Current Affairs
A day after its MPs criticised Kathmandu mayor Balendra Shah for failing to end the garbage crisis, CPN-UML-affiliated youth took to the streets and took the matter in their own hands.
The Youth Federation Nepal (YFN) members held brooms, shovels and bamboo baskets to remove garbage from the streets of Battisputali-Baneshwor area.
Protesting the federal and local governments for their failure to manage garbage in Kathmandu valley, nearly a hundred volunteers teamed up to collect garbage and load that onto a tipper truck.
It follows the opposition party’s street demonstration demanding an end to the waste crisis that has been plaguing the valley of nearly 5 million people since February.
On Sunday, the issue even entered the lower House of Parliament, where CPN-UML MPs drew the government’s attention to the garbage piles and demanded a permanent solution to the seemingly never-ending waste crisis.
Kathmandu valley produces over 1200 metric tons – nearly 150 tipper trucks – of garbage daily and over half of that is generated by Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) alone.
But much of that remained accumulated on the streets after the locals of Banchare Dada landfill stopped garbage trucks, demanding better management of garbage in the landfill, located nearly 20 kilometres northwest of the valley.
The garbage crisis has put Kathmandu’s new mayor Shah, elected with a landslide victory in May, in a tight spot. He’s already urged residents to start separating garbage so that it could be managed properly, but few have heeded that request.
See NepalMinute photos of Youth Federation Nepal cadres involved in the clean-up programme:
