Garbage management project

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The best international practice nowadays is to sort out the garbage and make best use of them that include recycling. Advanced garbage management involves separating them into different categories and making commercial products out of them. For example, kitchen refuses and other biodegradable forms of garbage can be utilized to make organic composts that can be of much value to farming, specially safe farming with non-chemical fertilizers. Garbage of this type can be also burnt to produce a considerable amount of power. Other forms of garbage such as tin, rubber, plastics, etc., can be recycled to produce commercially valuable products.
The most important aspect of such garbage management is that the garbage is not allowed to be stockpiled. From the collection stage, the same goes directly into recycling or production processes to make useful products. Thus, the garbage just changes form into new usable products and non-piling up of the garbage helps a great deal in keeping the environment clean.
The establishing of a modern garbage disposal or management system for Dhaka city with recycling and reuse of the garbage at its core, has become imperative for the sheer reasons of the present poorly managed system and to cope with the future pressure to be created from allowing garbage to accumulate in the traditional manner.
It was heartening to note that the Dhaka City Corporation ( DCC) sometime ago had an agreement with an overseas donor agency to set up a modern garbage recycling plant for Dhaka city. Under this project, the garbage of the city, as its intended purpose was stated to be, is to be carried swiftly beyond the metropolitan areas to well-supervised sites. The garbage would be separated there by using the latest technology. Some of it would be burnt to produce power and the same could be added to the distribution network of the ecelctricy supply authorities. Other garbage like plastics, bottles, tin cans, etc., are also to be separated and recycled to make commercial products from the same, under the project.
But the point of worry is that this project is not being pushed as hard as it should be towards its fastest completion. Like many other ambitious and incomplete projects, it is reportedly getting stalled by the bureaucracy and vested interest groups who have a stake in maintaining the present mode of garbage disposal. Therefore, the challenge for the government is to overcome such hurdles and introduce a modern system of garbage management at the fastest.

Shamshul Haque
Purana Paltan
Dhaka.