STRANGE things tend to happen in this city, some seemingly straight out of the twilight zone. While the trash crisis is no news to anyone living in Karachi, with both the so-called posh areas affected as well as low-income settlements, what is strange is that the police in the metropolis has begun arresting citizens for throwing trash in the open.

You read that right: now, if you try to get rid of your household trash by dumping it outside, there is a good chance that the mobile from the local thana might drop by, pick you up and book you for the crime. That’s exactly what happened to two citizens last week, who were booked under Section 188 of the Pakistan Penal Code for throwing garbage on the main road.

Now public littering is definitely not acceptable, and many less considerate citizens have a nasty habit of disposing of trash in front of others’ houses. Nobody wants a pile of stinking garbage waiting for them right outside their front door. However, most people in the city tend to get rid of their household trash by dumping it in the nearest kachra kundi. But if this can get you arrested, what is one to do?

The Sindh government, it seems, instead of coming up with innovative solutions to the city’s solid waste problem, seems comfortable with placing all the blame on the citizen: you generated the trash, so if you throw it away, we’ll lock you up. Never mind the fact that there’s no citywide waste collection and management system. Sure, the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board is active in some of the city’s six districts, but even the performance of the board leaves much to be desired.

So if the provincial or city governments cannot pick up trash from people’s homes and one is not allowed to get rid of it at the local kachra kundi, what is to be done? Should we let it pile up and rot in our homes? Surely that is no solution.

What is needed is a proper waste management system for Karachi; the fact that this megacity of Pakistan lacks such a system is nothing but criminal. Experts have pointed out the threat of diseases spreading amongst the citizenry due to the piles of trash that dot the metropolis, but the authorities seem unmoved.

Ideally, the city government should be in charge of collecting trash, with the provincial administration having a supervisory role. But both actors — the provincial government and the city administration — seem to be content with throwing mud on each other, and playing the victim in front of the citizen.

In fact, the people of Karachi should insist that waste management be made part of party manifestos of all those political parties that want to seek Karachi’s votes. And if the parties continue to pass the buck and come up with hare-brained measures to address the city’s trash problem, the voter should keep this in mind when going to the ballot box later this year.—The Metropolitician

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2018