In the least developed Asian Countries (LDACs), due to inadequate waste management, financial constrains, absence of appropriate technology, lack of people’s awareness, motivation and participation, ineffective legislation and law enforcement, municipal solid waste (MSW) remains unmanageable and becomes one of striking environmental and social issues. To have a clean, hygiene and environment-friendly city, the generated MSW must be managed in an appropriate way, which is absent in the most of the cities of LDACs including Bangladesh. To solve this striking issue, the Department of Civil Engineering of Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET), Bangladesh conducted a twelve months (14.04.2004 to 13.04.2005) feasibility study project “ Integrated management and safe disposal of municipal solid waste in LDACs-WasteSafe”, co-financed by European Commission. The Project proposed a system named as “WasteSafe proposal” with some specific guidelines. With the analysis and evaluation of practical application of this proposal, an appropriate MSW management can be established for any specific region. To this endeavor, a three years (01.012007 to 31.12.2009) partnership project co-financed by Asia Pro Eco II Programme of EC “ Safe and Sustainable Management of Municipal Solid Waste in Bangladesh Through the Practical Application of WasteSafe Proposal - “WasteSafe II” has been undertaken by KUET, Bangladesh in the partnership of Khulna City Corporation (KCC), Bangladesh; Bauhaus University Weimar, Germany; Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand; Bauhaus International Research & Education Center (BIREC),Germany and Lublin University of Technology (LUT), Poland.

In the late 1960s, the United Nations began paying special attention to the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) recognizing those countries as the most vulnerable to the international community in terms of a low-come criteria, a human resource weakness criterion and an economic vulnerability criterion. Presently, 50 countries are designated as LDCs out of which 14 countries from Asia. In the recent years urbanization and industrialization are growing steeply to meet the various demand of huge population living in the Least Developed Asian Countries (LDACs) -Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Kiribati, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Due to considerable difference of infrastructural facilities in all spectrum of lives, in LDACs peoples are moving towards Urban areas from rural areas. As a consequences environmental problems are created and these extend over a wide range of spatial scales, i.e. the household, the place of work, the neighbor hood, the city, the wider region, and the world. Urban solid waste management is currently regarded as one of the most immediate and serious problems faced by the city authorities. Due to inadequate and often inefficient solid waste management and visible environmental degradation, solid waste - generated at an increasing rate - has become an important environmental issue for the residents of the major cities of the least developed Asian countries (LDACs).

Municipal solid Waste (MSW) is the heterogeneous composition of wastes, organic and inorganic, rapidly and slowly biodegradable, fresh and putrescible, hazardous and non-hazardous, generated in various sources in urban areas due to human activities. Its composition, characteristics and generation largely depend on geographical location, socio-economic settings, living standards, and food125 habits and peoples awareness. In LDACs, the main characteristics of MSW are very similar. In the major cities of Bangladesh, as reported by WasteSafe, MSW is generated at the rate of 0.325 to 0.485 kg/cap/day obtained from different sources as 75 to 85% residential, 11 to 22% commercial, 1 to 1.5% institutional, 0.5 to 1.25% municipal services and 0.4 to 2.5% others. The compositions are 68 to 81% food and vegetables, 7to 11% paper and paper products, 3 to 5% polythene and plastic and 9 to 16% others. The waste contains a high portion of volatile solids as 43 to 71%, ashes residue as 29 to 57%, high moisture content as 56 to 70%, bulk density as 550 to 1125 kg/m^3, grain size from 2 to 200mm and pH from 7.7 to 8.7. Average values of some chemical constituents are 11.50% carbon, 0.91% nitrogen, 0.76% potassium and 0.33% phosphorous respectively. A considerable portion of generated wastes typically some 40 to 60%, is not properly stored, collected or deposited in the designated places for treatment and/or ultimate disposal.

Wastes those are susceptible to contaminate air, groundwater, and surface water are needed to contain in an engineered containment systems to minimize the intrusion of moisture and transport of waste constituents to the surroundings and to protect human and animals in contact. Most of the LDACs do not have any engineered landfill for the ultimate disposal of solid waste. Crude dumping of solid wastes in low-lying lands is common practice. At such dumping sites the risk of contamination of groundwater by leachate propagation is a major concern. Heavy rainfall during the monsoon is very conducive to the generation of leachate at the dumping sites. Leachate has the potential of slowly moving downwards and eventually reaching the aquifer used for the city water supply, thus contaminating this precious resource. Other problems related to un-organized waste dumping are the spread of waste by wind, run-off and flood waters, and the easy accessibility by persons to potentially hazardous or infectious materials. While waste reduction and reuse efforts may diminish the per capita quantity of waste generated in industrialized nations, there is no doubt that landfills will remain an important method for the safe disposal of municipal solid wastes for the foreseeable future due to their simplicity and cost-effectiveness.

Management is a carefully planned, judicious use of available means to achieve an end. In case of waste management an "end" is the removal and disposal of unwanted materials. Safe and sustainable wastes management is associated with several different functional activities such as waste generation, source separation and storage, on-site handling, collection, transportation, treatment, reuse, & recycling and final disposal of waste in a proper way which has no effect on environment. In most of the LDACs, due to severe financial constraints, lack of motivation and the absence of effective legislation to protect the environment and to handle the waste, the whole system is becoming a threat for city dwellers, planners and other concerned stakeholders. Inadequate or unavailable solid waste collection and disposal services result in indiscriminate dumping of waste on streets and public areas, clogging of urban drainage systems, contamination of water resources, and proliferation of insects and rodent vectors. As the management of vast quantities of wastes generated by urban communities is a very complex process, to run these functional activities properly, technical, environmental, administrative, economic and social problems those prevailed in LDACs due to inherent socio-economic settings must be solved. As the generation of solid wastes in the urban areas of least developed Asian countries are increasing in a steep rate and becomes unmanageable in present situations, and posed to threat human health, hygiene and environment, and degrading the natural attraction of the major cities of LDACs, it is really a present and urgent need to manage this solid wastes in an environment friendly and sustainable way.

Overall objective of the proposed project is to enhance the environmental state of LDACs by introducing appropriate waste management master plan for MSW and complete technical guidelines for all tiers of management in the perspective of local conditions, technological capabilities and the present needs of these countries considering Bangladesh as a case study country. The proposed project will be built directly on the results of the previous Asia Pro Eco project "Integrated Management and Safe Disposal of Municipal Solid Wastes in Least Developed Asian Countries- WasteSafe". Practical testing of site-adapted waste management master plan approaches based on WasteSafe proposal, demo compost plant and landfill cell are planned to implement in Khulna, the third largest city of Bangladesh on the basis of the selected areas. Other project partners will conduct accompanying research, analysis and synthesis activities.