Bright plastic bins, red or green. They’re hard to miss as we sit with communities in Rolpa District, in INF’s working area of Sunchhahari Rural Municipality. In each of the communities we visit across this rugged area, they catch the eye as people sit together, share stories of change achieved and their hopes for the future.
The bins were installed by the wards of Sunchhahari Rural Municipality – one for every four households – specifically for non-degradable waste. Rather than burning rubbish near each home, families takes turn to empty these bins into the community landfill.
This is a great initiative by local government, helping to tackle the very real problem of waste management in Nepal. The initiative, it turns out, was inspired by elected representatives seeing INF’s work with communities to separate degradable/compostable waste from non-degradable waste and dispose (or reuse) each in separate pits, dug and covered for their purpose. To support and extend these efforts, local elected officials decided to provide these bins to each community.
I’d never seen rubbish bins in rural villages in Nepal before. Now, I hope to see them everywhere.
INF Australia CEO Ben Thurley is in Nepal visiting INF’s projects.