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Recurring Menace Compelled to bear with the smelly streets, Kathmanduites call for a stable solution for this recurring problem
By SAHISHNU POUDYAL
No sooner than a weeklong strike by its employees had been resolved (from July 13-18), the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) ran into rough waters (from July 23) with the locals of Teku refusing to allow dumping of untreated garbage in their locality. Hardly a day had gone by since the KMC reached a negotiated settlement with Teku locals, it was eyeball to eyeball with the residents of Sisdole landfill site in Okharpauwa of Nuwakot district (from July 30). The residents demanding better facilities for the local people stopped KMC garbage trucks from emptying in the landfill site and forced to return 20 such trucks on July 30 back to Kathmandu .
As the KMC’s garbage-filled trucks continued to run from pillar to post searching for a place to drop their goodies, the people of Kathmandu suffered from reeking smells from heaps of uncollected garbage in city thoroughfares.
This garbage problem could not have come at worse period. At the peak of monsoon season and amid the rapidly growing infection incidents of diseases such as jaundice, typhoid and gastro enteritis (even a few cases of cholera were detected in the valley hospitals last week), the pictures of uncollected garbage provide an ominous mixture.
In what could be termed as worst of ironies, huge heap of garbage was collected at Open Theater, which overlooks the city’s biggest public hospital – the Bir Hospital .
Whether due to employees’ strike or demands made by local residents, the management of garbage appears to be of nobody’s concern. At a time when the political leaders as well as civil society leaders are focusing on the issue of management of arms, the issue of management of garbage has been overshadowed. “It is an irony that these leaders have forgotten than disease and germs kill many more people than arms do,” said an exasperated Kathmandu resident.
Although KMC has been named as chief culprit for the mismanagement, it would be highly illogical to suppose that only the KMC will be able to overcome this problem. “The civil society must wake up to this problem. They can play a major role in making all concerned people aware about hazards of obstructing garbage dumping. If some local residents have some grievances, those can be resolved through dialogue,” said another resident of Kathmandu .
The KMC, on the other hand, needs to brush up its garbage management department to increase efficiency. In fact, the primary job of the erstwhile “Safai Adda” (Cleanliness Department), which is the predecessor of present day KMC, was management of garbage in the valley. It was formed in 1976 with the purpose.
“We need to accept our drawbacks that we are not been able to collect all the wastes that come out daily form Kathmandu . It is about 20 to 30 ton everyday that we cannot collect. But we are doing our best to collect all the wastes,” said Rajesh Manandhar, one of the heads of the Waste Management Department at the KMC. He added, “We collect 420 gms of wastages per people per day, which means about 320 tons of total wastages as a whole from Kathmandu Municipality area.”
When asked how the KMC dealt with hazardous wastes such as those coming from the hospitals and big industries, he answered, “In Nepal there are not much hazardous wastages like in industrial countries. Most of the wastages can be recycled and other can be simply managed but the wastage from hospitals and liquid wastes like different kinds of chemicals are hazardous ones. However, not all of the wastages from the hospitals can be considered as hazardous. Out of total wastages from hospitals, 23 percent is hazardous waste (infectious); three percent is hazardous but non-infectious, 12 percent is non hazardous saline bottles; and 62 percent is ordinary medical wastes. Unfortunately, if a small portion of hazardous wastes are mixed with non-hazardous ones, the latter will also turn hazardous. So they should not be mixed.”
As per the latest data available at KMC, out of the wastes generated in the city, 69 percent are of organic nature; nine percent are paper; whereas other wastes include plastic (9 percent), cloth (3 percent), metal (one percent), glass (three percent), rubber (one percent), construction materials (two percent) and others (three percent).
The improperly thrown wastage is the main problem since they cannot be collected well. The KMC has come a long way from the time when it used Kharpan (carried by men) and tractors to collect the wastages to the present time when there are a large number of garbage collectors working with 64 vehicles including 28 tractors, 16 tippers (Eicher), 10 tippers (Mazda), three Compactors (Japanese), four Skips ( Toyota ), one Skip (TATA) and two Skips ( Leyland ). But this is still inadequate to address the garbage problem of a city whose population has exploded in the past few years.
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