A municipal dump lies just beside a ward councillor’s office and a mini clinic of Urban Primary Healthcare Services in the capital’s Lalbagh area, scattering litter and spreading stench everywhere. The snap was shot on Friday. sun Photo Green activists have expressed grave concern over the unhygienic state in the capital as city dwellers have often been through a common ordeal of pungent odour from household waste dumped on streets in many parts here. Despite rallying cry for proper waste disposal system, tangible development, as elusive as ever, is nowhere to be found in the mega city, they lamented. Experts blame twin city corporations as responsible organs for bad waste management. Overpowering stench of garbage causes untold sufferings to residents only due to haphazard waste dumps and untimely cleanliness. As the population of Dhaka is growing higher, cleanliness should be given top priority as it is a public health as well as hygienic issue, they opined. “City corporations sometimes tell of manpower shortages in cleaning the city, but the excuse does not hold water now,” a city planner observed. Experts, however, stressed the need to raise awareness among everybody about the building of Dhaka as a clean, truly liveable city. Urban planner Prof Nazrul Islam said a band of experts have studied waste management but positive results are yet to be found to make the capital as a clean city. City corporations are liable to dispose wastage but they do not act rightly for lack transparency. “A separate section of the city corporations deals with waste management. They have permanent staff members to do the task properly. Administrative weakness acts behind it,” he mentioned. People now want elected representatives to run the corporations. If city development regulators require suggestions for smooth work, they may seek expert opinions, Prof Nazrul said. Prof Dr SM Imamul Huq of soil, water and environment department of Dhaka University said dustbins or containers must be covered and waste be removed at night-time to make the city clean. “In daytime, rubbish on streets pollutes environment, spreads germs in the air, let alone bad odour.” As city-dwellers pay tax to the corporations, he said, there is no valid reason to tolerate such an awkward situation in streets during their movement. In addition, government as well as private entrepreneurs should come forward to recycle waste, Prof Imamul added. “People abroad are living with sound environment, but the scenario is completely different in Bangladesh. But why?” queried Prof Dr AQM Mahbub of geography and environment department. Regretting the matter, he said, “Actually, we are not aware of the environment. Proper planning and skilled leadership are crucial to keep our surroundings clean. The government should take a strong initiative to clean and make the city environment-friendly.” It was learnt that Rajshahi City Corporation started collecting garbage from houses at night-time in July 2009 and revolutionised the traditional garbage collection system. People earlier dumped garbage near their dwellings, thus polluting the environment. In the new system, workers of RCC conservancy department go from house to house with rickshaw-vans and collect garbage between 9:00pm and 10:00pm. They later dump the waste at particular dumps. Workers carry the garbage collected from dumping points to the final point at Nawhata under Paba upazila, around 10 kilometres off the metropolis, before the sunrise. Before going to the new system, RCC held rallies and meetings in every ward to make the residents aware of cleanliness. Dhaka city corporations can follow the system as early as possible for the greater good of the inhabitants. It is to be noted that Hong Kong in China and Bagdad in Iraq remove their wastage at night-time.
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