Management of solid waste is a complicated task in view of its close relation and direct relationship with the behaviour of the people. Therfore social awareness and initiation is a key factor for the long term solution of this problem. Management of solid waste in developing countries like in Nepal where there exists low level of awareness with regard to personal hygine and sanitation can not be considered in isolation. It should be therefore be analysed in the context of other burning issues and problems posed by rapid urbanisation and population growth. Rapid urbanisation and a constant change in consumption pattern and social behaviour have caused massive waste generation in the valley beyond the management capability of the existing government and semigovernment and institutions. The local municipal bodies with their limited human, technical, financial and institutional capability demonstrted their inability to cope with the multi dimensional problems of solid waste management in a many parts of the city. This led to. unacceptable sanitary condition in the communities that necessiated the involvement of other agencies, private sectors, NGOs, CBOs to deal with these problems effectively and efficiently.

Keeping in view of above issues, UDLE launched PCDP project in Patan with a number of different but interrelated components . Under the Integrated Pilot Projects (IPP) solid waste management is considered as an important activity of the overall development of the community. From the planning to implementation , operation and maintenance stage of the program it has extensively involved local leaders, SHGs and municipality staffs. The basic principle of the project is to enable the community to undertake their responsibilities of participation in the development and improvement of their neighborhood.. The resultant effect was that initiatives were taken by the community in forming self help groups. The groups were found effective channel to mobilize the community and provide new impetus to the program.

Today the community is more concerned and aware of the various implication of the solid waste handling. The community have understood the need, importance and its interrelationship with different social, economic and cultural aspects. The service with regard to solid waste and the contribution of local NGOs or CBOs especially the local self-help group, ward Chairperson, women was very important in order to carry out SWM activiteis as they all are within the community and have more insights to the community problems.

The major findings of the program are as follows -

Community management approaches has been found as an integral part of the waste management system. The project was designed based on community demand. Major activities carried by the program were ;Solid waste management, tole street cleaning, toilet construction, sagal rehabilitation, community motivation and trainings.

To ensure the sustainability of the activities, the program used community participation approach. As the program addressed activities which are of day to day concern, people took interest and participated actively. The active participation generated ownership feeling within the community , inturn affected positively for the program sustainability.

Institutional arrangement was made in order to streamline the community participation in waste management system through the utilization of self help group. Nurturing institutions at the local level proved how quickly community actions spreads when it is embedded in the local social organisations.

Social character and culture also contributed to the effectiveness of the program. Being a homogeneous community, characters such as same caste, way of life, thinking level, economic status, same beliefs made easier for the community members to work together for the betterment of their environment. Besides this, commonality of needs brought them together to solve problems cohesively and collectively

Solid waste being more of a social problem, study shows that attention to the socio-cultural environment is as important as attention to the "hardware" input. Therefore,the program has given utmost attention to culture, community, leaders particularly women's participation.Community based programs geared through the public education and information mechanism simultaneously through self help groups has generated greater impact in changing the behaviour and attitude of the people.

Program was completely based on people's power from all ages. In many other projects, generally children and women and indigenous groups are left out. However, in this project they all were given equal importance. People played different role in the preparation of plan of action to implementation and for the sustainability of the program.

There were no fixed set of activities. Activities were set as per the need and demand of local communities. In other way the project applied learning by doing approach, in this learning process presumed that not everything can be known prior to implementation.The process does not assume that there is one right answer. It is a way to manage uncertainty when doer does not know what will and what wll not work in a particular context. It is a way to manage risk, and to minimize risk of failure by not being forced to define one correct way before the evidence is in.

The program emphasized that once the felt need of the people is met other improvement in terms of sanitary habits follow as logical consequences. Therefore program provided various skill development trainings and conducted literacy classes..

It is found out that people are interested in development process of their own community with both participation as well as contribution. Being a marginalised community contribution was found more in terms of labor than cash.

The encouraging response and requests received from other various communities to help support them launch the similar programme in their areas is a positive indicator of the success of the programme.

Generally, the Government and the municipality forget poor and underprivileged people especially children and while making development policies and plans. However, program has been able to bring these groups in the picture of municipal development planning.

There has been change in the decision making process in the selection, planning and implementation of the program. Participatory approach of decision making rather than bureaucratic approach was established

Prior to the project intervention it was reported and also observed on the photos that the general environmental sanitation situation was abysmal. Huge piles of waste in the courtyards, sagals and human defecation along the path were common sights. Positives are now noticed, especially in sagals where there is no more heaps of wastes

Going through the program it is found that the program was more concerned on waste disposal and community cleaning and lacked any sorts of major recycling activities. Any steps taken towards the development of micro enterprises by any group or individual could not be seen.

In developing countries, generally low level of incentives, lack of proper regulatory and enforcement mechanism aggravates the deteriorating health and sanitation situation of the country. Beside this, traditional, social, cultural and institutional values contribute to a low level of public response to the efforts made for the improvement of sanitary and environmental condition through the proper management of solid waste. But since few years, this concept has been reversing. People have become more concerned and more aware about their living environment and started working as partners with the government. In this program too, partnership with other agencies has been developed to make a community approach effective. and meanigful. For example, the partnership with the wards and municipality worked well and effectively. The working relation with the community based organisation has also been nicely established and maintained which further helped to use the limited resources optimally.

The program has changed the development perception of the people 's representative in the municipality. Prior to a program, municipal investment in the social sector was negligible Now, the municipality is motivated to invest in these sectors on a scale that is increasing slowly but steadily.

The study led to believe that community or beneficiary participation in decision making can contribute greatly to the success of the project. It has proven that when people influence or control the decisions that affect them, when they have a greater stake in the outcome, then they will work harder to ensure success .Benefits of involving the community and selfhelp group in the program are in terms of instrumental (ability to collectively solve problems, increased capacity in terms of knowledge and skills), psychological (sense of belonging, enhanced confidence) and political (greater access to authority, greater authority)

Looking at the present solid waste management condition of the community and people's overwhelming participation in the program, one can visualise that this community has potential to carry out community development works on their own if appropriate support is provided. Degree of social preparedness among the people is found higher mainly due to the homogeneity of the community and commonality of interest brought people together to solve problem. With the growing urban poverty and growing amount of waste geneation, waste recycling could become an important source of income. Since the community has understood the need and importance of proper waste handling the community could be motivated to consider as something basically valuable and to further utilize recycling opportunities in their private sphere. Formulation of current favorable HMG/N government policies for SWM could further support these solid waste management activities by involving private and NGO sectors in the delivery of SWM services and opening additional utilization and marketing potentials.

Whenever change is introduced, initial resistance is likely, achieving success is based on creating incentive for organisations to interact with each other to achieve desired outcomes in ways that are sustainable financially, environmentally, socially and politically. Since the effective use, operation and maintenance of solid waste activities at the community level depends on household members individually or collectively, the degree of organisation necessary to keep the technology or system depends on the functions that the community organisation is to perform. Thus investment in strengthening the capacity of CBOs or SHGs must be greater to manage the SWM system on their own In the country like Nepal, with such socio-economic and physical condition, the voluntary recyclying is not possible basically because of social value attached to it.But the recycling activities could be integrated with overall waste managemant system in a way that recycling activities are carried out in commercial approach. The lessons from this study have important implications for policy, project design and implementaion strategies for community based solid waste management programs.

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Source : NESS (P) Ltd. Survey, !995.

Note: 1. Lagankhel. 2. Indrachowk. 3. Gaushala.

4. Tahachal. 5. Patan Dhoka. 6. Average in Kathmandu

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