Lack of dustbins prompts littering

When one needs to dispose of trash in public areas in Dhaka or in any other city in the country, one will have to walk for quite some time before finding a dustbin or a designated waste disposal area. However, most people do not want to go through the trouble of carrying their trash until they find a dustbin to discard it. The lack of dustbins at regular intervals is prompting the public to litter, making the cities unclean and unhygienic.

To make it easy for the public to discard trash, many cities around the world provide dustbins at regular intervals in public places. To ensure that the public is aware about the negative impacts of littering, many cities regularly conduct social awareness campaigns against it. Children in schools in primary level are taught to discard trash at the proper areas. Besides providing dustbins at regular intervals and conducting social awareness campaigns, many cities have also imposed fines for littering. The above collective measures against littering encourage the public to discard trash in proper waste disposal areas, and also make it easier for the authority to keep the city clean.

In this era of recycling and sustainability many cities have also provided separate bins for biodegradable waste and recyclable waste. This on one hand raises awareness about recycling and the environment among the public and on the other hand it makes it easier for the city authority to separate the trash, making recycling more efficient.

Due to lack of campaigns to raise awareness against littering and absence of dustbins at regular intervals in public places in Dhaka and other cities, many people have got into the habit of littering. Some households even discard their trash through the windows. Open trash due to littering has made our cities look and feel unpleasant as it pollutes the air, water and soil, and also spreads diseases.

A few weeks ago, an organisation arranged a countrywide clean up activity where thousands of volunteers participated in more than forty districts to clean up the open trash in their surroundings for two hours. The volunteers also tried to raise awareness among the public against littering.

However, this type of clean up activity to raise awareness against littering among the public in the long run may not be successful if dustbins are not placed at regular intervals in the cities and if fines are not imposed for littering. Therefore, to prevent littering and to ensure a healthy environment the city authorities, with support from private organizations, should provide dustbins at regular intervals and also consider imposing fines for littering in places where dustbins are located.

The writer is a transportation engineer working in Thailand.