'Clean Dhaka' campaign begins

Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) launches the fourth 'Clean Dhaka' campaign to raise awareness and involve the people in the solid waste management.

DCC officials announced the weeklong programmes at a press conference at Nagar Bhaban yesterday.

The Clean Dhaka Week-2010 from January 10 to 16 is arranged with the cooperation of Japan International Cooperation Agency, WaterAid, Safe, Earth Club and Grameenphone.

The programmes include rallies, loudspeaker publicity, distribution of leaflets and posters and cultural functions to demonstrate community-based waste management and create public awareness in 90 DCC wards, said DCC Chief Executive officer Md Abul Kalam Azad.

The DCC mayor will award the most active ward in waste management on January 22.

The DCC will receive 100 modern and efficient compactor waste disposal trucks from Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) by April, which will help stench-free collection and disposal of solid wastes in the capital, said Azad.

Most of the existing 297 trucks are outdated and at least 30 of them remain out of order.

With the new ones, the total number of functional trucks will stand at 358 by April.

A total of 1.5 crore people, including 1.20 crore permanent city dwellers, generate a total of 4200 tons of solid wastes everyday, said DCC Chief Waste Management Officer Captain Bipan Kumar Saha.

The DCC has a total of around 8030 waste cleaners to cover a 144 square miles area of 90 wards, he said.

"The DCC team can remove at best 2200 tons of waste," said Saha, "And a total of 1.70 lakhs rag-pickers take away 800 to 1000 tons for recycling."

The rest 1000 tons of waste go into the drainage system, water bodies, canals and rivers, said Captain Saha.

Absence of segregation of domestic wastes, lack of proper collection mechanism, construction materials dumped in drains and inadequate road coverage constitute one-third of the problems the DCC faces in waste management, he said.

In 2005, DCC with Jica technical assistance prepared a ten-year master plan for a well-coordinated waste management.

The DCC collects Tk 33 crore from the city dwellers for waste cleaning every year, but it pays Tk 110 crores for the job. Jica contributes Tk 50 to 60 crores to the waste management expenditure.

Clean Dhaka project director Dr Tareq Bin Yusuf was present at the press conference.