Municipal solid waste management, source-separated waste and stakeholder’s attitude: a Contingent Valuation Study

Recognition of the social costs associated with traditional practices of urban waste management in India led to the formulation of Municipal Waste Management and Handling rules (2000). However, compliance with the proposed collection and disposal involves higher commitment in terms of both time and money on the part of the residents, local bodies as well as the state and central government. In this context, information about the value of the environmental improvements conferred upon the city dwellers would be important from the planner’s perspective. Given the non-market characteristic of waste disposal services, we infer about beneficiaries’ perceived demand for the proposed service by means of Double-Bounded Dichotomous Choice Contingent Valuation Survey conducted in the Bally Municipality in the district of Howrah, West Bengal. We estimate the average WTP by controlling for anchoring bias and use the annualized value of cost to examine the feasibility of the proposed system.     

Willingness to pay before and after program implementation: the case of Municipal Solid Waste Management in Bally Municipality,India

This paper identifies the factors that influence perception of program benefit of the recipients when a hypothetical public program is implemented in reality. We compare pre- and post-program Willingness to pay (WTP) estimates for improved waste management in Bally Municipality, India, and find that post-program predicted WTP falls by more than 50 % even when if there are substantial improvements in urban environment. We show that this can be explained by the relative strength of leisure cost of effort to participate in the waste management program vis-à-vis the benefit derived from cleaner environment. Our study shows that mismatch between expected and offered service attributes might be a source of disutility and could also dampen households’ perceived value of the program benefits. In such cases, the reduction in WTP might act as an indication of the local bodies regarding the scale of outreach and expansion of the program needed to finance the operation and maintenance expenses by supplementing the property tax bases through user fees.     

Synthesis of biodegradable PVA/cellulose polymer composites and their application in dye removal

Environmentally sustainable composite films were synthesized using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and cellulose. Cellulose was extracted from the Agro-waste (sugarcane bagasse) using chemical pre-treatment followed by the acid-hydrolysis process. The composites were also used for the treatment of dye (Methylene blue; MB and Crystal violet dye; CV) and it was observed that the removal capacity of PVA/C was 70% for CV and 64.5% for MB dye. The biodegradation study of these composite films was also carried out using bacterial strains isolated from the marine waters of south Bengal. The biodegradation study of these polymer composites was characterized by FTIR, SEM, XRD, TGA, swelling properties, and weight loss. The results indicated that the PVA/C polymer showed a better rate of degradation (43%) than PVA (35%). Different loading parameters like pH, temperature, and inoculum dosage were studied to assess the degradation of the composite materials. Thus, biodegradable composite films were synthesized utilizing Agro-waste and had dye removal properties.