Garbage disposal: A problem begging a solution

Garbage is one of the biggest problems the civic bodies of the country have to deal with -- it is everywhere, whether the locality is a posh one or one that is considered a slum. Can you imagine the Chief Minister in any other country taking notice of this problem and ordering the civic bodies to ‘clean up’ in three days -- or else? This happened in Karachi recently and of course it was an impossible task which could not be executed in the stipulated time. The new deadline is two months and more realistic but it’s going to be a gigantic task, so let’s see what the eventual result will be.

Closer to home, in the sister cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, there are certain places where dumps have been created in residential areas and the one in the photograph is one of them. No matter how many times all the refuse is cleared it piles up again in no time and the stench these days is unbearable because of the humidity and rotting food stuff -- not to say anything about dead carcasses that are deposited here from time to time. Recently someone’s dog died -- that it was a pet dog was obvious since it was a German Shepherd -- and it had been thrown on top of the heap and left to rot though it could have been disposed of properly.

In the picture you can see three cement blocks which are all that is left of a so called ‘container’ which believe it or not had three sides with the open ones facing the road! Whoever had this bright idea a couple of years back should have built it so that at least the garbage was hidden from sight. Anyway, not only was it poorly designed and constructed it was totally inadequate for the amount of refuse that is thrown here daily. Since this site is now a permanent fixture and we have to live with it, a wall - not very high but sufficiently so to keep the heap contained - would be a better option. It would leave the road clear and the refuse out of sight to some extent. Fingers crossed that someone in the corridors of the Cantonment Board tales notice of the suggestion and acts on it!