Scavengers at high risk due to unhygienic garbage collection practices

Islamabad : The federal capital with an increasing population of over 2 million generates 500 to 600 tonnes of garbage per day where the scavengers or rag-pickers managing that garbage from households to dumping sites are facing serious health risk.

Talking to this agency, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) spokesman Dr Waseem Khawajah said the rag-pickers are mostly at the risk to catch diarrhoea, typhoid, paratyphoid and health complications related to liver, stomach and intestine due to bacterial contamination. He said they were picking household garbage from dumpsters, waste heaps and even nullahs which increases their vulnerability to catch harmful diseases if they continue to eat and drink with those hands.

“They should wear proper uniform, masks and safety gloves to avoid direct contact with household waste and properly wash hands with sanitizers and hand wash that are easy to carry and use,” he added.

Director Sanitation Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) Sardar Khan Zimri said the garbage collecting sanitary staff had no proper kits rather they were not wearing gloves and masks as per their choice.

Most of the scavengers working privately are Afghan and are illegally working in the sector and do not fall in our jurisdiction.

So that MCI could insist them to wear safety gloves and masks to protect them from negotiating infectious diseases. The waste being collected by rag-pickers is only household waste whereas a strict implementation of hospital waste management has been ensured through Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and there is no open dumping of hospital waste, he added.

To a question, Zimri said MCI could impose fine of Rs50,000 to Rs1,00,000 on violation to the hospital staff on poorly managing the waste disposal.

The fine to be imposed depends upon the level of violation made in this regard.

In a recent report on Plastic Waste Baseline Study of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) and Ayubia National Park (ANP) jointly launched by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF-Pakistan) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The report indicated that the hospitals in ICT were generating most hazardous waste which was found dumped in municipal garbage despite their garbage’s incineration.

He said the scavengers or rag-pickers in the federal capital were largely at risk as they were directly exposed with highly infectious hospital waste being dumped on the garbage disposal site.

There is no segregation system of the waste and has been disposed openly with household garbage.

The situation is also similar in galiyat area in ANP,” the report said.

The recommendations of the study claimed that it was necessary to mobilize and formalize informal waste sector through subsidies and equipment, registration of recyclers, NOCs to be given to only environmentally compliant recyclers, centralized recovery system and create public environmental awareness.

Rawalpindi Waste Management Corporation official told that all the sanitary workers collecting garbage in the city were provided with uniform, gloves and masks which were up to their discretion to wear during the operations.