The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Generation of Organic Waste increases amid Lockdown
According to the founder of Greener Way, Karma Yonten, there is a 20 percent increase in the generation of organic waste in the lockdown.
“Generation of organic waste has increased in the course of lockdown since many people are staying home and families are eating together more, people are learning to cook and baking has become favorite thing as there is no work to do,” he said.
He said that they are collecting the waste as usual and the waste collectors are being provided with the Personal Protective Equipments for their safety measures.
“We cannot stop our service delivery and Thimphu Thromde has also provided us with the PPE for the safety measures. Our colleagues are briefed with the protocols everyday while collecting waste,” he said, adding that PPE is provided by the United Nations Development Programme for collecting COVID waste.
Sonam Choden, 29 said that her family is eating more than usual and daily schedules have gone out of control.
“Food is a way to keep down anxiety during lockdown. And I have been cooking different dishes and learning to make different cuisines. However, the waste is generated more since the left over goes to bins,” she said.
Karma Deki, 24 also said that cooking became a way to deal with all the restaurant food craving.
“We are consuming more vegetables and cooking has become a favorite past time. Before to eat fast food we used to go to restaurants and now we are cooking the restaurant dishes at home,” she said.
Meanwhile, a Thimphu Thromde official said that during the first week of lockdown they received more than 50 calls a day, complaining that the waste collector has not come to their area.
“We had a hectic day receiving complaints. We had to discuss with the service provider to address the problem. However, it didn’t work out. For instance, we received a complaint from Babesa and the waste collector truck is at Taba. It becomes difficult since without covering one area the truck has to go down,” he said, adding that approximately they might have received more than 1,000 calls till date.
He said, “What we decided was that we stick to the schedule and we will collect the waste in one place and cover all the area in that particular area and then go other area during their scheduled time.”
He added that for now the complaints have drastically reduced and public are aware of the new lock down schedule for waste collection.
“As of today we received less number of complaints since waste collection schedule was made. We are following the schedule and it has improved the service. Before the service provider used to collect the waste two times in a week, a day for collection of dry waste and another day for wet waste,” he added.
He also added that to minimize the crowd and for safety measures they are collecting both dry and wet waste in one time in a week.
Dechen, a resident of Babesa said that the garbage collector doesn’t come in their area as per the schedule and sometimes it doesn’t come.
“During the first week of lockdown, a garbage collector came to collect the waste and after that we didn’t see it coming. We heard the sound of garbage truck but it was either in other zones or other places,” she said.
Message from The Bhutanese
Dear Reader,
You are reading this article for free on the website but it is almost three days after it has been published. If you want access to new stories on the day of its publication, which is early Saturday morning, in your email then subscribe to the Electronic Copy or the PDF version of the paper and stay ahead.
This paper has broken some of the biggest and impactful stories in Bhutan and strives to provide good content that is often exclusive and different from other papers.
For a year’s subscription M-BoB Nu 500 to the BoB Account Number – 100915844 with Account name – The Bhutanese.
For two years subscription send in Nu 1,000.
Then take a screenshot of the transaction and email it along with your email ID to ad.bhutanese@gmail.com .
The PDF copy of the paper will be sent to you.
Please check the email address properly when sending your screen shot. In case you do not get your PDF copy call Sonam Dema 17801081.
Despite the lockdown, The Bhutanese paper is still publishing its paper in the E-Copy format that you can get in your email.
Thank You,
The Bhutanese
