Achieving sustainable livelihood through solid waste management in Dhaka City

Abstract

Solid waste management (SWM) has become an enormous burden for the governments of developing countries. SWM is a partiularly crucial problem in theDhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. The Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) is the only formal organisation responsible for waste management. It estimates that up to 2% of the population of developing countries survive through informal waste-recovery activities. Thus, this study is aimed to assess the sustainable livelihood through SWM among the waste workers in Dhaka. This study collects primary data through a questionnaire survey on 436 poor waste workers living in the Dhaka city of Bangladesh. The samples are selected from the landfill, commercial and residential area based on the stratified random sampling technique. This study shows that the analysis of structural equation modelling achieves the required level of validity, reliability and fitness where the values of Cronbach's alpha (oe) > 0.7; Construct Reliability (CR) > 0.6; Average Variance Extracted (AVE) > 0.5; Chisquare, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) and Tucker -Lewis Index (TFI) > 0.90; Root Mean Square of Error Approximation (RMSEA) < 0.08 and chi Square/Degree of Freedom (Chisq/df) < 5. The three latent exogenous constructs namely source separation, health hazards, and sustainable livelihood are significant variables to achieve sustainable livelihood vis-à-vis poverty reduction. Using the econometric model, the study focused on the health awareness, welfare, income generation, employment opportunities of waste workers.