Investigating municipal solid waste management system performance during the Arba’een event in the city of Kerbala, Iraq

Muhammad Abdulredha (), Patryk Kot, Rafid Al Khaddar, David Jordan and Ali Abdulridha
Additional contact information
Muhammad Abdulredha: Liverpool John Moores University
Patryk Kot: Liverpool John Moores University
Rafid Al Khaddar: Liverpool John Moores University
David Jordan: Liverpool John Moores University
Ali Abdulridha: University of Warith AL-Anbiya’a

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2020, vol. 22, issue 2, No 39, 1454 pages

Abstract: Abstract Every year, many religious events attended by 300 million pilgrims take place in many holy cities and sites around the world. However, research on municipal solid waste is limited despite the reputation of religious events to generate substantial amounts of waste. This research aims to address this gap and contribute to new knowledge on municipal solid waste management at religious events by investigating and evaluating the municipal solid waste management system applied at the Arba’een event in Kerbala, one of the largest religious events in Iraq. Field observations and in-depth interviews with nine senior managers from Kerbala’s municipalities were conducted during the event in 2016, to develop an overall picture of the municipal solid waste management system applied during the event. The data were analysed using thematic analysis and fed to the ‘Wasteaware’ benchmark indicators framework to evaluate the performance of the event system. The results indicated that the system suffers from operational and governance weaknesses. Despite a focus on municipal solid waste collection and transportation, the collection coverage is only ~ 70%. There is no controlled landfill site in Kerbala. It is estimated that currently ~ 5% of the event municipal solid waste is recycled by informal recyclers: there is no formal recycling scheme. Kerbala does not perform well regarding governance. The inclusivity of providers and users of the municipal solid waste management services is minimal during the event, as the majority of stakeholders are not included in decision-making processes. Municipal solid waste management services are delivered free of charge, thus significantly influencing the financial sustainability of the system. This study recommends that MSW recycling should be encouraged through integrating the informal sector, improving public awareness and introducing a formal recycling scheme to make the event municipal solid waste management system effective and financially sustainable.

Keywords: Integrated municipal solid waste management; Kerbala; Municipal solid waste management indicators; Municipal solid waste; Religious events; Performance assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-018-0256-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:endesu:v:22:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s10668-018-0256-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668

DOI: 10.1007/s10668-018-0256-2

Access Statistics for this article

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens

More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().