Understanding the feasibility of WAMCO in managing waste in greater Male' area / Hussain Shajeeu

Abstract

Waste management has been a challenging issue for the past years in the Maldives. Government of the Maldives has had repeated efforts under several donor-funded projects to establish waste management systems across the entire nation. As the Maldives Islands are scattered and are in remote areas, the logistics of collecting wastes and managing it has been a challenge over the years. The waste island "Thilafushi" is an example where without any feasibility done has failed miserably over the years as the wastes dumped in the area has gone beyond its carrying capacity.
To tackle these challenges and issues, as an initiative by the movement of Maldives, decide to formulate a corporation to manage the waste in the Maldives towards the integrated system. Through that plan, WAMCO was formed and bring up the waste management operation in greater Male' area in January 2016. With this Transformation to the existing waste management system the corporation faced many challenges and issues during the operation within these 2 years.
Therefore, it is very important to star the feasibility of the waste management model adopted by WAMCO is of immense importance as such studies will expose the financial risks associated with the process and the advantage of the adopted process. Furthermore, a feasibility study is needed as WAMCO started its operation in the greater Male' area recently with new model such as taking fee for collection services. As new services are provided to stakeholders, feasibility studies need to be undertaken to understand the long-term sustainability and efficiency of the operation.
To analyze the major objectives of the study both qualitative and quantitative method was used to in data collection process. Discussion were made on literature review and major findings from the both the interviews and survey result. Recommendations are based on the literature review and the recommendations from the interviews and the survey result.