Project Overview

Designed and taught a field-based course in Spring 2025, titled Karachi’s Waste Crisis, at Habib University, cross-listed between the Communication & Design and Social Development & Policy programs. The course addressed the city’s urgent and under-documented waste management challenges through a multidisciplinary lens, combining methods from journalism, urban planning, and design research.

The course structure centered on investigating what happens to municipal waste after it leaves our homes, and how different stakeholders, particularly those in marginalized communities, interact with the system. Set in one of the world’s largest megacities without a formal waste management framework, the course aimed to unpack infrastructural gaps, governance failures, and social inequities embedded in Karachi’s waste flows.

Tools Used

Field-based Urban Ethnography.

Human-Centered Design Methodology.

Visual Documentation through mapping, photo-stories and systems diagrams.

Primary and Secondary Research.

Process

The course began with a critical review of available literature and policy documents, revealing substantial data gaps and lack of accessible system documentation. Students conducted field visits to household collection points, neighborhood dumpsters, municipal transfer stations, and the Jam Chakro landfill, Karachi’s largest and unmanaged disposal site.

Emphasis was placed on the human dimensions of the system. Students interviewed key stakeholders including scavengers, waste-pickers (many of them children), contractors, municipal workers, and public officials. These encounters provided insight into the informal labor economies that sustain the city’s waste infrastructure, as well as the social vulnerabilities experienced by those working within it.

The final segment of the course shifted toward constructive engagement. Students studied global case studies of successful waste governance in developing countries and met with local startups focused on recycling and material innovation. A digital campaign for the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) was also developed to translate their research into actionable communication.

Outcome

The course culminated in the development of visual handbooks documenting Karachi’s waste system from generation to disposal. These handbooks integrated ethnographic fieldwork, stakeholder interviews, and infrastructural mapping to produce comprehensive, publicly accessible resources intended for journalists, NGOs, civil servants, and educational institutions.

Key outcomes included:

A structured and publicly usable documentation of Karachi’s waste infrastructure.

Increased student capacity to use design and ethnographic research in real-world problem-solving.

Visibility for the roles and experiences of informal labor within municipal systems

Practical models for how youth-led research can support environmental justice and inclusive governance.

The course emphasized that while solving the crisis may not be immediately feasible, understanding and documenting it, accurately and inclusively, is a critical first step toward long-term, system-wide reform. This documentation is crucial, as the existing literature on Karachi’s waste management issues is often inaccurate due to a lack of quality data. This project is the first in over 20 years to capture and document the system accurately through an in-depth field study.