Ghana: dumping place for second-hand clothes

When you donate clothes where do you think it ends up? We all think that it is going someplace nice to some needy people. Well, think again. Most of the clothes you have donated end up being sold in developing countries. Yes, you heard that right.

There are many bins where you can donate your unwanted clothes. From there the clothes are taken to different warehouses and is processed and selected. And the rest is made into bundles and sold. All the charity shops cast-off are sent off to Ghana in bundles. They are sold in the Kantamanto market.

There are many unwearable clothes even in that bundle which means they cannot be sold which end up in the landfills. Though this business of second-hand clothes trade has created job opportunities for many people it has created toxic landfills for the people living there. Due to the surge of second-hand clothes the local market has started crashing as the clothes are cheaper when compared to the local market.

For a container of clothes, they pay up to $95000 upfront which is a risk in itself because sometimes the clothes are not in good condition and cannot be sold. Ashari, an importer in the business imports about 3 million items of used clothing every year where most of it is from the United Kingdom. Every week, roughly 6 million garments are sent to waste from the Kantamanto market to a landfill. With the new clothes coming in every day there is still 160 tons of waste to be thrown every day.

All this unwanted clothing has created an environmental hazard in Ghana. The clothes mostly end up in the oceans. The clothes are rooted deep in the shores making it hard to dig them out. They are called tentacles as the clothes are all tangled together. Sometimes the tentacles can be from 8ft to 30 ft with a width of 3ft. It has caused the death of aquatic life. It also has affected the boats as the motors get tangled in the clothes. Also, in monsoon season the clothes get washed into the streets where they block the water drainage system.

Creative Community Projects Promote Sustainability

In the local community, people come together in many ways. Creative projects are a means of getting locals to share inventive ways of living which help the planet. There are artists who use reclaimed materials in their practice. One example of this is the Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World CCANW), based in Dartington Hall in Devon. It is a charity which has an educational remit as well as being a space for artists to explore their personal experiences of being responsible within nature. The Soil Culture project which was produced between 2013 – 2016, was a joint venture with Falmouth University and included artist residencies and a touring exhibition. It was aimed at deepening the ways the public understands how important soil is, for biodiversity and the health of the planet going forward. The project contributed to the United Nations International Year of Soils. It supported a range of artists to bring art to more people, according to its founder, Clive Adam’s, who praised the effort to show that the arts can affect change ‘in ways that complement the work of conventional education and science’.  

Creativity can be seen as a means of innovating to improve the ways people come together and take part in their community. Social psychology suggests that in wealthy countries, subjective well-being is subject to a belief in interpersonal relationships (Anna Meroni, Ed Creative Communities Report). 

In Brighton, during the month of December, 2021, a local artist collective has staged a pop up exhibition and workshop space where the theme is sustainability. Partnering with Leave No Trace, a beach cleaning environmental charity, the team of local artists and makers intends to raise funds to further the efforts to protect and preserve the health of their local coastal and oceanic environment. From fine artists to candlemakers, the group of artisans have put together a friendly creative space which is selling artworks aimed at the Christmas market from a gallery near to the famous Lanes in the heart of the city. Their slogan is, Dare to shop differently. 

According to the Guardian, the role of art in sustainable cities can be expressed as, creating ‘an emotional investment between people and nature’ (Guardian 2013). There is an intersection between people, information and art which means that art can be used to enhance awareness of real sustainability and environmental issues within a community. When citizens are emotionally connected with each other, by get more motivated. Art projects like the Dartington and the Brighton examples show this in action. In Brighton, a Christmas tree made of use plastic bottles stands at the doorway of the gallery where art is being displayed, and according to the organisers of the project, it has been a very strong attracting feature for getting people to come into the space. Once inside, they have been inspired to purchase alternative gifts to what they would normally have thought of, gaining satisfaction that they have contributed to an eco project of their local community, and their awareness of sustainability issue has expanded. The Brighton project is ongoing until the end of December.

Diet for a Sustainable Future

According to the Vegan Society (2021), a diet which avoids animal products can have the result of reducing your carbon footprint by half. At COP26, the 26th UN climate change conference, the society put the environmental case for plant based eating. It’s campaign, Plate Up for the Planet at Glasgow 2021 promoted the benefits of this sustainable way of eating. These include deforestation, biodiversity loss, and reduction in water use. World leaders were meeting to discuss their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and the targets to reduce carbon emissions. It has been agreed widely that diet change can be a significant contributing factor in getting the numbers down in this respect. 

However, the vegan diet is still not hugely pushed by politicians. Instead, a trend towards plant based eating is being seen in supermarkets with increasing ranges of ready meals and other foodstuffs which make it easy to convert from an omnivorous diet to one which is avoiding meat and dairy. According to the Guardian, by Summer 2020, the sales of plant based foodstuffs more than doubled (What We Eat Report, The Guardian 2020). Consumers spent 243% more on meat free and dairy free choices. The trend is accelerating. This looks like a 98% increase in consumers converting to vegan, year-on-year from now onwards (Guardian). 

Animal agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emission levels. Key messages from the Vegan Society at COp26 included, asking for a consistent policy leadership from the global north on this issue. This would push a shift towards a sustainable equitable plant based food system for the planet. The global north, the society argues, contributes over ninety per cent of excess CO2. As the wealthiest the onus is on the global north to take the lead in this sustainable future. Secondly, the society asked for world leaders to enact food sustainability laws in all the global north countries for example the Paris Agreement, and the sustainable development goals. Thee should be made law. 

Thirdly, investment in farming methods, sustaining the commons and improving the livelihoods of producer of legumes and plant protein supply chain industries should be a priority. A mainly plant based agricultural system will produce many benefits including biodiversity, animal wellbeing and opportunities for local farmers in the global south.

A shared concern of us all is how we get food. It is a problem and an opportunity which cannot be ignored, and as such it is key for sustainability and the commons. Sustainable policies affect society at all levels and they also affect economies. Currently most harvests in the global south go to feed animals being reared for the meat trade. If the plant based agriculture and food chain systems promoted by the Vegan Society and others are put into place and promoted at intergovernmental level, the future looks much more sustainable for our global diet. This may have implications for the health of the planet on a metabolic level, as research has been done into the effects in healthcare of a vegan diet. University College Hospital Southampton, for example, has hired a vegan Head of Sustainability to promote a meatless menu at the hospital. The programme launched to reduce the amount of meat in its menus. Meat free Mondays and plenty of vegan options at the canteen are included as some of the first steps in making the dietary provision more sustainable. The hospital sees intel’s as a role model in stainable health policies.

Impact on Food Security after the COVID-19 pandemic

Can you imagine yourself going for days, weeks, or even months without eating anything? The very concept of not being able to eat anything is a traumatic experience! However, this is the terrible reality for a big portion of the world’s population today. Almost 690 million people were hungry in 2019, and COVID-19, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, may add a hundred million more to that number by 2030, with at least 840 million people being hungry. As a result of increased climate change, continuous war, and now COVID-19, food insecurity has become prevalent and is on the rise globally, notably in Southeast Asia and portions of Africa. Despite continued efforts to mitigate the situation, a sequence of obstacles that seem to never end have resulted in the deteriorating situation.

Despite the fact that food is a living being’s main priority, chronic hunger has increased by 1 million people in the previous ten years, and by roughly 60 million in the last five, according to World Food Programme data. With this rate of spread, the COVID-19 pandemic would be a major factor in adding a hundred million extra people to the death toll and hastening global famine deaths. The food supply system was disrupted as a result of the epidemic, since the mandated lockdowns produced a global health catastrophe. As a result of these crises, wages have decreased and food costs have increased, making food unaffordable for many people and threatening efforts to attain Sustainable Development Goal 2: “Zero Hunger.” Despite the fact that global food prices are mainly stable and the global supply projection remains favorable, domestic food price inflation is increasing in most countries. 

According to World Bank statistics, food prices in the poorest countries have risen dramatically since September 2021, reaching their highest level since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. In 2019, about 690 million people went hungry, with Asia having the largest number and Africa having the fastest rate of increase. It has long been recognized that community factors such as insufficient social networks and support systems disproportionately affect families from low socioeconomic and disadvantaged groups in these nations, contributing to their food insecurity. For such families, their jobs are their only social network, since they can provide and support their basic needs. People seek alternative coping strategies such as borrowing money from landlords, taking out mortgages on assets, eating less diversified and compromised foods, and changing their food behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic to meet their food needs, which vary depending on their occupations and socioeconomic status.

With pandemic shifting the focus worldwide on providing health emergencies, and attending to new innovations on mitigating the impact of virus, the severity of working towards food security got diverted. Lack of access to food and with lockdown reduction in employment and consequent income generation capability has led the ratio for this to increase drastically. From the perspective of farmers, despite continuing the work and yielding harvests, it was not able to reach to the market due to restrictions on mobility. So, firstly despite the demand- the supply was not able to meet in the same ratio, and secondly, the purchasing power for whatever little was supplied also declined. People are thus suffering from hunger, food and security, and malnutrition because they cannot afford healthy diets. For about 3 billion people in the world- even the cheapest healthy diets are out of reach. With climate changes accelerating at an equal pace in hand to the pandemic, its costs could be around US $1.7 trillion a year because of greenhouse gas emissions. With commitments to decrease these emissions, the productivity of harvesting food is not being introduced with alternative mediums creating a loophole for ensuring food security of the people. 
BBC has reported that by shifting to healthy diets, it could reduce direct and indirect health cost by up to 97% and reduce the cost of green house gas emissions by 74%. As the world fights COVID 19, we cannot allow the pandemic to stop the global fight on hunger and malnutrition. Therefore, countries must transform their food systems and increase the affordability of healthy diets- by providing special aid provinces to the poor nations. Moreover, we need to invest in more coherent programs and governing bodies which would regulate the distribution of food supply chains through equity, and at the same time urge people with good access to food shift to a healthy diet and conscious choice of not wasting. This way, the health impacts among others caused by the pandemic would not be able to shift its focus from food security and mitigate the direct/ indirect implications raised by it efficiently.

What is net-zero and how can we achieve it?

According to oxford dictionary, “a target of completely negating the amount of greenhouse gases produced by human activity, to be achieved by reducing emissions and implementing methods of absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.” Currently, the only way to produce anything is by using energy. In order to improve our environment and save the planet, we have to find a way to produce something without creating pollution. And that’s what net-zero is all about. To determine the environmental impact caused by an individual, you must first find out how much energy is needed to produce the product. Then, you would compare that with how much energy was actually used. You can then be able to determine if your contribution to global warming is high or low.

More sustainable products use fewer natural resources to create than products that use more natural resources. For instance, if you want to drive a car, it would be better if you used a hybrid or electric car than using an ordinary one. Even though hybrid cars are more expensive than regular cars, they are still considered more sustainable because they reduce carbon emissions at the same time as reducing oil consumption. An example of a net-zero building would be the Goblins Café. The builders used the minimum number of materials to create this building but made sure that they were also extremely energy efficient. The use of high-performance insulation material meant that the building was very energy efficient. This café used an estimated 2mm of water, 6 tons of raw materials, and 15kg of fuel to produce its EER rating of 0.75.

Next time you are planning to buy something, think about how sustainable it is before making a purchase decision. If you are determined to buy an item that is not sustainable, then at least check if it has an EER rating or if it is advertising as such on the packaging. Net-zero energy buildings stores an excess of their own energy they generate from a renewable source.

The most common type of renewable source is solar. These buildings need to be able to store the energy collected and carry it through the building and into a turbine to produce electricity. The amount of energy produced per hour varies with the amount of sunshine collected by the solar panels. The more energy that can be stored, the more energy can be produced in a day.

Net-zero energy buildings don’t require any fossil fuel for heating or cooling such as gas, oil, or electricity (not renewable due to burning). They produce their own electricity, heat, and hot water through solar panels, wind turbines, or water turbines.

Fast fashion and its ugly truth

Fashion means being able to express oneself through clothes. Being up to date with fashion has become so important in this age and world. Many people can tell the personality of a person by the way of their clothing. With so many fashion retailers it is hard for people to resist buying new clothes.

So, what exactly is fast fashion?

Fast fashion is a way of providing the customers with the replica of high-end brands in a cheap, quick, and disposable way. It has now become a major staple in the fashion industry. Retailers like Zara, H&M, Fashion Nova have become one of the major companies in producing these clothes. In 2014 an article was published where it showed that the average American woman is buying 64 new articles per year out of which only half of them are worn about three times or less. This has become possible because of fast fashion. Most of it has to do with people being heavily engaged on social media. People nowadays have become so self-conscious that they wouldn’t want to repeat the same outfit twice.

As social media is growing, we can see many influencers promoting different brands online. If we were to search on YouTube, we can see thousands of people trying out different types of clothing each week. This only accumulates how many clothes people are buying. There was once a trend in Instagram where people would post their daily outfits and use the #ootd which translates to outfit of the day.

Generally, high-end brands release a huge amount of clothes at a specific time or seasonally where they spend months on the design, materials, and manufacturing whereas fast-fashion retailers produce clothes at a very fast pace. Whatever they see is trending is available in their shops the next day. In H&M new clothes come in every Monday, Friday, Wednesday, and Sunday. It is estimated that in the 1980s an average American bought about 12 new pieces of clothing every year whereas now the average American buys about 68 pieces every year. With so many cheap fashion options available people have started investing in clothes just for the sake of diversity.

Now it may be unknown to many, but the fashion industry alone contributes to more carbon emission as compared to both shipping and aviation combined. The fashion industry contributes to about 8-10 % of global carbon emissions and nearly 20% of wastewater. According to the UN, it is estimated that a kilogram of cotton is required to make a single pair of jeans and about 7500 – 10,000 liters of water is required to produce a kilo of cotton. That is equal to 10 years of drinking water for one person. The carbon emissions from the clothing industry is complex to account for. There are different variables to look at like how the cloth is produced how it is transported and how it is disposed of after it’s no longer of use to the consumer.

Why is it bad for the environment?

Well, there are various reasons as to why fast fashion is bad for the environment. First, the clothes aren’t biodegradable it takes years and years for the clothes to decompose. Second, with millions of clothes to dispose per week there isn’t any other alternative except for piling it up in the landfills or burning them. Third the fabric used to make clothes like synthetic polyester uses around 70 million barrels of oil to make polyester fibers in our clothes. As per Lynn Wilson, an expert on the circular economy, globally “65% of the clothing that we wear is polymer-based”. Viscose is another fabric used to make fast fashion fabric which is even worse. Around 33% of viscose fabric used in clothes comes from ancient or threatened forests as well as the process involves a huge amount of waste. Out of 100%, 70 % of the harvested wood is dumped and only 30% ends up in the garment we wear.

Not only these while manufacturing there is process like dyeing, processing, and finishing. All these use toxic chemical products which are later dumped into rivers near villages. There was a case in Indonesia where the river is polluted due to harmful chemicals which have led to children with liver problems.

The main problem that comes after is the dumping of the clothes. Normally people just donate the clothes that they don’t wear but have you ever wondered where do those clothes really end up? Even out of the donated clothes only the suitable ones are selected while the rest of them are made into huge piles and sold to developing countries like Ghana. Yes, you heard it right. The clothes that you donate are sold. Even in that pile, there are some clothes which are dirty and cannot be sold so all these clothes are then sent to the landfill. This has caused a serious problem in Ghana like the water bodies are all contaminated and there is no more space to fill in.

In 2015 an article was published where it showed that in 2015 only 10 million tons of clothes were sent to landfills which would be equivalent to 5 million cars. So, one can only imagine what it is doing to the environment.

There are many ways through which we can help. Stop buying clothes that you don’t need. Or at least try thrifting or maybe switch clothes with your friends. It doesn’t have to be a huge step forward the little steps can help a lot from ending your clothes in landfills. An interview by NBC News showed that just wearing the clothes for nine months or longer can reduce its carbon footprint by 30%. Not only that if each person were to buy second-hand clothes instead of buying new ones it could save up to 6 pounds of co2 emissions that is equivalent to removing half the million cars off the road for a year.

To make clothing more sustainable the changes have to come from manufactures and big companies of the fashion industry but we as a consumer can also change the way in our behaviour like in the way we shop, before buying any clothes ask yourself “do you really need it”? Maybe a change in the way we shop can bring a change in the industry too.  

HAZARDS OF INDISCRIMINATE WASTES DISPOSAL IN LAGOS – NIGERIA.

This is my last post for this week and like others, today’s topic is particularly dear to me because, at some point in my life, I have been both the victim and the culprit, so I understand what it means to litter the environment and the health hazards involved too. We shall be looking at the environmental damages of indiscriminate waste disposal and my case study is Lagos State, Nigeria.

Lagos is a city and a state in Nigeria. The commercial hub of the country in fact, and the second-fastest-growing city in Africa, and seventh in the world.  The latest population reports estimate its population to be more than 21 million, making it the largest city in entire Africa.  With per capita waste generation of 0.5 kg per day, Lagos generates more than 10,000 tons of urban wastes every day. With its growing population, one of the challenges that have continued to plague the city and make life unbearable for the people is environmental pollution, resulting from a lack of proper waste management by the government and also careless disposal practices by the residents themselves.

Lagos, as Africa’s most populated city, is managing waste generated by over 20 million residents running into 13,000 metric tons daily with infrastructure constructed in the ’70s for a population of 3 million. In the past, this was a seemingly easy fix. Trucks drove the waste far outside town, depositing it at the 40-hectare Olusosun dumpsite. But today, Lagos has expanded well beyond the old dumpsites, and the huge dumps find themselves in the center of the city now, a hospital on one side, a primary school on another, and homes hovering just over its precipice. It is directly off the main highway, and a whiff of burning trash sometimes blows across the city’s standing traffic jams. This is a pathetic experience daily for the residents nearby.

Having lived in Lagos for almost 5 years, I know that waste disposal in the city of Lagos has become an enormous public challenge and source of grave diseases, blockage of sewers and drainage networks, and choking of water bodies. Waste management is currently the most pressing environmental issue faced by Lagosians currently and it is assuming alarming proportions with each passing day.

These wastes are oftentimes generated by households, local industries, artisans, and traders which litter the immediate surroundings and sometimes cause traffic jams. The Lagos State government lacks proper garbage disposal and reliable transport infrastructure. Sometimes, collected wastes do not make it to their designed localities and no one is held accountable. There are also inadequate budgetary provisions for the implementation of programs in this regard across the state.

The waste disposal situation in Lagos currently is an eyesore and requires a concerted effort from everyone to drive order and cleanliness.

Designated agencies should design plans to sensitize the general public on the need for the proper disposal of solid waste, and sanctions applied where necessary. Collective efforts must be intensified to monitor and enforce sanitation laws as well as regulate the activities of the franchisees on good sustainable practices.

DEFORESTATION HAS CAUSED OUR ENIRONMENT MORE HARM THAN GOOD.

Science has proven that all green plants, take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen during photosynthesis. They also carry out the opposite process—known as respiration—but when forests are growing, photosynthesis exceeds respiration, and the surplus carbon is stored in tree trunks and roots and in the soil. When trees are cut down, much of that stored carbon is released into the atmosphere again as CO2.

Forests or trees in general play a key role in regulating our global climate. Trees are said to help absorb emissions from the air, acting as a great storage system – or ‘carbon sink’ – for the greenhouse gases that contribute to global heating. Forests could provide more than one-third of the total Co2 reductions required to keep global warming below 2°C through to 2030. 

The environmental benefits of trees and forests are enormous. They act as nature’s air conditioning unit, transpiring water, which forms clouds. When they are indiscriminately cut down, regional temperatures rise; this leads to drying and forest fires as seen in Brazil, California, Indonesia, Australia and the Congo Basin.

Tropical forests such as those in the Amazon basin and Congo Basin are particularly critical to climate efforts, because they store the most carbon. They are mainly hardwood and have no dormant period.

Tropical forests in particular are necessary for biodiversity, meaning that they are home to 90% of the world’s species, including renown species under threat such as chimps, gorillas, forest elephants etc.

Suffice to say that forest ecosystems are integral to local people’s culture, food, water and livelihoods, yet they are being burned and destroyed at an alarming rate. Between 2001 and 2015, over 300 million hectares of tree cover was lost.

Deforestation accounts for 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. If it were a country, it would rank 3rd in CO2 emissions, after China and the US.

Without action by government or regulatory bodies to end deforestation, we have little or no chance of meeting global warming targets with catastrophic consequences for people, particularly the poorest who contributed least to emissions.

One major cause of deforestation in many part of the world is agribusiness.

Palm fruits are processed into palm oil which is used in the production of many items

The picture above is a heap of palm fruits which happens to be very useful in producing different domestic products. It is also a very lucrative business for people in rural communities and a high demand product at that especially in West Africa, but the downside of this business is that trees of palm fruits are one of the most felled trees in the buses during harvest and this is in no way health to the environment.

Forests are often destroyed to make way for agribusiness, to produce everyday products such as beef, palm oil and rubber. Plantations of palm oil and rubber absorb nowhere near as much carbon as the forests they replace and have very little biodiversity, while the impacts of cattle farming are well-known. 

Hundreds of agribusiness companies promised to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains by 2020. However, many are already admitting that they will not meet their targets.

Because in most cases, forests are cleared to make way for many of a long list of agricultural products and other human activities and tropical deforestation occurring today can be traced to these globally traded commodities such as soybeans, palm oil, and wood products, we all have a role to play to save our environment. Everyone can feel responsible in their own way by limiting their level of activities with the trees near them for selfish and personal interest, while the government on their part, put laws in place to regulate human engagements with the forests around them. The environment is ours, let’s protect it.

About 70% of Nigeria’s forests have been lost to wood harvest in the last 15 years.

Ending deforestation and restoring forests has other benefits beyond reducing global warming pollution. Tropical forests are home to many unique species of animals and plants that risk extinction if we do not protect their habitat.

Tropical forests help regulate regional rainfall and prevent both floods and droughts. Reducing deforestation is not only a beneficial action against global warming—it also can make important contributions to saving biodiversity and supporting sustainable development.

Only Widening Roads in Kathmandu Won’t Solve Congestion

We have been experiencing traffic jams even after widening the roads in Kathmandu. The length of ring road in Kathmandu is just 17 miles (27km). The plan to widen it to eight lane is not yet complete. There is additional plan to construct outer ring road to reduce the congestion. Unless new model of public transport is not developed, only expanding road width will not solve the problems.

Credit: The Kathmandu Post

As the roads are widening, the number of private vehicles is rising exponentially. After CVOID-19, the rise has skyrocketed. Now there is no further space to expand Kathmandu ring road beyond eight lanes. This makes me to think Kathmandu’s congestion and pollution can be reduced by new model of mass public transport which uses clean energy. The road can be further widened as it has been occupied with private buildings, but the rise of private vehicles is on the rise with the rise in the income of populace. In addition, as the tourism flourishes, vehicles coming into Kathmandu from India will add further burden on Kathmandu’s road. Therefore, it is not difficult to predict that just widening roads is insufficient to resolve congestion in Kathmandu.

Insufficient managed parking spaces in Kathmandu valley have added a burden on traffic congestion. Similarly, the inability to manage and maintain traffic lights in Kathmandu valley with the use of technology, lack of civic sense in driving, and ineffective punishment to the traffick rule breakers have exacerbated the longstanding traffic issue and road safety in the capital.

As per the study conducted by Cimex Inc, sky train can be constructed in Kathmandu valley. Using such trains with energy sourced from hydropower will not only help in the consumption of electricity within the country but also make public transport a lot cheaper. This will encourage public to use public transport as there will be no congestions on the train as in road travel. Likewise, implementing congestion charge, like in London, for private vehicles within congestion zone and peak hours could further discourage use of private vehicle during peak hours. In addiion, constructing pedestraian friendly roads will encourage people to commute as much as possible. If culture of ride-sharing can be promoted, traffick jam could be reduced to some extent.

Hydropower In Nepal: Clean Energy And Economic Growth

Around 20% of the world’s energy supply is generated from hydropower. Bhutan, Norway, Canada, and the United States have promoted and shaped their economies with hydropower development. Hydropower is the source of reliable, clean, and affordable energy. In addition, when hydropower projects are properly designed, they can serve other purposes such as fisheries, irrigation, and water supply. Albeit there are concerns linked with environmental, social, and economic risk with the complex and large hydropower project constructions, the urgent need to transition from unrenewable energy sources to clean energy demands renewed role for hydropower (World Bank, 2009).

Nepal is the second richest country in the world in inland water resources. There are about 6000 rivers in Nepal with a combined length of 45,000 kilometers in total. 220 billion cubic meters per annum is the average water runoff from these rivers. Technically, Nepal has the potential to produce 83 gigawatts (GW). But 42 GW is said to be practically and economically viable with the existing technology. The current installed capacity of hydropower in Nepal is just 1385 MW of electricity.

According to the report published by the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) percent of the country’s hydropower assets is owned by the government. The irony however is that it is still suffering from power shortage and its transportation is fully dependent on imported vehicle and fuels. Cooking gas still is imported from India. Fuel import has been one of the most significant contributors to the trade deficit in Nepal.

Nepal has the potential not only to accelerate its economic growth but also to reduce its carbon emission by developing hydropower and replacing clean energy in kitchens, and electrifying its transportation system. Furthermore, if full protentional of Nepal hydropower is harnessed it can supply clean energy to energy-starved South Asia. For example, India and Bangladesh largely depend on coal for energy.

In addition, employment could be generated with the development of hydropower in the country which can poverty as more than 1200 young people travel abroad for employment every day.