Kathmandu, September 15

Nearly 148 groups in 25 districts of the country celebrated ‘World Cleanup Day’ today by organising clean-up and awareness activities to combat the ever-growing problem of littering, illegal waste dumping and burning in Nepal.

Among these groups, local governments, community groups, educational institutions and local organisations took ownership of the issues arising from waste and embraced the slogan, “Our Waste, Our Responsibility”.

The event was centrally inaugurated at Patan Durbar Square by the Australian Ambassador to Nepal Peter Budd, Tirza Theunissen from The Asia Foundation and Pradeep Amatya, chief of Environment Management Department, Lalitpur Metropolitan City, who collectively acknowledged that illegal waste dumping and burning have been a major concern along with the ongoing landfill issues.

They have been making continuous efforts to optimise public participation and collaboration between the local governments and private sector through programmes like ‘Mapping Waste Management Systems’, ‘Data for Development’ and ‘Waste free Lalitpur’.

Speaking in the programme, Australian Ambassador to Nepal Peter Budd said, “It is very encouraging to see local organisations and local governments collaborate and take such initiatives for the environment”. The inauguration followed theatre arts and World Cleanup Day rally to inspire the public to own responsibility concerning the problems of waste and assist local governments while they are working to establish an integrated waste management system.

Azam Nathaniel, media coordinator of Clean up Nepal, informed that the World Cleanup Day intended to nurture the right mindset needed for sustainable waste management among the people in order to mitigate environmental and public health issues in Nepal.

Clean up Nepal estimates that 28,796 people participated during the World Cleanup Day 2018 collecting 396 tonnes of garbage across 340 dumping and littering sites in Nepal.