Recycling Park: A Sustainable Approach to Integrating waste Management with the urban realm of Amin bazar

In a developing nation like Bangladesh, solid waste is commonly dumped in non-engineered landfills. The nation’s six largest cities produce roughly 8000 tons of solid waste daily, of which over 5000 tons are generated in Dhaka alone. Dhaka city has two central landfills. Out of these two, the site Aminbazar landfill was created in 2007 to serve the city’s northern area (DNCC) with over 3000 TPD of waste now. The landfill’s capacity was already reached in 2017, and the acquisition of 80 acres of land is now in progress.

Aminbazar was a wetland and agricultural land; after the road connection development, the brick fields started to come here. From which the industrial zone was created, more industry needed more workers, for which urbanization began to happen here. Many people came here from different districts, mostly workers. The site surrounding it was a very vibrant zone because of the adjacent highlands and the locality. The nearest localities are “Kondra” and “Baliarpur,” where around 5000–6000 people live near the landfill within 3 km, and opposite the landfill, there is a new housing development. Farmers and fishermen used to make up most of the population here, but this has declined due to infertility and water pollution from landfill leaching. And the smell is everywhere, which hampers the economy of this site and makes it a neglected site for the people. The landfill on this site also creates problems for biodiversity.

Humans have generated waste for ages, and some of it is non biodegradable, which causes many problems. Due to an expansion in infrastructure projects, the quantity of garbage produced inside DNCC is growing continuously, which causes more dumping at the landfill site. To solve this, a sustainable waste management system needs to be integrated, and this won’t help if people are not aware of the amount of waste they produce on a regular basis. Even though waste and architecture are not distinguishably connected in their social aspects, there is a need to connect them.

Waste is a problem that is never taken seriously but has the potential to be a valuable resource. This project poses the question of whether it is possible to turn waste into a resource and whether this could involve human collaboration instead of isolation.

The idea is to reduce the physical and psychological boundaries between waste and humans. In addition to creating a socio-spatial relationship with the waste industry, it will give back the space to the inhabitants. To do this, we must create a transitional area between the urban recreation and industrial zones that can consolidate space for both environments. The site’s perimeter can be used as a green buffer zone to keep the general people away from the plant and centralize the activities. In addition to the site’s accessibility to the highway, a secondary road is proposed, which will improve traffic intersections. Also, sequentially design the spaces so that the public can only see the industry visually. Buildings will be more mechanized and functional. The site will connect humans, buildings, and nature altogether. The project will eventually have a hybrid architecture where social activities and sustainable waste management can be combined.