Two Bangladeshis to get U.N. award for waste scheme
Date: 18-Oct-02
Country: BANGLADESH
The international award is presented annually by the U.N. secretary-general to honour efforts of people who have dedicated their lives to fighting poverty.
Jorgen Lissner, resident representative of the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) in Dhaka, told reporters that A.H.M. Maqsood Sinha and Iftekhar Enayetullah would be the first ever Bangladeshi winners from Asia to receive the prize along with four from other continents.
The two were chosen for their contributions in motivating and training former waste collectors in Dhaka to turn trash into cash using simple technology and a little marketing know-how.
Sinha and Enayetullah, both urban planners and civil engineers, established "Waste Concern," a local non-government organisation, in 1995 and proved that organic waste was actually a resource that could easily and cheaply be transformed into natural compost.
"In the beginning it was very difficult to get people interested in working with waste or even giving space to set up a processing site," Sinha said.
Now some 16,000 people are engaged in five centres managed by the Waste Concern in Dhaka.