Gournadi municipality in Barishal has for a long time been dumping its waste beside the Dhaka-Barishal highway, creating an open garbage dump. Rubbish from the town's neighbourhoods is brought every day to the slope north of Nilkhola bridge and to the roadside south of the Hazrat Mallik Dut Kumar (R.) shrine in Kasba. The large site has in effect become a makeshift dumping station.
The smell of rotting waste makes that stretch of road hard to pass; bus passengers and pedestrians cover their noses. The dump also breeds mosquitoes and flies. There are many homes on both sides of the highway, and the Dewan Bari mosque stands right in front of the dump; local people say worshippers struggle to pray through the smell.
Residents Mizan Sardar and Sumon Talukder said the dump takes not only the rubbish of the Torki Bandar area but waste from the surrounding areas as well, and even animals that die in people's homes are thrown there. The open heaps are set on fire every few days, and the smoke pollutes the air for nearby households and passers-by.
Rana Dewan, who lives at Nilkhola, said all the municipality's waste, plastic bags included, is piled on the highway beside their homes and the stench makes it hard to stay indoors. "We want to be rid of this," he said.
Md Ibrahim, the Gournadi upazila nirbahi officer and the municipality's administrator, said a site for a dumping station has been chosen provisionally at Garangal village in Nalchira union. Once it is built, he said, the problem of waste being dumped beside the highway will be solved.
Reported by Krishi Shomoy's Barishal correspondent.
Photo: Street garbage in Dhaka (illustrative), Aashaa / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: Krishi Shomoy
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