Institutes

Institutes include schools, colleges, training centers and government offices.

In total, institutes generate around 8,500 kilograms of waste a day. Food waste constituted nearly 40 percent of the total, paper and cardboards 25 percent and plastics a little over 20 percent. Other wastes were textiles, metals, sanitary waste, glass and others.

Some of the waste management issues faced by institutes in their institutional areas included littering, not having enough garbage disposal area and limited municipal waste collection services.

### 4.5Health centers

Health centers in Bhutan collectively generated around 2 thousand kilograms of wastes per day. One-third of the total wastes generated from health centers were food waste, followed by plastics (27%), paper and cardboards (25%) while textiles, sanitary, glass, rubber and other wastes had less than five percent shares each. Some of the methods used by health centers to dispose of their waste were open burning, dumping in pits and using collection services.

### 4.6Vegetable markets

The total waste generated by vegetable market vendors in Bhutan was estimated to be over 6 thousand kilograms per day. Of total waste generation, more than 70 percent were food wastes followed by paper and cardboards (13%) and plastics (7%). Vegetable vendors also generate a small proportion of sanitary, textiles and other wastes. Vegetable markets in most Bhutan districts are operated only on weekends.

### 4.7Private waste companies

The total amount of waste collected by private waste companies in a week was estimated to be almost 450 metric tons of which 28 percent were wet waste while 31 percent and 40 percent were recyclable waste and non-recyclable waste, respectively. Lack of support from the government, shortage of labour owing to dignity of labour, lack of funds and awareness on waste management were some of the issues faced by the private waste management companies.

### 4.8Challenges, limitations and recommendations

Unlike other socio-economic surveys where only a single sample unit (e.g. households, individuals or businesses) are sampled, the Bhutan waste inventory survey was cross-sectoral. This was the most challenging component of this study as it required tremendous planning, different questionnaires, different sampling designs, and different data approaches (for health centres, both survey and administrative data was used). This was particularly challenging for a small national statistical office such as NSB.

It was also challenging to get a sampling frame for each of the sectors. The survey used various sampling frames such as the Bhutan Population and Housing Census [7] for households, Economic Census [8] for economic sectors and different administrative records for other sectors including health centres, institutions and schools.

Since this survey was the first of its kind in Bhutan, there was no previous experience with survey preparations or to compare the results of the study.

Experts from municipal offices and Bhutan National Environment Commission trained the field enumerators to segregate wastes into different compositions and record its measurement in the forms provided. As such, it was felt that involvement of all relevant stakeholders was crucial to complete the survey successfully. The survey was a good exercise for stakeholder engagement across Bhutan’s national statistical system and developed skills and capabilities beyond NSB.

Two main limitations of the survey were institute estimates and exclusion of some non-domestic wastes. For institute estimates, the survey duration coincided with the end of school academic year and hence some schools, although open, had no students as vacation had already started. This resulted in slight downward bias in the quantity of waste collected from those schools.

The survey did not estimate and analyze non-domestic waste that were seen or dumped in open areas, riverbanks, roads/drains as it was not planned given its extensive area and limited resources and time. This survey report also did not make any adjustment for seasonal variation of waste generation.

Conducting the survey with different times for each sector would have solved many issues as better planning could have taken place and appropriate seasons chosen for data collection to avoid seasonal biases.

The NSB is now planning the compilation of a physical Waste (physical flow) Account based on the results of the survey. It is hoped a Bhutan Waste Account can be used by policy makers to focus on more stringent implementation of existing waste management policies and regulations to improve Bhutan’s waste management as its population rapidly expands and urbanization takes place. Most importantly, awareness of waste management programs such as waste segregation, reduction, reuse, recycling and composting are critical for Bhutan and its people to properly care for the environment as outlined in our Constitution.

Knowledge of the various waste streams from the Waste Account can also be used for monitoring emissions in a country, where emissions are defined as substances that are released by sectors, including establishments and households, into the air, water or soil as a result of production, consumption and accumulation processes [21]. For example, the release into the air, water or soil of emissions from solid waste residuals. A preliminary Bhutan Waste (Physical Flow) Account is our first step after which the NSB may consider a Waste (emissions) Accounts.

## Acknowledgments

I would like to express my sincere appreciation to National Statistics Bureau and National Environment Commission Secretariat for successfully conducting first nationwide Waste Inventory Survey and allowing me to use the data for further studies. I am grateful to Gemma Van Halderen, Director, Statistics Division, UNESCAP, Eileen P. Capilit, Statistician (Consultant), UNESCAP and my mentor Mr. Teerapong Praphotjanaporn, Advisor, Global Ocean Accounts Partnership for your tremendous support and guidance. I also would like like to extend my deepest gratitude to reviewers of SJIAOS for reviewing my paper and accepting to publish in your esteemed Journal.

## References

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