KATHMANDU, JULY 11

With the monsoon at its peak, Kathmandu Metropolitan City is facing problem managing the city’s garbage.

More waste is produced on rainy days and undesirable conditions of roadways during this season is another challenge to transporting collected waste to the disposal site. Besides, KMC is facing another issue for waste management. The Sisdole-based landfill site in Kakani Rural Municipality of Nuwakot has already reached its full capacity and waste picked up from 18 local levels of Kathmandu valley is being dumped in the area below it. As said by the KMC Environment Department Chief Hari Kumar Shrestha, KMC faces this problem every rainy season. But this time, the problem is severe as there is no space to dispose of the waste.

Sisdole landfill site has been used for the management of waste collected from 18 local levels of Kathmandu valley for the past 13 years against a contract for two years. Though 1,700 ropani land, two kilometres away from Sisdole landfill site has been acquired to prepare a new disposal area, construction work has yet to start. It is estimated that it will cost at least around 3 billion rupees and take two years to ready the infrastructure at the new site.

A total 1,200 metric tonnes of waste from the valley has been managed at Sisdole on a daily basis and a maximum of 500 metric tonnes is contributed by Kathmandu metropolis alone.

Two hundred vehicles of KMC and private groups have been used to transport waste to Sisdole. Waste from Kakani Rural Municipality and Dhunibesi in Dhading is also being disposed of at Sisdole.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on July 12, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.