Restaurants’ waste in Chittagong city, Bangladesh: Current management, awareness on environmental hazard and perception towards potential uses

Abstract

Research on restaurants’ waste management in Bangladesh is limited. This study, carried out in Chittagong city, assessed restaurants’ waste generation, current management, awareness on environmental hazards, and perceptions towards potential uses of waste. Data were collected by interviewing 103 randomly selected restaurants’ (41 large and 62 small) owners/staff and two key-informant interviews. A restaurant produced about 858 kg of biodegradable and 77 kg of non-biodegradable waste per month. Lack of adequate number of bins, storage space, and collection of unseparated waste by the collectors, restaurants owners/staff unsegregated waste at source. Ninety percent restaurants had a takeaway system of leftover food. About 80% of the respondents were aware of ‘throwing of restaurant waste would block the drainage’ and 57% of them felt that restaurants’ ‘waste cause indoor pollution and uncleanliness in and outside the restaurants’. Over 90% of them agreed that biodegradable waste could be used for making compost, a good substitute for chemical fertilizer thus helps keeping the environment clean. A majority of the respondents were willing to pay a portion of their profit for waste reduction and recycling. Their awareness and positive perceptions could be useful for sound management of restaurants’ waste, which requires a coordinated and shared responsibility of restaurant owners, customers, and waste management authority (Chittagong City Corporation).