A YCDC waste bin sits on the corner of Merchant Street and Pansodan Street. PHOTO/ COCONUTS MEDIA
Yangon has a trash problem. There are whole alleys abandoned to it: over time, so much trash has piled up that someone has decided there is no point clearing it.
Now, as the expanding city struggles to cope with less than one cleaner assigned to every two streets, the authorities are hoping privatisation can solve its woes.
A list of bids for the cleaning contract has been submitted to district authorities, U Aung Myint Maw, assistant chief engineer of Yangon City Development Committee’s (YCDC) Pollution Control and Cleaning Department, was quoted in the Myanmar Times as saying.
The newspaper, using YCDC figures, reported that Yangon produces 1,690 tons of litter per day, and at best collects 1,500. That’s 190 tons left over. Every day.
The city of 5.2 million employs just 4,100 cleaners for more than 10,000 streets, according to the Times.
“It takes the whole morning to clean Bogalay Market Street … with 130 cleaners and five cars,” U Aye Min, an elected YCDC official, told the paper. “You can imagine what happens with 10,000 streets.”
Sadly, for now, with piles of waste around every corner, little has been left to the imagination.
