Friday, August 03, 2012 -
Uzbekistan hopes to secure $100 million in funds from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) by late 2012 to upgrade a waste management project in the capital city Tashkent, city officials said Friday.
Project planners said the money would be spent on purchasing specialized machinery and vehicles to process and dispose some 600,000 tons of solid waste generated by city households every year.
Waste management authorities say they will upgrade the city’s aging fleet of garbage trucks and acquire 7,000 containers each designed to hold 200 gallons of waste. The Tashkent administration will also create 520 new protected garbage collection areas with the funding.
City authorities say the garbage trucks should have been taken out of service four years ago after reaching their 10-year operational lifespan.
These proposals stem from a feasibility study begun in January with the support of a $750,000 grant from the international lender.
The four-year project to 2016 would be jointly carried out by the Tashkent administration and its ‘Special transport’ unit specializing in shipping waste.
The ADB is scheduled to review the loan application in late 2012, the Trend news agency reported.
Separately, Tashkent authorities imposed new rules on households beginning August 1 requiring them to sort out their waste into five categories. For their part, the waste management body provided waste containers around the city for the different types.
Tashkent residents will have to fork out 78 US cents per month for these services, a 36 percent increase above their current waste service bill.