Sunday, June 10, 2007

On Sanitation

It's a curious thing that not a single person seems to care about keeping this city clean. This is one thing I really can't figure out. A good sanitation system does not seem so out of reach as many things seem in this country. There are hoards of people who do nothing all day but sit around and would probably like a steady income. There are trucks big enough to fit the bill of garbage truck. Installing some permanent garbage cans around the city does not seem so difficult or costly. Distributing garbage cans to people around the city and implementing a schedule of when the garbage truck will come does not seem so difficult either. As of now the main landfill in Kathmandu is the Bagmati river, a most horrific sight. There is litterally garbage every where. Heaps and heaps and masses of it. It just sits there and rots and the heaps grow to hills and the hills grow to mountains. It is really baffling. So far I have seen not even one single garbage can in Kathmandu. Not one!! If you have garbage you throw it on the ground, if you are in the taxi and have garbage it goes out the window. So my question is why does no one make any effort whatsoever to keep their wonderful city clean? I mean really, they can't be satisfied living in such filth. I just don't understand this phenomenon. Here are a few possibilities of why there is no sanitation system:
-Lack of money
-Lack of caring
-"It is already dirty so we can make no difference" mentality
-Lack of a viable solution
-Makes no difference to them
Anyway, whatever it is, the problem has now become so deep rooted and complex it would take decades if not longer to really clean this city up. I just don't understand how you could be satisfied living in such filth. But then again, maybe they are not satisfied.

No comments: