OKHARPAUWA (NUWAKOT), Jan 13: Sugumaya Tamang hasn’t been able to earn her daily wage for the past nine days. She is one of about 35 people who pick plastic at the Sisdole landfill site in Okharpauwa and send it back to Kathmandu for recycling. She has been out of work since locals disallowed entrance to garbage trucks to the landfill site on January 5.Along with Sugumaya, the five municipalities of the Valley and the several waste collecting private companies have not been able to do their jobs during this time.[break]
On a daily average of 350 tons of waste per day, currently about 3,150 tons of garbage remains unmanaged in the valley. Even if the concerned agencies begin collecting the waste right away, it would take at least five days to complete disposing all the garbage. But going by current events, garbage management is ulikely to begin anytime soon.
In Okharpauwa, the pungent smell of methane and other gas being produced at the landfill site is pervasive. The liquid that flows from the Sisdole landfill site goes directly into the Kolpu Khola, turning the water into hazardous liquid.
Rajkumar Upreti lives about two kilometers away from the Sisdole landfill site. He says that the smell makes life very difficult for him. That is not the only reason why locals have blocked garbage dumping in Sisdole though.
“The government promised us a lot of developmental activities, but nothing of the sort has happened here,” says Rajkumar.
Along with the demand for a hospital, two ambulances, and a fertilizer factory, the locals, in their 32-point demand, have sought employment to a member from each family of the area at the landfill site or in other development projects.
The government had initially agreed to the demands but couldn’t fulfill most of them.
The five Municipalities that dump their waster at Sisdole say that they collectively contribute Rs 8 million annually for local development of the area but locals here say they haven’t even had the luck to smell the money yet.
The landfill site falls along the border of Nuwakot and Dhading districts. The blacktopped road leading to Sisdole goes through Nuwakot district. The locals of Dhading are demanding the construction of another blacktopped road leading to the landfill site, but through Dhading district itself.
“The people of Nuwakot and Dhading both have demands and I don’t think the trucks loaded with garbage will be here for at least another week,” says Hari Prasad Ghimire, another local.
On Monday, the private organizations that collect the waste produced in Kathmandu organized a press conference at the Reporters Club Nepal. They blamed the government for not being able to handle the situation.
Minister for Local Development, Ram Chandra Jha, was also invited at the press conference along with many other government officials, but none showed up.
“The locals of Okharpauwa have so much bargaining power because there isn’t an alternative dumping site,” says Laxman Shrestha, a private waste management entrepreneur.
Okharpauwa is 28 kilometres from Balaju Bypass and the municipalities alone spend Rs 60 million annually just on their fleet of about 25 trucks that take the garbage there.
Zakaria Zainal
The blockage at the landfill site has come timely for the locals because the Sisdole landfill site can only withstand 60 more days of dumping, after which it will be full. Thereafter, waste will be dumped at Aletar, less than a kilometer from Sisdole. Aletar has the capacity to withstand only 12 to 13 months of garbage dumping.
According to Ashok Shahi, General Manager of the Department of Waste Management, Aletar was initially proposed as the site for construction of a processing plant and not as a dumping site that it will soon become.
The locals had agreed to the Sisdole site because the government had promised to build the processing plant at Aletar, provide jobs for locals at the processing plant, and to allocate a chunk of revenue generated from selling the organic fertilizers made at the processing plant for local development. But the processing plant never materialized, and the locals of Okharpauwa feel cheated.
“Why don’t they use the Tudikhel to dump their waste. Why do they have to come and pollute our surroundings,” says an elderly Jit Bahadur Balami, a local of Okharpauwa.
Three hundred ropanies of land was acquired by the government at Okharpauwa for garbage disposal and three sites were separated for disposal. The largest dumping site in Okharpauwa is Banchare Danda, where the construction of dumping site hasn’t begun yet.
“The construction of Banchare Danda will take a long time and I fear it will not be complete by the time Aletar becomes full,” says Ashok Shahi.
The current problem is messy at all levels and demands a long term sustainable approach from the government so that they are able to manage the waste without enraging the locals of Okharpauwa or degrading its environment, experts say.
