Sustainable financing for municipal solid waste management in Nepal

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 15; no. 8; p. e0231933
• Main Authors: Bharadwaj, Bishal, Rai, Rajesh Kumar, Nepal, Mani
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Francisco Public Library of Science 20-08-2020; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Developing countries; Earth Sciences; Ecology and Environmental Sciences; Economic aspects; Efficiency; Engineering and Technology; Environmental management; Financial management; Financing; Floods; Garbage collection; Households; Imports; Landfill; LDCs; Management; Materials recovery; Methods; Municipal solid waste; Municipal solid wastes; Municipal waste management; Municipalities; People and Places; Physical Sciences; Plastic debris; Population; Recovering; Recycling; Revenue; Social Sciences; Solid waste disposal; Solid waste management; Tariffs; Tax increases; Taxation; Waste management; Waste recovery; Nepal
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231933

Financing municipal solid waste (MSW) services is one of the key challenges faced by cities in developing countries. This study used plastic waste, a constituent of MSW, to explore the possibility of generating revenue for financing MSW management in the municipalities of Nepal. The results of this study suggest that plastic material recovery could generate revenue, which is equivalent to 1.38 times of the plastic-waste-related management cost when collection efficiency reaches 66.7%. An increase in 1% of recovery rate and collection efficiency could cover an additional 4.64% and 2.06% of the costs of managing plastic waste, respectively. In addition, an increase in tax on imported plastic materials could also motivate recovery of plastic waste for recycle and reuse. An additional 1% tax on plastic imports would be sufficient to cover plastic-related waste management when plastic waste recovery and collection efficiency rates are low. This plastic recovery- revenue exercise could be expanded to other materials such as paper and metal to fully understand the possibility of sustainable financing of MSW management and reducing environmental harm in developing countries like Nepal.