Photo Courtesy: Sabin Pathak

We can see dust, dirt and garbage scattered at many places around Kathmandu. One cannot walk freely because of the disgust of walking over the garbage while passing through many places around the valley. However, it seems that the major roads, areas and places are less dusty than others because the government has managed dumping site far away from them. Despite this fact there many areas around Kathmandu which seems to be clean during the day, but turn into dumping sites at night.

[caption id="attachment_9090" align="aligncenter" width="2726"] Photo: Road-side near Jaybageshwori[/caption]

Jaybageshwori, a renowned place at Kathmandu, has the same story. We can see heaps of garbage at night. People bring garbage from their houses and throw it wherever. The municipality has provided vehicles to pick up the garbage from homes around the valley, but it seems that many people cannot manage to catch the vehicle. A cause of this could be the irregularity of those vehicles. Moreover, most of the people who are busy at work cannot use that facility. Especially the students and the job holders who should be regular on their duty miss those vehicles. Sometimes the vehicle does not come for days. Thus, during such situation people tend to get impatient and make such a beautiful place, just another dumping site.

 Although the road near Jaybageshwori seems clean during the day, it is full of garbage during night. A side of the road looks like one big dumping site. The next day, around sunrise, it is almost clean. The vehicles from municipality collect the garbage. Hence, most of the people are not aware about this fact. This is not the story of just one place in Kathmandu. This was just an example. Most of the areas around Kathmandu have similar tales. This has created a negative impact on the society. People tend to believe that this is acceptable. Therefore, people residing near these places do the same and throw their garbage wherever. This sort of negligence of the society is what seems to be very disturbing. The municipality and the government are not innocent either.

Who should be responsible for this, people or the municipality?

Both of them are responsible. People throw their garbage because there aren’t other choices for them. If they miss the vehicle, they will have to pile up their garbage in their houses for an uncertain period of time. No one wishes to make their city dirty, but they are compelled to do so.

The municipality should also manage to provide garbage disposal options around the valley. Garbage vehicles should come around on a regular basis so that people know when to put out the garbage. They should also manage small dumping sites, or better yet, trash bins, near each area so that the people who miss the vehicles can properly dispose off their garbage, rather than throwing it at the side of the road. Only then this problem can be solved.

It is necessary to solve this problem because these sorts of things spread negative message about us and our country. So, all of us must do our share. We must properly dispose any and all waste materials. Hope this problem can be solved soon.