KARACHI, Oct 6: a seminar on ‘ Solid and Hospital Waste management’, organized by the Sindh Ombudsman Secretariat at a local hotel on Saturday, highlighted the magnitude of the problem in Karachi where daily half the garbage is lifted and the rest is left, polluting the environment.

Speaking at the seminar, city Nazim, Naimatullah Khan, acknowledged that a proper system of solid waste management for the city was lacking and the various bodies responsible for waste disposal were inefficient because of several reasons.

He stressed that an effective public-private sector partnership in the field could be the solution.

The Nazim had consented to be the chief guest, after the federal minister for science and technology, Prof Dr Atta-ur- Rehman, expressed his inability to attend the seminar.

The Nazim also reiterated his determination to remove the existing maladies within the city government adversely affecting its functioning. He said that the infrastructure which he inherited as the city Nazim was riddled with numerous ills which had accumulated over the past two decades— with corruption and inefficiency leading the list.

About the city’s waste disposal problem, the Nazim conceded that for a city with a rapidly-expanding population, the existing waste management capacity was far too inadequate and outmoded. He hoped that the suggestion and recommendations formulated during the workshop, would help him in streamlining and developing an effective solid waste management system for the city.

Mr Naimatullah Khan also mentioned the financial constraints being faced by the city government. He said that after the octroi duty was abolished in July, 1998, the city government had been incurring an annual loss of Rs1.25 billion as the combined makeup grant of Rs 4-4.5 billion being provided by the federal and provincial governments did not include the 15 per cent annual rise in octroi income.

He also rejected a proposal to tax the health and education sectors, saying that he believed that it was not right to tax these sectors, until appropriate-level of services were provided by them.

He claimed that more than 6,000 tones of solid waste was generated daily in the city and the civic agencies had the capacity to handle 60 per cent of it. He said that to improve the existing situation, strategies for effective use of material and manpower resources would be developed and efforts would also be directed against improvement of resources through solid waste management (SWM), such as manure and power generation.

In his key-note speech, Dr Mirza Arshad Ali Beg, former DG PCSIR and President, Pakistan Environmental Assessment Association, advocated adoption of pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) system, being practised by the local bodies in the US, where households pay at a variable rate depending on the amount of services they use or the amount of waste they throw.

The PAYT collection is carried out by the local bodies as well as the private sector, which cashes some of the trash by recycling, composting and some by combustion to generate power and the rest by landfilling.

He said that an independent body, with the title of municipal solid waste authority should be set up for solid waste management, adding that it was a participatory approach which did not leave this social service entirely to the government.

Provincial minister for Health and population welfare, Maj Gen (rtd) Ahsan Ahmed, in his speech said that seniors doctors and managers of reputed hospitals in Karachi usually did not go beyond the point of disposal of used syringes, needles and other disposables. He informed that the health department of Sindh was formulating a comprehensive disposal system of hospital waste.

In his opening remarks, Sindh ombudsman Mr Justice (retd) Haziqul Khairi said that during the past two years, he had received a very large number of private complaints pertaining to solid waste and hospital waste and the media, both print and electronic, had highlighted the fatal consequences of the failure and neglect of municipal authorities to deal with them in an effective manner.

He pointed out that out of about 400 hospital, clinics and pathological labs in Karachi only one hospital had its own incinerators while others were dependent on the two incinerators of the city government, one of which was not working.

He said that with the coming of the devolution plan at the grassroots level, headed by elected representatives, it was high time to focus on the real issues, challenges and recommend measures to combat their harmful effects.