International Journal of Engineering & Technology IJET-IJENS Vol:10 No:02 75 Locating Bins using GIS I.A.K.S.Illeperuma1, Dr. Lal Samarakoon2. 1Senior Lecturer dept. of CPRSG, Faculty of Geomatics 2Director GIC Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand Abstract-- In today’s world solid waste management is a people have to carry their waste to the transfer stations. global environmental issue which creates significant health and Then waste from this transfer station is transported to environmental risk. This is a crucial problem in Sri Lanka too landfill site (ISWA, UNEP, 2002). due to the lack of a proper solid waste management system. Studied carried out by Visvanathan et al., 2001 shows This study was conducted to improve the present solid waste that in Asia waste disposal is a serious problem due to management system of Maharagama Urban Council, Sri Lanka using GIS. uncontrolled and unmonitored urbanization, and lack of Sample survey was done to collect the data about amount of financial and human resources trained in SWM system. waste generated from a According to this study the per capita generation of waste in house, number of people and income of a family and the Asian cities rang from 0.2kg/day to 1.7kg/day. Also it households’ attitude towards the waste from randomly selected highlighted that in Sri Lanka waste generation per capita houses. GPS survey was carried out to find out the sensitive rang from 0.4 to 0.85kg/day/person due to increased locations. consumption patterns as well as the movement of the people Model was created to estimate the amount of waste generated from the rural areas to urban centers. from each house. GIS was used to identify the locations for In Thailand people are encouraged to waste segregation bins and estimate the required capacity of them. It could be found that 1006 bins with 100m service area are required to at the source of waste generation. Therefore wastes are cover entire area. sorted into 3 types: recyclable, food and toxic and dispose them into 3 different dustbins. (Bui Van Ga, 2004). Index Term-- Urban Solid Waste Management (USWM), Bin Similarly in many Indian cities and towns, solid waste location, Geographical Information System (GIS), Service is normally disposed in an open dump. (Mufeed, 2006). area, Global Positioning System (GPS). Although collection and disposal of the municipal waste have been improved in Vietnam, there is no safely disposed 1. INTRODUCTION method. Recycling and reuse in Vietnam is an actively Solid Waste Management (SWM) is a function of implemented by informal waste pickers (Vietnam combination of various activities such as collection, Environment Monitor, 2004). transportation and disposal of solid waste. It also includes Bangladesh is also experiencing the problems of solid processing and treatment of the solid waste before waste management. Less than fifty percent of whole waste disposing. (Robinson, 1986). The purpose of SWM is to generated in Dhaka City was collected by Dhaka City create uncontaminated environment for people without Corporation and bins are not located sufficiently along the disturbing natural resources (World resource Foundation, road. So it can be seen that waste are scattered over the area 1996; McDougall et al., 2001) and a proper SWM helps safe (Syed, 2006). disposal, reduction of final waste and increase re-use and Similar to most of developing nations, in Sri Lanka, recycling. On the other hand a poor management system, on solid waste, especially Urban Solid Waste (USW), is a the contrary, leads to a filthy environment affecting the critical problem and it becomes severe due to absence of well-being of the people residing therein. proper solid waste management systems in the country. At At the present all over the world, due to the present recyclable, reusable and organic waste are collected industrialization, urbanization and uncontrolled urban together and being dumped in environmentally very sprawl and improvement of living conditions and population sensitive places like road sides, marshy lands, low lying growth, SWM become a monumental problem. Waste areas, public places, forest and wild life areas, water courses collection, transportation and disposal methods may vary etc. causing numerous negative environmental impacts from place to place over the world. SWM system has (Hazardous Waste Management Unit, 2004). improved with the help of new technology in developed There are no sufficient infrastructure and resources for countries. the SWM in many Urban Councils of the country, and there In Australia urban households have been given a bin to are no enough and suitable services to dispose most of the put their waste and those bins are emptied weekly by the solid waste from households and industries. (Levien et al. local council. (ISWA, UNEP, 2002). 2000). Basic measures taken in recent years to control waste With the introduction of new policies for rapid management in Japan include: pollution prevention, reuse economic changes during the last two decades it can be seen and recycling, and waste incineration with air pollution that rapid urbanization and also it is more difficult to find control. (Sakai et al., 1996). lands for disposal or waste treatment facilities in urban areas Netherland government has implemented high land than in rural areas. Therefore people in those areas filling tax to make it less interest by the people and compelled to dispose their waste in improper manner incineration of waste is the favored method of waste creating environmental and health hazards. In contrast treatment to reduce environmental risk (Bartelings, 2003). western province is highly urbanized and densely populated The most popular method of waste disposal in Canadian compared with the other provinces in the country. So the urban centers is curbside collection. But in rural areas waste management problem is more severe in the western 106502-8181 IJET-IJENS © April 2010 IJENS I J E N S International Journal of Engineering & Technology IJET-IJENS Vol:10 No:02 76 province (42 Sri Lanka, 2001). Thereby Colombo is the bins are not used by most of the householders to dispose most severely affected area with the disposal generation of their waste and instead they use drains, roadside, water around 1500 tons per day (Perera, 2003). This problem is bodies or any other improper things. This creates poor quite significant in Maharagama Urban Council (UC) which sanitary conditions in the area due to animals: goats, dogs, is in Colombo district. To minimize environmental and cows, cats, crows etc. foraging for food. Further, this waste health hazards it is necessary to locate bins along the roads may causes to block the drainage system and creates flood so that people can find a bin to dispose their waste easily. during raining seasons making significant inconvenience to Therefore this people and also stagnant and harmful water pools may form study aims to identify the proper locations for bins along the making a better environment for sources of many diseases roads using GIS in the Maharagama UC area. such as flies, cockroaches, mosquitoes and rodents. When these wastes are rotten and decomposed neighborhood make 2. STUDY AREA dirty, bad smelling. Lighter waste materials are observed to Maharagama UC is one of the largest Urban Council in have been scattered by animals, wind and vehicles adding Sri Lanka lies in the Colombo district in Western province. unpleasant outlook to the area. It is situated at 6.8460 North latitude and 79.9280 East longitude and is subdivided into 41 GN divisions for administrative purpose (Fig 1). It covers an area of 3775 hectares. Principal towns of the area are Maharagama, Mirihana and Kottawa and it has a population of just over 177000 people. There are about 28000 households in the area. The UC officers were estimating per capita waste generation is around 2.5kg in the area. Rukmale West, Makumbura South and Kottawa East GN divisions and the Wijerama, and Pragathipura GN divisions are the lowest and highest populated GN divisions respectively. Most of the commercial lands and industries are found along main roads. There are more residential lands and relatively less agricultural lands in the area. (Table I) T ABLE I LANDUSE DATA OF MAHARAGAMA UC Landuse Area (m2) Barren 197016.88 Cemetry 17706.30 Fig. 1. Map of Maharagama UC Area Commercial 820892.91 Industry 393868.83 All the wastes collected from households and other Marshy land 1013882.06 places by UC were transferred to open dump site located at Other agricultural land 1316884.96 Navinna GN division of the Maharagama UC area. Paddy 4958619.18 Maharagama UC officials said that then these wastes are Playground 38522.72 sold to the private company. Company people sort them out Public 867372.81 at the site and bring to their place. Religious land 223419.15 In some of the areas wastes are collected by UC very Residential land 26514910.94 F frequently while in some other areas wastes are not Scrub 345844.38 rom collected at all by the UC. If the UC vehicle comes to Water bodies 327383.73 pers collect the waste almost all householders are prepared to put onal communication made with Officials in UC regarding their waste into the vehicle. Only the householders of those urban solid waste management in Maharagama UC area, it areas where the UC does not collect waste adopt alternative could be known that UC provide polythene bags to methods to solve their problem of waste disposal. householders to collect disposal materials and to deliver Followings are the disposal methods used by those people to these bags to the vehicle at the time of collection or place dispose their waste. them by the side of the road closer to their house or put 1) Collect and Burn.