& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Down to Earth

Waste Management Practices in City

Bv A S M Nurunnabi
In Dhaka city, waste management through effective and efficient means has remained a serious issue. Waste collection in the city seems to be a mixed enterprise. Dhaka City Corporation employs an army oi street cleaners and waste collectors whose job is to keep waste from piling up on the streets. There is another more extensive class of waste managers comprising a network of itinerant waste buyers, waste pickers, small waste shops, secondhand markets, dealers, transporters and a wide range of recycling industries. According to observers. waste is big business for the poor and many poor families living in city slums survive in this manner. Ragpickers and scavengers and their numerous chains of activists in this sphere exist because there is a market demand for their services.
The "free" market of waste pickers flourishes mainly because the municipal authorities have failed to carry the load. Just at the entry point to Road No 3. Dhanmondi Residential Area where the office of The Daily Star is located, there is a big garbage dump. Near it. an old man has set up a whole-time shelter with a couple helpers. Their work seems to be to remain engaged all the time in ferreting out whatever is considered useful in their eyes. There are similar waste dumps at important city points all over where waste pickers work like squirrels in salvaging objects with potentialities for re-
cycling.
There are some lanes near Moulvibazar and other areas in the old part of the city, where the rag shops conduct thriving business. If one passes along such shops, one may wonder how there could be any use for such discarded things. But the stark reality is that such nondescript establishments keep the poor alive and provides dubious service to their clients.
The "waste economy" has some ominous aspects. The itinerant waste particularly in such fields as used plastic containers. used bottles of well-known brands of consumer items like shampoos, perfumes, talcum, powder, after-shave lotion. etc. are reported to be widely used in making spurious and adulterated products. For such activities, it is said that a wide range of so-called "industries" operate clandestinely using ingenuous techniques, and their products are marketed in outlying areas in mofusils and villages'to simple unsuspecting consumers. Observers feel that it is not easy to control the ongoing racket.
In many developed countries. the work of solid waste management is done through sophisticated technology of recycling for productive purposes. While such innovative technology is unthinkable in our present situation, the problem continues to grow on account of in-creased and uncontrolled urban explosion. In this context, to cope with the increased load of responsibility for waste management, some municipal
corporations are reportedly obliged to delegate part of their responsibility to private contractors. So far as this city is concerned, it is open to question whether it has become fruitful in view of the present disarray in the adoption of corrective measures resulting in poor state of city's sanitation.
A major contributing factor in the accumulation of solid waste in city bazars is the utter indifference and lack of supervision by the supervising staff of the. municipal authorities. The sprouting of impromptu kutcha bazars on pavements of some offices and in some commercial areas adds a new dimension to the problem of city sanitation. Although eviction has lately been resorted to tackle the problem, it has been observed that the unauthorised structures for trade causing an environment of waste and filth have a resiliency to revert to their old trading spots. This ultimately makes for an intractable situation in the matter of waste management.
A couple of years ago. Dhaka City Corporation undertook a Japan-aided project on solid waste management to improve the city's garbage disposal system. The results of the project do not seem to be in evidence because of absence of tangible improvement in this behalf.
In this perspective, the present poor waste management system of the city presents a sad contrast to the systems followed in any other big city in nearby regions, not to speak of developed countries.