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Kathmandu Monday December 31, 2001 Paush 16, 2058.
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Garbage solutions
The garbage disposal problems of urban Kathmandu
Valley are gargantuan. But now there is light at the end of the Chovar tunnel via
Okharpauwa. And about time too. A capital city, which can throw itself into a frenzy of
face lifting to look its very best as the SAARC summit host with the most, has long been
pinching its own nose at the mountains of garbage that waylay the denizens at every other
street corner and once gave the whole country a bad name courtesy Newsweek. Municipal
authorities who have been complaining about the lack of enabling legislation to put paid
to the perennial problem has displayed surprising resolve (thanks to the emergency?) in
trashing a whole city block to improve the ambiance or cutting through the legal and
financial tangle to redeem a troublesome triangle astride a main city artery, all in time
for the great event. The face lift may be no more than skin deep while the garbage woe
goes to the heart of how we live. The Vajrayana Mandala being jumped into existence at the
public garden that will replace the demolished houses at Maitighar may not be in keeping
with Vajrayana orthodoxy. But no matter. We have seen and are seeing what the second
busiest man in government can do when it comes to straightening out the bends, broadening
out the narrow and making flowers bloom where once concrete jungle lay.
If garbage politics does not interfere again,
the valley’s garbage gripes will be over for at least a decade once the road leading
to the dumping site at Okharpauwa is black-topped. Agreement has been worked out with
private firms to turn city waste into useful compost. The 1.5 million people living in the
valley churn out 550 metric tons of the stuff every day and 80 percent of this can be
converted into fertiliser, another ten percent recycled. The compost manufacturing will
take place at Chovar where the facilities of the recently closed down Himal cement
factory come in handy. It is not certain if Chovar is down wind from the rest of the
valley but it is certainly down river. Not all valley dwellers may be able to take a
breath of equally fresh air once the fertiliser works and the rest of the garbage disposal
regime is in place. But they can at least take a sigh of relief on more counts than
one. One, they will have slain the garbage dragon that has been breathing down at
them malodorously for so long. Two, they will have shown that, yes this valley, and
perhaps the country too, is certainly capable of taking care of its own waste. And maybe
the same thing goes for all the other problems which we have heaps of at almost every
other street corner. |
