The collection and disposal of urban refuse within the Jeddah municipal area

Abstract

The work comprises a case study and evaluation of the contractual procedures and management techniques attending the disposal of urban waste in a well endowed and rapidly expanding municipality in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The work is in six parts. The first part traces the evolution of Jeddah as a point on the South North Caravan route across Arabia and its importance as the gateway to the Holy Cities of Mecca and Madina. The second part outlines the development of cleaning services in the national context, and the evolution of cleaning services in Jeddah. The third part offers a detailed description of the operational aspects of the first comprehensive cleaning contract for the City of Jeddah, and the performance specification that accompanied it. The fourth part outlines the computer mapping system established by the contractor on which the annual costing of the cleansing operation could be based. It also describes how this system was used by the Municipality in updating planning information. The fifth part analyse the different aspects of the cleaning contract, evaluates the performance of the contractor during the first five years contract, and attempts to identify the optimum way of spending money in order to provide the required service at an acceptable level of cost. Having analysed and compared the various aspects of the collection and disposal of waste in Jeddah, the writer in the sixth part concludes that Jeddah has gained many financial, administrative and environmental advantages by awarding the city cleaning operations to a private contractor through a competitive tendering process. The writer also demonstrates that the contractor's urban data base, if continually updated, could further assist the development control procedures and urban planning techniques of the Jeddah Municipality.