The KMC must install an efficient recycling plant used by other metropolitan cities around the world
Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) deployed around 500 security personnel in and around Bancharedanda and Sisdol areas on Saturday to transport the Kathmandu Valley's waste that had remained uncollected for the last one week due to fierce opposition from the locals. The KMC officials said the police had to be mobilised there after the locals pelted stones from the tops of hills and even vandalised dozens of vehicles carrying waste from the valley last week. While condemning the incident, KMC Mayor Balendra Shah had vowed he would make them pay for the repairs of the vehicles damaged by the furious locals. The police were moblised around the private homes, fields and all gathering points at Bancharedanda. The KMC said around 200 dumpers transported waste on Saturday, dumping the highest volume of waste in over a month. The KMC aims to transport all the waste collected from the roadsides and corners of the city areas. The KMC, which is responsible for collecting and disposing of the waste from the valley to Bancharedanda, has not been able to collect the refuse on a regular basis since the local level election on May 13. Shah, who was elected mayor of KMC as an independent candidate, had promised to resolve the waste management problem the valley has been facing for decades.
After making a deal with the government on June 7, the locals had allowed the KMC to dump the garbage there. However, the KMC and the government could not fulfill the promises that they had made with the locals, who afterwards blocked the already dilapidated road due to the monsoon rains. The Kathmandu Valley generates around 1,200 metric tons of garbage on a daily basis.
Around 300 trucks are pressed into service to transport the garbage collected from the valley. The locals' refusal to allow garbage to be dumped at the landfill site has forced the Kathmanduites to throw the waste on the roadside or keep it inside their homes. Piling up of garbage at the roadsides is not only an eyesore, but it is also a serious threat to public health during the monsoon when leachate spills across the roads.
The KMC alone cannot effectively handle the waste management problem without support from the federal government. The traditional way that we have been following for decades cannot help resolve this problem. The KMC and the government must come together to install a highly efficient recycling plant that has been used by metropolitan cities around the world. It has been decades that the KMC has been shifting its landfill sites, initially from Gokarna to Chovar and from Sisdol to Bancharedanda. The KMC has been facing similar protests from the locals wherever it decided to dispose of the waste products. A modern recycling plant will not only help manage the garbage effectively but will also generate employment opportunities to hundreds of people. Such a plant can also produce energy enough to run it and compost fertiliser. The recycling plant does not require vast swathes of land, nor will it displace or affect the locals who are averse to the landfill sites. In order to end this perennial problem once and for all, the KMC and the government must immediately decide to set up such a plant within the valley.
Help flood victims
Blame it on climate change, but the weather conditions are becoming extremely unpredictable. The weather people had predicted more than average rainfall this monsoon, but much of the country remains dry at a time when the freshly planted rice seedlings need abundant rains to grow. While people pray for rain to beat the unbearable heat scorching the earth, unexpected incessant rains in some parts of the country have resulted in flash floods, inundating settlements as well as large tracts of farmland. And so it was in eastern Nepal, where the swollen Saptakoshi River caused by the incessant rainfall in early August eroded the embankments and entered settlements in Udaypur and Sunsari districts, displacing thousands of people.
The security forces as well as volunteer groups were active in evacuating the flood victims to safe places and providing them with food, kitchen items and hygiene kits. However, now that the water in the river has receded, the government must provide them with all the help it can so that they can begin life anew. Many of the residents have lost everything in the floods, and it would be good for the local government to coordinate with relief organisations to provide the needed assistance.
A version of this article appears in the print on August 15, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
