Thinley Namgay
The government will discontinue the waste management flagship programme introduced by the previous government in the 12th Plan.
According to officials from the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (MoENR), the waste flagship was only designed for the 12th Plan.
The Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa government launched the waste flagship programme on June 2, 2019, which also included the establishment of a national Waste Management Committee comprising nine members from various agencies.
MoENR officials clarified that discontinuing the waste flagship programme doesn’t mean the present government would give up waste management activities in the current plan. Instead of the flagship programme, the government will focus on reducing waste going to the landfills and recovery through waste recycling value-chain in the 13th Plan.
This is in line with the government’s plan to promote the development of a circular economy and integrated waste management estates. These estates will engage with private sector entities to recover waste materials, promote recycling businesses, and initiate waste to energy projects, among others.
The waste flagship aimed to achieve ‘Zero Waste Bhutan’ by reversing the landfill disposal rate from over 80 percent to less than 20 percent through a string of measures, mainly source segregation, provision of downstream facilities such as waste collection facilities and drop-off centres at convenient locations, and efficient and timely collection of waste, among others. MoENR officials said that 90 percent of the targeted activities under the waste flagship programme have been achieved.
Some of the notable outcomes of this flagship programme include construction of waste collection facilities or drop off centres, installation of incinerators at Memelakha landfill in Thimphu and in Mongar, and development of Zero Waste App and national waste inventory.
Other tangible outcomes include development of a national waste information system, National Waste Management Strategy 2019, the zero waste hour campaign, and increasing fines and penalties for waste defaulters.
The government’s Zero Waste Bhutan app functions as a tracker for waste-related offenses. So far, it has recorded 436 offenses and 369 incidents of waste-related issues.
Over 300 street litter bins were procured for waste segregation in public places and 25 waste collection facilities and nine drop-off centres in Thimphu are fully operational.
A material recovery facility at Taba, Thimphu is currently under construction. The construction was delayed due to Covid-19 and high rate of attrition of experienced project staff.
Officials said that the pandemic posed major challenges to achieving the targets of the flagship programme.
On the national level, one of the main challenges identified was the bringing about public behaviour and attitude change towards waste management, including access to resources, infrastructure, and market for waste.
“Convincing the public on waste management needs to be backed by infrastructure and ease of access to these waste facilities,” officials said.
Yet, resource constraints to build adequate infrastructure with efficient managerial and operational competencies to handle waste posed challenges.
“Promotion of a recycling culture requires an industrial ecosystem to make use of waste from an industry or households as raw materials or inputs by another industry,” MoENR officials said.
According to the National Waste Inventory Survey of 2019, Bhutan produces 172.16 metric tonnes (MT) of solid waste daily, with Thimphu alone accounting for 40.3 MT of waste.
The National Statistics Bureau’s 2020 survey revealed that plastic and paper waste comprise 17.1 percent and 15.8 percent of the total waste generated in Bhutan respectively.
A major headway in waste management, Greener Way introduced Bhutan Waste Bank, a special component to incentivise segregated waste, in April this year.
The Bhutan Waste Bank project aims to achieve zero-waste by 2030 and strengthen the country’s carbon-neutral status.