Uncollected waste

It’s a point to ponder, and to ponder seriously. Environmental and public health experts have drawn the government’s attention to piling of garbage in Karachi and other urban areas of Sindh. They have asked the authorities to resume the halted waste disposal activities in the province as uncleared garbage could be a recipe for disaster in the midst of the raging coronavirus pandemic. Naeem Qureshi, the president of the National Forum for Environment and Health, says it is like inviting a disaster if disposal of waste is stopped during an epidemic. The uncollected waste would worsen public health issues in the prevailing situation; it would undo the efforts being made towards containing the deadly virus. Other experts have voiced similar concerns.

The Sindh government has exempted the local government department, municipal agencies, the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board, the KWSB, and the KMC from the lockdown. The experts have asked the government that those engaged in clearing waste should be provided with protective gears for their safety. According to one estimate, Karachi generates 12,000 tonnes of trash per day. Considering the devastation uncleared garbage could cause in the presence of the deadly virus, the Sindh government should order resumption of clearing of trash on an emergency basis. It would make its proactive campaign against Covid-19 more effective.

Even in normal circumstances, lack of cleanliness plays havoc with people’s lives. There are many such instances from the past from different parts of the world when epidemics broke out causing death and devastation on a large scale. Around 20 years ago, a virulent plague epidemic had broken out in the city of Surat in Gujarat state of India due to piling of garbage. Perhaps, this was the last plague epidemic reported in the world in the recent past. Then there was no such thing as the coronavirus pandemic. This is no time for politicking. Coronavirus does not discriminate, so do other epidemic diseases.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2020.

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