Bangladesh’s fast-growing capital is overflowing with garbage. Can it turn its excess waste into an asset?

Dhaka, a city with just two landfill sites, has long struggled to manage the mountains of trash that’s generated by its 23 million inhabitants

But it has big plans to start turning garbage into energy, with a little help from some Chinese firms – and even dreams of being ‘zero waste’ one day

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A trash truck leaves the Aminbazar landfill site on the outskirt of Dhaka. Photo: Redwan Ahmed

Published: 2:00pm, 4 Jun 2023

Colourful cartoons now brighten the walls of an abandoned piece of land in the Mirpur district of Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, as the delighted squeals of children playing on swings and seesaws carry the sound of respite from a city of 23 million people that gets bigger, dirtier and harder to live in by the day.

The site, next to a waste dump, was formerly an illegal car park and hang-out for junkies. But Dhaka’s North City Corporation has transformed it into a green, child-friendly public space, with bright artwork adorning the gate and walls of the refuse collection point next door.

“It feels like I’m flying like a bird,” said 11-year-old Robiul*, sharing a swing with his younger sister as other children waited impatiently to have their turn.

Residents say the pocket park – one of 10 across Dhaka, with more waiting to be unveiled – provides a welcome oasis in a city creaking under the weight of its own urban sprawl.

Children play in a child-friendly public space near the waste sorting facility in Dhaka. Photo: Redwan Ahmed

More than 23 million people already call the Bangladeshi capital home, with hundreds of thousands more arriving each year, displaced from their farms and coastal homes by food insecurity, the worsening effects of climate change and grinding poverty.

The parks provide mere thumbnails of green in such a densely packed city, but with cartoonists commissioned to decorate them, they indicate a willingness among the powers-that-be to raise the quality of life in Dhaka by involving small communities.