Solid waste management in Dhaka: Understanding the evolution of a waste regime

IF 3.4 2区社会学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Geoforum Pub Date : 2025-07-16 DOI:10.1016/j.geoforum.2025.104364

Shahana Akther, James Evans, Nate Millington

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Municipal solid waste management is often viewed as a pressing environmental issue facing the global South, but waste can be turned into a valuable resource if properly managed. Waste mismanagement negatively impacts urban environmental sustainability. Waste governance in the global South has received significant attention due to complex social dynamics, interdependences, and webs of stakeholders involved. Detailed investigations are needed in southern cities to understand waste governance dynamics, how different socio-economic drivers influence governance shifts in waste governance, and what challenges cities face during these shifts. This paper investigates how municipal solid waste governance regimes have evolved in Dhaka over the last fifty years after independence in 1971 in terms of practices, strategies, and actors’ involvement. Using the waste regime concept, we analyse how MSW rules and regulations change over time, and how these changes impact waste infrastructure, actor participation, and waste flow dynamics. In July and September 2022, 50 semi-structured interviews were conducted with six stakeholder groups directly involved in municipal solid waste management in Dhaka, along with 18 focus groups and 3 field observations. Qualitative data analysis revealed three key waste regime periods developed between 1972 and 2022. There was a significant change in waste management practices and governance approaches during these periods. Ultimately, the waste governance regime increased waste collection efficiency and infrastructure development but failed to promote resource recovery. Dhaka’s solid waste governance requires an integrated formal and informal governance strategy that engages local stakeholders in appropriate resource recovery options. The paper provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the socio-political dynamics of waste governance regimes and how global South megacities manage waste and move towards environmental sustainability.

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达卡的固体废物管理：了解废物制度的演变

城市固体废物管理通常被视为全球发展中国家面临的一个紧迫的环境问题，但如果管理得当，废物可以变成宝贵的资源。废物管理不善对城市环境的可持续性产生负面影响。由于复杂的社会动态、相互依存关系和利益相关者网络，发展中国家的废物治理受到了极大的关注。需要对南方城市进行详细调查，以了解废物治理动态，不同的社会经济驱动因素如何影响废物治理的治理转变，以及城市在这些转变中面临的挑战。本文调查了1971年独立后的过去50年里，达卡的城市固体废物治理制度在实践、战略和行动者参与方面的演变。利用废物制度的概念，我们分析了城市固体废物法规如何随着时间的推移而变化，以及这些变化如何影响废物基础设施、行动者参与和废物流动动态。2022年7月和9月，与直接参与达卡城市固体废物管理的六个利益攸关方团体进行了50次半结构化访谈，同时进行了18个焦点小组和3次实地观察。定性数据分析揭示了1972年至2022年间形成的三个关键废物制度时期。在这些时期，废物管理做法和治理办法发生了重大变化。最终，废物治理制度提高了废物收集效率和基础设施发展，但未能促进资源回收。达卡的固体废物治理需要一项综合的正式和非正式治理战略，使当地利益攸关方参与适当的资源回收方案。本文为理解废物治理制度的社会政治动态以及全球南方大城市如何管理废物和实现环境可持续性提供了一个全面的框架。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Geoforum GEOGRAPHY-

CiteScore

7.30

自引率

5.70%

发文量

201

期刊介绍： Geoforum is an international, inter-disciplinary journal, global in outlook, and integrative in approach. The broad focus of Geoforum is the organisation of economic, political, social and environmental systems through space and over time. Areas of study range from the analysis of the global political economy and environment, through national systems of regulation and governance, to urban and regional development, local economic and urban planning and resources management. The journal also includes a Critical Review section which features critical assessments of research in all the above areas.