Editorial: Waste no time
Avoiding such a situation requires increased coordination and cooperation between different tiers of the government, including the federal government, Kathmandu Metropolitan City and the local government, communities living close to the disposal sites, political parties as well as security apparatuses. Without a seamless coordination and cooperation, waste management is bound to come to a halt, much to the detriment of a large population.
Forget seamlessness in this crucial task, even working coordination and cooperation between the federal government and the KMC seems to be a far cry as a recent, much-publicized spat between Mayor Balen Shah and Singhadurbar shows. Citing indifference on the part of Singhadurbar toward concerns regarding waste management, Mayor Shah has made it loud and clear that KMC will not collect garbage from nerve centers of the state, namely Singhadurbar and the Presidential Palace, unless the center addresses KMC’s concerns. Singha Durbar, on its part, has deemed Shah’s move as irresponsible and reminded him of KMC’s responsibility. This episode has once again shown that garbage management is a multi-lane way requiring all sides to work together for an obstruction-free traffic movement. Apart from concerns of people at the source, people living around disposal sites also have their concerns related to public health and the environment. Addressing conflicting concerns may not be easy, but there’s no shortcut to this problem. More often than not, political parties have faced charges of politicizing issues surrounding garbage management for petty gains. The onus is on them to mend ways and raise genuine concerns of the public. Waste management in urban centers like the valley will require short-term, medium-term and long-term plans. The policy of reducing, reusing and recycling non-degradable waste may help mitigate the problem apart from the promotion of greener alternatives. For now, the onus is on the feuding parties to sit together and prevent the conflict from aggravating further, in the larger interest of the public.
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