Gender and Waste Nexus: Experiences from Bhutan, Mongolia and Nepal

Table 1. continued

Leading questions

Reasoning for the questions

Waste prevention

Are you concerned about the amount of waste you/ your household/your community produces?

Awareness of the need for waste prevention.

In the last year or so, have you or any of your household members taken any specific steps to reduce the amount of waste being generated in your household?

Gender-differentiated abilities to change habits.

Gender-differentiated abilities to change habits.

Can you think of any products, materials and/or habits that you feel are unnecessary and which may increase everyday waste?

Awareness about the overuse of single-use

Do you try to reuse items or parts of items within your household that other people might consider to be waste?

plastic bags, plastic bottles or any other products and habitual behaviours, such as throwing rubbish onto streets..

Have you ever taken specific actions to reduce the amount of waste that you and your household generate and to improve waste management issues?

Are these actions different for the men/women in the household?

Domestic waste management

How does your household dispose of its waste? Are there different approaches for different types of waste? What about recycling? What about composting? Who in your household decides how to manage the disposal of waste (including which approaches to use)? Who pays for these services/methods?

Gender-specific waste management. Gender-specific waste management and treatment practices (including community cleaning activities, if any), needs and priorities. Harassment, safety and violence.

To women: Do you feel any violence or harassment if waste management is not performed at the “top level”?

Are there centralized/municipally-provided waste services available to you in your community? Do you use those services? If not, why not? Does informal waste collection exist? If so, is informal waste collection more active/efficient than the other services? What about recycling services? Do you receive enough information about recycling from the municipality or the community? Is there any voluntary community activity related to waste management? (For example, who cleans the formal/informal collection points? Who is responsible for community cleanliness?)

Decision-making authority according to gender.

Gender roles in waste management-related activities at the community

level and impact of institutionalization/

formalization of voluntary work (generating money).

Who does most of the work to dispose waste from the house? Men? Women? Boys? Girls? Is it different for different types of waste?

Who makes the decisions on howwaste is disposed in your household?

92 Gender and waste nexus