Notun Bazar to Badda gridlock: Why waste workers lined roads with garbage
Waste management workers of the Dhaka North City Corporation today (22 April) lined one side of the Notun Bazar to Badda road in the capital with piles of garbage, leading to severe traffic gridlocks.
Videos of the incident, which have since gone viral on social media, show garbage trucks packed with waste also parked next to the trash strewn on one side of the road, narrowing the road further.
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Workers, wearing waste management shirts or caps, were seen tipping over their vans and dumping waste directly onto the road, leaving vehicles struggling to manoeuvre through the cluttered street.
Choyon, a van driver appointed by a contractor to collect garbage, said workers had not been paid for three months. However, he claimed the open dumping was not linked to payment delays.
"The dumping station is filled, and the authorities haven't cleared it. So, where are we supposed to dump all the garbage we have collected?" he asked.
Local resident Sabbir, who witnessed the incident, claimed the act was intentional. "They had blockaded the road around 11am. Then they started dumping the garbage after 12:30pm," he said.
Speaking to The Business Standard, Dhaka North Deputy Chief Waste Management Officer (additional) Md Mafizur Rahman Bhuiyan clarified the situation, saying, "Last night, while transferring waste from STS (Secondary Transfer Stations) to landfill, the work was stopped for some time due to the puncture of the wheel of the payloader.
"As a result, the waste brought from the houses was stored on the road. Now the vehicle has been repaired and the work has been completed. All the waste has been removed."
Addressing concerns over salary disputes, Mafizur added, "We have no problem related to salary. We are completing the waste transportation work of that ward through an organisation of the Bangladesh Navy. After 5 August, we conducted waste management activities in 13 wards through them."
In July last year, the city corporation had rented 115 additional trucks and repurposed 27 heavy compactors—originally used for canal cleaning—to collect household waste, after a quarter of its waste-carrying vehicles were either burned or damaged during the unrest over the quota reform movement.
