Effects of Dust and Wastage

 

Locals residing along the Koteshwor-Kalanki road section  have been the mostly badly affected by dust from the road work . The 10-km road section has remained under construction activity since June 2013. Division Road Office Lalitpur expects the work to be completed by 2018, a year later than the projected deadline. 

A WHO report, 'Ambient air pollution: A global assessment of exposure and burden of disease',  states that as many as 36 people out of every 100,000 die in Nepal due to various diseases linked to air pollutionMaladies such as stroke, ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer and acute respiratory disease are linked to ambient air pollution. These alone are responsible for the annual death of over 9,000 people in Nepal, according to the WHO report. 

Assessing the current increase in the incidence of respiratory disease, doctors have warned that the Valley would very soon turn into a hub for an array of health hazards if the current level of air pollution goes unchecked.Along with harmful dust and vehicle emossion, the level of air pollution is also determined by the presence of microscopic soot particles known as PM2.5 and PM10. PM10 includes dust stirred up by vehicles and the wind as well as soot from open fires burning  fossil fuels. Experts said inhaling these toxins leads to inflammatory reaction by the human body followed by serious health hazards. 

A  majority of cancer victims suffer from lung cancer, and air pollution is the third biggest cause of lung cancer in the country.PM2.5 particles are known to be carcinogenic. A report, 'Characteristics and sources of PAHs in atmospheric aerosols in Kathmandu Valley',  has also stated that the air in Kathmandu Valley contains extremely high concentrations of pollutants that can cause cancer. 

Haazardous waste is a waste with properties that make it dangerous or capable of having a harmful effect on human health or the environment. Hazardous waste is generated from many sources, ranging from industrial manufacturing process wastes to batteries and may come in many forms, including liquids, solids gases, and sludges.  



In the Kathmandu Valley, garbage is the gift that keeps on giving. It is everywhere, stuffed in plastic bags and dropped in drainage ditches or piled high in empty lots, on the roadside or on the edges of the city’s rivers. It is thrown out of bus windows, off roof tops into neighbor’s yards.

As long as their house and yard is swept clean, the vast majority of valley-livers don’t seem to care. When it gets too high, the garbage is burned in open areas, the toxic fumes blanketing nearby houses. The plastic bags clog the rivers and choke drainage pipes, creating flooding and spreading fetid, disease-carrying refuse. The health impacts are felt at all levels.

Rapid unplanned urbanization has brought traffic jams and choking pollution, but politicians in Nepal’s new government have, with few exceptions, shown little political commitment to solving the problem of garbage. In 2011, the government passed the Solid Waste Management Act that set rules, regulations and fines for transgressors but enforcement is weak and detailed responsibilities are unclear.

Sewage flows untreated into the rivers. There are no proper slaughter houses in any municipalities and no rules for disposing of the city’s dead cows and dogs. They end up in shallow graves near river banks, leaching into the water supply. Hospitals are responsible for disposing their own hazardous waste such as needles, tissues, organs and other body parts, but the government has not provided a dumping site. Some hospitals burn in the open, and others use incinerators that releases dioxin and furan, two highly carcinogenic pollutants. An exception is the government-run Bir Hospital that has even built a bio-gas plant on its premises.

Sanitation in the Valley is in a state of crisis management. Serving Kathmandu and Lalitpur, the valley’s only working landfill, Sisdole, 24 km from the capital, is almost full and during the monsoons is frequently cut off from the city by floods and landslides. T The government has begun dredging the highly-polluted Bagmati, with the aim of laying down sewage pipes as well as planting green areas. It is unearthing tons of dumped plastic and earth but narrowing the river-bed, which experts says can cause severe flooding during the monsoons, spreading disease through its water.

While many Nepalese care, city life has eroded the social dynamic of communities that galvanize neighbors to act together. Many try to make a difference. But they are not enough. In addition, small non-governmental organization of them focusing on women, teach composting and garbage segregation.Politicians are quick to point to a new landfill as the solution. But only 40 to 50 percent of the Valley’s garbage goes to Sisdole, and most of it enters the dump unsegregated. The rest ends up on the streets and rivers.

The truck winds its way along the Ring Road until it reaches the banks of the Bagmati at Balkhu. In the unbearable stench of the rotting garbage, amidst flocks of crows and kites, a large crowd from the nearby slum is waiting. The tiptruck empties its rubbish and men, women and children scramble over the fresh garbage with their metal tongs, rummaging for pieces of plastic, glass and other valuables that can be sold for recycling.



The garbage from the hospital contains a plastic bag with discarded placenta and other human organs, there are used syringes and plastic bottles. "Sometimes the drug addicts come around to see if they can find needles," says one young garbage forager as he walks off with a sackful of plastic water bottles.

As Kathmandu Valley's population grows, so do the numbers of hospitals and clinics. This has lead to a rise in the volume of hospital waste, and there is mounting evidence that not all hospitals are disposing of hospital waste in a safe and proper manner.

In the course of investigating this article, the worst waste mismanagement was found at the infectious diseases hospital in Teku. We found open waste buckets with used syringes in paper boxes. The danger of Hepatitis B and HIV infection to hospital staff, waste handlers and scavengers at the landfill sites from such careless disposal is high.Two years ago, the municipality installed an incinerator in Teku for burning hospital and other waste, but it never went into operation because of public opposition.Public interest litigation group Pro-Public says an incinerator for hospital waste in the city's centre will in fact be more of a risk to the public due to dioxins and toxic ash from the emissions.

A lot of the problems could be solved if hospitals did their own sorting and disposal. As a result, much of the blood and human organs from the maternity and surgical wards are disposed along with other urban garbage. Some of the newer private hospitals show more care: they segregate their waste in coloured buckets and even have needle destroyers and small incinerators to dispose of the more hazardous wastes.




Nepal has laws for hazardous waste disposal. Urban waste management experts say although hospitals have to do their bit, hospital waste management will never be completely solved until Kathmandu can solve its overall garbage problem. In the long term, this can only come with greater public awareness through education and advocacy about the health implications of garbage.

In the short term, the municipality has to once and for all make sorting and recycling a priority. Eight percent of Kathmandu Valley's garbage is still biodegradable and can be converted into valuable compost fertilizer. Much of the remaining plastic, glass and paper can be recycled. Such waste management can drastically cut the volume of garbage that has to be actually dumped at a landfill site like Balkhu.



Everyone agrees that hospitals have to be much more responsible about how they dispose of their most hazardous wastes, and those with incinerators have to make use of them, taking care that the chimney filters out hazardous emissions and also take care to dispose of the toxic ash that comes out of emissions.

Dust and Hazardous waste in major problem in Kathmandu now.the dust and wastage has harmful effects to all of us and there is need to rethink about those dust and garbage in our locality and lead a campaign against it.