KATHMANDU: The garbage collection in the Kathmandu Valley suffered again today. A group of persons claiming to be from the Okharpauwa Sanitary Landfill Site Struggle Committee of Nuwakot obstructed the dumping of the garbage in Sisdole today. “Among the four trucks carrying garbage collected from Kathmandu that had reached the landfill site, two were forced to return after the locals threatened to vandalise the trucks,” said Rabin Man Shrestha, chief of the Environment Section, Kathmandu Metropolitan City. “Up to 20 metric tonnes of garbage was disposed of today,” he added.

The collection is unlikely to resume before July 28. A meeting of the concerned stakeholders will be held on July 27 to sort out the garbage row. “We will hold a meeting with all the stakeholders to resolve the garbage problem,” said Dr Sumitra Amatya, General Manager at the Solid Waste Management and Resource Mobilisation Centre under the Ministry of Local Development (MoLD). “The collection of garbage will resume the very next day if the meeting goes well,” she added.

Meanwhile, Ramesh Prasad Paudel, coordinator of the struggle committee, said that they would not allow the waste disposal at Aletar of Sisdole landfill site until the government signed a commitment for sustainable waste management with a package of development projects.

They are demanding development of basic infrastructure including education, roads, drinking water, health, environmental improvement and rapid development of the proposed Banchare Danda as a landfill site. A meeting held on Monday among the locals and the Ministry of Local Development on the issue failed to reach a conclusion due to the absence of some prime stakeholders.

Dr Amatya said that they had already issued letters to the concerned stakeholders for the meeting being held coming Monday. “We are thinking of an alternative to this site and will work on it soon,” she said. “Although the written commitments made in the past were not fully implemented, this will be the final written agreement between the government and the locals,” she added.

According to the KMC, about 500 metric tonness of garbage is disposed of at the landfill site everyday. KMC alone produces some 350 metric tonnes of garbage everyday.