UN-Habitat and UNESCAP have launched a pilot project for Solid Waste Management in the cities of Karachi, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Mardan. The project will be initiated through the establishment of Integrated resource recovery centers (IRRC) in each respective city.

According to the spokesman of UN-Habitat, IRRC is a decentralised community-based recycling and composting facility which can be built and operated at low costs by using limited mechanical technology, ensuring low operational costs and with minimal equipment breakdowns, while creating job opportunities.

The project aims to develop an efficient waste collection and transfer system that will be associated with the resource recovery centre. The municipal solid waste management constitutes a serious problem in many cities of Pakistan. Total generated waste is unlikely to be collected efficiently and only a fraction of it is properly disposed off, polluting water sources, land, air and the environment.

Officials from the Ministry of Climate Change, City District Government-Rawalpindi and Capital Development Authority-Islamabad are involved in the planning as well as implementation phase of the project.

The project is taking on a ‘peoples approach business model’, involving the community from the surrounding areas including a comprehensive mass awareness campaign on behavioural change.