Environment

With 17 garbage management vehicles, including trucks and excavators, vandalised in Banchare Danda landfill site, Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has suffered yet another setback in its effort to clean up the city’s mess piling since February.

That means that the city’s streets, junctions and even river banks which are full of garbage piles, will have to remain filthy for much longer than expected, much to the chagrin of residents, tourists. Even vehicle drives will have no choice but to contend with the unattended heaps of solid waste.

According to KMC, there is a huge backlog of waste produced as early as February, with an estimated 7,000 metric tons yet to be collected from streets and transported to the landfill site.

Finding a break in road construction activities in Banchare Dada (which translates to axe-shaped hill), KMC sent its garbage trucks to the landfill Monday night. Anticipating protests from disgruntled local groups, it also arranged police security.

Vandalism

Even so, things turned awry as an “unidentified group” came in the way and foiled attempts to safely transport solid waste.

Engineer at Mayor Balendra Shah’s Secretariat Sunil Lamsal told NepalMinute: “The locals came with new demands on top of 18 demands that we agreed to fulfil.”

That has now put KMC officials in a tight spot, and what’s making matters even worse is the “unwillingness” of the locals to sit down for fresh negotiations, he added.

Two days earlier, before the dumping halted, KMC was dumping around 250 trucks of garbage at the Banchare Dada landfill every day, Lamsal said, adding: “On Monday, we were able to transport around 50 trucks, but at night when everyone was off duty, an unknown group pelted stones at our vehicles.”

Fourteen tipper trucks, two excavators and one JCB were vandalized, according to him.

One wonders who they might be. Lamsal suspects “they aren’t locals but some brokers trying to fish in the troubled waters” and “mess up talks between KMC and the local reps”.

A leader of the local committee has denied his team members’ involvement in the overnight attack on trucks.

Lamsal said KMC is working to implement the recent agreement and ensure odour-free management of waste, build roads and other infrastructure in the area.

Despite the latest trouble, the mayor’s secretariat is working “really hard” to resolve the issue and swiftly begin transporting garbage to the landfill at the earliest, he added.

Kathmandu generates more than 1200 tonnes of garbage daily, over half of which is generated by Kathmandu. Banchare Dada is the only landfill to dump garbage generated by five million residents of the valley. 

KMC is currently asking public to seggregate waste at source to better manage the waste.

Balen Shah's reaction

In a Facebook post, mayor Shah condemned the act of vandalism, stating: “Vandalism of [trucks that were] legally carrying garbage is a heinous crime. The metropolitan city office is clear that the criminals must be punished as per the law. This should be compensated and compensated by the vandals themselves. For this, we are coordinating with the concerned authorities”.

He added: “The garbage of millions of citizens living in 21 municipalities cannot be allowed to remain unattended because of the selfishness of some people or groups. No one should try to block waste management under any excuse.”