KATHMANDU, March 29: Lately Ghanashyam Adhikari has been waking up with many questions wandering in his head. When the major question is 'when shall this lockdown end', the other question is when will the sanitation workers and garbage men come for garbage collection?
Adhikari 41, a resident of Tinkune already has a pile of garbage stored in his house. Previously when garbage men roamed across the area every three days, this time it's been a week that they haven't been around to collect garbage.
"We understand that it's a time of crisis but the garbage piling up every day has now started to affect us," he said adding "If metropolis doesn't manage this soon, it might hasten into a greater problem".
Resolving Kathmandu Valley’s solid waste problems
However, this is not only Adhikari and his family's problem. Many households across the valley are facing the exact same problem since last couple of days. Since the government imposed nationwide lockdown in order to contain the spread of Covid-19, the garbage collection system set up by the metropolis across the valley has been hampered.
According to the Kathmandu Metropolitan Office (KMC) this hitch started after the locals from Sisdole started objecting to this process fearing the spread of the Coronavirus. The garbage from 18 different municipalities across the valley are dumped in Sisdole landfill site. "The garbage collection process across the valley was disrupted after the locals from Sisdole raised questions on their safety amidst the fear of spread of the virus" said Deputy Mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, Hari Prabha Khadgi.
This created a mess in the system, and the service was hampered for few days but the metropolis have already cleared the fuss with locals insuring to follow proper sanitary measures and to provide them with sanitizers and face masks. "We cleared the ruction with locals after assuring to provide sanitary supplies like hand sanitizers, face masks and disinfectant in the area," Khagdi mentioned.
Khadgi stated that the metropolis resumed the work from Friday - right after the fuss was sorted out-and by Saturday 63 trucks of garbage were already collected and dumped. "Garbage from every places around the metropolitan city will be collected by Monday" she assured.
Nevertheless, not just KMC, but locals from Lalitpur have also been complain about the same problem.
"Our area hasn't seen garbage men since last Tuesday. It hasn't really created a problem by now but if the garbage isn't collected within few days it shall welcome problems", said Sarita Bhandari a local from Sunakoti.
The metropolis from Lalitur had similar answer to give considering Bhandari's complain. "Garbage collection was hampered in Lalitpur as we also dump all the garbage in Sisdole landfill site,” said Chiribabu Maharjan, Mayor of the Lalitpur Metropolitan City. Maharjan however mentioned that the work is back in track and assured that garbage from all household across Lalitpur is in the process of being collected and will be completed by Sunday.
"We just hope we won't have to face further objections from the locals anytime in the future," he said.
