, there is no shortage of cow manure.
Unforeseen Shortcomings of the Waste Management System – Part 3:
The final cost of this project was far greater than the expected/approved cost. The system’s tangible goods include but are not limited to: a mid-sized room, an outbuilding attached to designated room, signage, waste buckets, 2 rolling waste trolleys, 2 autoclaves, digital thermometers, rubber gloves, landscaping tools, shelving, aprons, masks, trash bags, and 3 additional staff.
There is a recurring cost of autoclaving used needles pre-burial, and ideally there is sufficient electricity to run an electric autoclave. However, from what a waste management staff member tells me, electricity is not available as often as you would think, and therefore they must occasionally run a generator to supply power to the autoclave (they now have the old hospital gasoline based generator for this). At 150 rupees per liter (about 25% more than US prices) this practice can get a touch spendy to prep garbage before its buried. The other option is to use the second autoclave, which is propane based, and which we have the supplies to run but propane is not cheap either. The details of how often this autoclave is used and any particulars about this method were unfortunately lost in a series of conversational tangents.
When viewing the storage outbuilding for the sorted and baled recyclables, you cannot help but notice that each partitioned segment intended for a certain type of waste was overflowing; literally spilling over the top and now building up around the exterior of the shed and canteen building. After a brief talk with the waste management staff, it came to my attention that the “business” from Dhangadhi has never come to hospital to pick up or purchase the processed material, despite being contacted on a regular basis.
As for the composting it has completely fallen into obscurity and I cannot even find the containers despite much searching. The canteen staff now feed the cows with the compostable material. The nonexistence of a garden may be my own failure, as I was asked to pursue it and make it happen. I researched potential materials, costs, size, and the staff support surrounding the issue. As for my findings about the cost/size: a small garden with fencing is not too expensive, and would cost less than $50 using locally available materials. But to make a garden that could even remotely offset the cost of the kitchen would be out of my scope of practice, not being a gardener in the slightest, and from what I could speculate would be quite expensive compared with the cost of produce. This also would require a fair amount of labor-hours to run and I didn’t dare suggest another staff member to add to recurring costs knowing it was a touchy subject.
The waste management staff does not use the designated rubber gloves to sort the waste. These gloves must either be inferior in some way or must be regularly unavailable. The sorting staffs seem to greatly prefer sterile surgical gloves instead. At $3-5 a set, sterile gloves boost the cost of the program without even hitting waste management cost radar. All modest efforts to redirect staff members back to using appropriate reusable cleaning gloves have been unsuccessful. Without being able to understand the underlying reason for this behavior, no change can or will be made.
What was Learned Versus What was Gained – The Non-parted Segment:
In a nutshell, I feel as if this whole tale sums up the reality of being in Achham. The plan, the construction, the well-intentioned improvement, all spiralling to a complete and utter standstill as dedicated volunteers leave semi-aborted projects behind and businesses fall through on agreements. This is where I will stop with my own conclusions as I’m often told I should stop one sentence short of a complete thought. Instead, I will add a few more bits of what I believe is speculative fact into this story. As a true believer of the proverb “Don’t believe half of what you see and none of what you hear,” I’ve seen no better waste management system in 