Open sky garbage dump pollutes DU

It is like "darkness under the light" because a university, which imparts the knowledge of cleanliness, sound health and saving the environment, has failed to exercise the knowledge on its campus as garbage is thrown indiscriminately on Dhaka University road.

The Shiv Bari junction on the way to Central ShaheedMinar via TSC of Dhaka University (DU) is at present full of stinking garbage and it is difficult for someone to stand there even for a minute, even though the place is not a specific garbage dump of the city corporation.

Yet, the daily household waste from the houses of DU teachers, officials and employees has been dumped in the open on the side of this road, turning it into a stinking dump making the environment unhealthy.

Four residential areas of Dhaka University – ShaheedMinar Para for teachers, Sheikh Russell Tower for first-class officers, Bangabandhu Tower and Shiv Bari for fourth class employees – do not have their garbage bins.

Instead of using the garbage dumping in front of Dhaka Medical designated for them, the teachers, officers, and other employees of the university dump their garbage directly on the road.

Masudur Rahman, a security officer at Sheikh Russell Tower, said there were talks of building a garbage disposal bin inside the four residential areas, but no one was willing to provide a place for a dustbin around their building.

Though the city corporation's garbage trucks take away the garbage every other day, a lot of dirt remains in the place all the time.

Akram Hossain, a master's student in the sociology department of Dhaka University, told TBS that he has been noticing the garbage for the last two years. Such irresponsible work of DU teachers and officials is quite frustrating.

Mohammad Zafar Hossain, a cleaner in the area, told TBS that there is so much garbage that even after the city corporation takes the dirt, a huge pile of dirt is gathered within the next 24 hours.

The university area belongs to ward-21 of Dhaka South.

Councillor of the ward Md Asaduzzaman told TBS that not only Shiv Bari junction, but also TSC, Fuller Road and the entire Dhaka University is dirty. Teachers and other staff do not have their dustbins. Moreover, they do not allow city corporation staff to bring dirt from their home and throw dirt directly on the streets.

Over the last two years, they have been told many times that the city corporation people will go to their homes and bring garbage, but they do not allow any garbage collector to bring dirt from their houses on the pretext of burglary, he added.

"I am very upset with their uncooperative and irresponsible behaviour. I will inform them again in the next month. If they do not stop littering in the streets we will go for more strict legal action against them," the councillor said.

Fatema Binte Mustafa, estate manager at DU (acting) told TBS that to solve this problem they have decided to dump garbage in the residential area of ​​the university. Hopefully, the problem will be solved in a short time. There will be no more dirt on the road in the university.