Bangkok 193 194 195 Bangkok Municipal Solid Waste Management: from Public-Operated to Shared Management and Financing
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192 Bangkok 193 194 195 Bangkok Municipal Solid Waste Management: From public-operated to shared management and financing. Bangkok is now facing new waste management Discussant : Associate Professor Lye Lin Heng, constraints: environmental and financial ones Deputy Director, Asia Pacific Center for Environ- with the aim to make it affordable for all. Faced mental Law, Faculty of Law, National University of with this situation, the BMA is today evolving Singapore. in its ways of dealing with these evolutions to better implement waste management actions. Michel VALIN, consultant, SOGREAH Ms. Benjamas Chotthong, Project Manager, Institutional and legislative framework, processes Thailand Environment Institute and waste flows related strategy, environmental Ways environmental issues related to waste man- background and social impacts, private sector agement have been taken into account in the participation, financing. Bangkok waste management process. Role played by the environmental NGO community. Discussion 194 195 196 197 l Bangkok metropolitan administration : 1562 km2 l 51 districts l Annual rainfall (1999) : 1756 mm l average temperature from 21.5°C to 30.3°C l Registered inhabitants: 5,663,000 l Unregistered inhabitants : 1,292,000 l Commuters : 1,357,000 l Tourists equivalent inh.: 127,000 l TOTAL inhabitants: 8,438,000 Bangkok Municipal Solid Waste Management: from Public Operated to Shared Management and Financing Michel Valin SOGREAH Consultant Abstract The case of Bangkok differs from many others and Bangkok has a long way to go to learn to manage and deal with comprehensive waste man- This paper will first present the opportunities agement. and constraints regarding solid waste manage- ment in Bangkok. It will then expose our studies regarding waste collection, areas of responsibil- Present Situation and Findings ities (public/private sector), transfer (and treat- ment) sites, waste disposal to analyse the present situation of solid waste management. It will also Bangkok municipality present the environmental background and the social impact through a brief study of the proc- The supreme authority for Bangkok municipality ess related qualitative appraisals, the laws and is the BMA (Bangkok Metropolitan Administra- standards on pollution control in Thailand and tion) and, placed under its responsibility, there the public awareness programme. are several departments. One of these depart- To better understand the private sector participa- ments is in charge of the management of solid tion today and its potential future participation, waste: the Department of Public Cleansing, which this paper will examine the BMA’s objectives, the has the responsibility to collect and eliminate definition of the contractor/operator’s role, the waste. Waste collection across the whole Bangkok conditions for these contracts and the modes of Metropolitan Area is done by its own workforce participation and regulations. and waste transfer to the landfill and elimination 196 197 Finally, I will conclude with the financial stand- has been contracted to private contractors. That’s points and key issues as they appear to us today. briefly the area of activity and responsibility of To give a better view of this issue, an appendix on the Cleansing Department for the operations. For the institutional and legal framework that serves the planning, they are theoretically in charge of as basis for managing waste in Bangkok has been the implementation of a plan for the future man- added. agement of the waste and for improving the con- ditions of waste collection and waste treatment in Bangkok. Introduction Bangkok is a huge administrative area of more than 1 500 square kilometers and today the pop- This paper will focus on municipal solid waste, so ulation amounts to about 8.5 million people. all considerations dealing with industrial or con- The characteristics of this population are rather struction waste is not part of this presentation. unknown and especially the commuters, the unregistered inhabitants, the migrants. In this the BMA level, there are also other ordinances area, the activity of waste collection is under the and requirements giving more precise require- responsibility of the Cleansing Department, but ments concerning the day-to-day operations for it is also operated by each districts. There are the cleanliness of the city. 51 districts in Bangkok which manage waste col- lection. As an indication, the revenue per capita in Bangkok is about 6,000.00 USD and the mini- Present situation of Solid Waste in mum wage is 162 Baht (1USD = 40 Baht). Bangkok Legal tools and framework Amounts of waste The legal tools, around which the waste man- Municipal waste amounts to about 9000 tons a agement is articulated, include 3 areas. At the day, representing a quantity of waste per person national level, there are legal tools concerning the of a bit less than 1kg per day per capita. In other framework of the administration, the functioning terms, it is a quantity of waste of about 3.3 mil- of the operations of the waste management and lion tons a year produced by the people, the com- mainly the 3 Acts which all were stated in 1992: mercial activities and light industries. Toxic waste Public Health Act (stipulating that BMA is respon- is not included in these figures, but represents a sible for the management of the waste, that is to small quantity of waste. We can estimate, from say the collection, the treatment and the elimina- the figures we had in hands when we analyzed the tion of the waste), the Factory Act (defining the past conditions of waste in Bangkok, the rate of responsibility in terms of environmental impact increase between 2.5 and 3% per annum, which for the factories, for the industries in the BMA is a realistic figure. According to this trend, we area but also in other cities and territories of can estimate, at the horizon of 2015, a quantity of Thailand), the Public Cleanliness and Orderliness waste of about 13 000 tons per day. Act (dealing with the cleaning of the streets). There are also two other important acts, which Waste collection are the Conservation and Environmental Quality Act (giving the framework of the regulation con- Concerning the collection aspect in Bangkok, it is cerning the emission of gas for incinerations, highlighted by the fact that for the fleet of vehi- the framework for regulating the management of cles involved in waste collection there is little landfills and it also gives the opportunity for a control maintenance operations of the fleet and framework for future development of technolo- this activity is managed separately by most of 198 199 gies like bio-technology for waste treatment). The the 51 districts. Another factor showing that there other legal framework is the document which are a lot of vehicles in use compared with what permits the PSP in this area for waste manage- we know in the other countries in the region is ment. It stipulates that the Private Sector could the fact that we have an informal sector for recy- be involved in the waste management for projects cling the waste along the collecting routes of the higher than 1 million USD and it gives indications waste. It then induces longer periods of time from about the land acquisition or land property that waste collection to the transfer station. We esti- has to be integrated in the cost of the whole mate the quantity of informal recycled materials project. We have also other legal documents on to about 10%. requirements, which are prepared and imposed by the Thai authorities, mainly by the Ministry of Waste transfer sites Science and Environmental Technology, regard- ing the particular impact of waste treatment and Concerning the transfer of the waste, we have for the management of ground waster quality. At basically three main sites, located in the North, in the East and in the West of Bangkok. These sites Recycling belong to the BMA and these are former landfill sites, but as the city expanded in the last 20 Today, nothing or very little is done in Bangkok years, these landfills sites were abandoned and to recycle, this is done under the informal sector. moved to the outside area of the Bangkok Metro- There is absolutely no treatment of the waste, that politan Area. Today, the landfills sites are located is to say 90% of the waste is taken to the landfills about 70 km from Bangkok for the West site and and there is no industry, either for composting or another landfill site is located near the sea, in the for treatment of the waste using bio-technology or South East of Bangkok, about 30 to 40 km from even incineration. There is an incinerator in Bang- downtown. All the daily collecting trucks arrive kok for hospital waste, in On Nuch, in the East in this transfer site, and the quantity of loaded transfer station. In fact, this incinerator cannot waste on the trucks is divided between the 3 meet all hospital waste requirements. sites. Concerning the North transfer site in Tha Raeng, the quantity of waste is normally sent to Concerning the disposals, I told you we have two the West landfill disposal site. In the West site, we landfills, one in the Southeast and one in the have about 4000 - 5000 tons a day, and for the West and they are operated by private contrac- South East landfill site, we have a little bit more tors. I would say these activities are performed than 3000 tons a day. under a service contract. But the land belongs to the private contractors. Concerning these transfer sites, the intention of the BMA is to complete the sites, to attract recycling Collection costs industries or waste treatment industry at these sites. The cost for collection (by treatment cost, I mean These sites were formerly dumping sites They are cost for sending the waste to landfills) is pretty now clean except that the soil is still at the natu- high compared with the revenues collected by the ral ground level, and underneath there remains BMA because the collection fees are almost neg- from 2 to 4 meters of un-cleaned waste.