HUNDREDS of tonnes of solid wastes are left scattered and uncollected by the two Dhaka City Corporations on roads and lanes on a daily basis and are causing severe sufferings to city dwellers hindering pedestrians and traffic movement and also adding to health hazards and environmental pollution. A photo caption published in an English daily on Monday displayed a number of open dumpsters lying cavalierly on the busy road at Taltola capturing almost half of the road and spreading stench and breeding insects. Dhaka is one of the most densely-populated cities in the world. Over 12 million people live on a land area of just 360-square kilometers. Dhaka City Corporation, now bifurcated into two bodies has utterly failed to remove the waste for lack of adequate manpower, equipment, funds and on top of it an absence of effective governance. Thus the daily disposal of 3,000-4,000 tonnes of solid wastes is making the city life unbearable. The result is that uncollected wastes are dumped in streets, drains, ponds and lakes or managed informally otherwise causing various socio-economic and environmental problems. It is also adding to severe water-logging by blocking the drainage system. Moreover, because of a lack of waste infrastructure and narrow road networks, the civic authorities can’t provide door-to-door collection services to keep the locality clean. The dirty scene of dumping wastes is quite irritating at places along the river banks between Kamrangir Char Bridge and the second Buriganga Bridge, at Nababganj sluice gate, Shaheed Nagar Balughat and such other places all over the city. Most of the wastes are running to the rivers Buriganga and Sitalakhya to pollute them and destroy their life lines. Moreover, the disposal of hospital wastes are a looming threat to human life. As we know, the causes are enormous and known to all but the remedies are not properly addressed. We believe that participation of private community-based waste management initiatives may help overcome the problem to a large extent. They may provide door-to-door collection kits at places under an arrangement with the city corporations. We know a private organization known as Green Channel has already initiated such a decentralised composting by adopting low-cost technology. It has installed trashcans in Gulshan, Banani, Baridhara, Green Road, Panthapath, Kawranbazar and Mohakhali and plans to take other areas under its service network in phases. The management of waste of densely populated city like Dhaka is not a job to be overlooked; it must be recognised as a major public heath challenge and must be run by highly skilled management which provides easily reachable disposal services to family doorsteps. We know competence is no consideration for holding public jobs, otherwise we would have asked the incompetent ones in the city corporation to be sacked. But we must say that many officials in the corporations are corrupt, incompetent and they must be sacked.
