Do not link Hagen to garbage

MT Hagen city has a garbage disposal problem.
And, if it has a garbage problem, in time its image will also be linked to garbage.
That is the way it is.
Garbage collects at Pope John Paul oval, at the Stand Bom and Main Markets, outside Tarangau Primary School and is dumped indiscriminately near Holy Trinity College, at Kim on the way to Kagamuga, at Kagamuga market and at the end of the terminal.
The Mt Hagen City Authority merely shrugs away this gross violation of its duties and responsibilities with the usual: “We lack the funding.”
The buck, also as always, is passed on perhaps with some justification in this case: “The business houses, especially the locally-owned ones, are not paying their licence, land tax, and sanitation and garbage fees.”
The authority is owed, at last count, K400,000.
It needs K3 million annually to run municipal servi­ces. It collects some K800,000 and the national government gives it a K600,000 grant annually. So, even if it did collect the outstanding K400,000, it will be short by a sizeable K1.2 million.
Lack of funding has also forced it to cut back staffing so that now it has 55 employees, mainly inspectors and administration staff.
As if this were not enough, two people – Titus Doa and Jacob Michael – are currently claiming the post of lord mayor of the city, facing it off in the courts.
One sees a parallel between Rome’s Nero fiddling while that ancient city was engulfed in flames and Mt Hagen’s two lord mayors fidgeting while the city gets buried in rubbish.
What do we do?
When faced with a problem, solutions often come from unexpected quarters.
Mt Hagen has found its saviours in the hearts and minds of its own landowners, the churches and from its elites. A long list of volunteer cleaners has emerged over the past few months that have diligently attacked the garbage problem.
Groups have come from the Moge Kombkui community, from the Western Highlands elite group calling itself the Western Highlands Development Forum, from the Jicka Kenta community, from the Jicka Melakamb community, from the SDA church and from women and other church groups.
Slowly the unsightly garbage piles and the gross smell are being reduced. But, as quickly as they are cleaned away, new rubbish gather. But there is a slow awakening. People’s attitudes seem to be changing. They are loath to discard garbage indiscriminately as they once used to – more out of fear of discovery and punishment than a sense of cleanliness which one wishes would be imbued in their psyche from birth.
Still, it is a good start.
Now to the next step –  where to dispose of the garbage. The official city garbage disposal pit is at Hagen Technical College, some five minutes drive from the city.
Yet, despite its relative ease of access, people are depositing rubbish indiscriminately in other places such as at the end of the airport, at Kim on the way to the airport and near the Holy Trinity College.
These points are now becoming an eye-sore.
Problems also provide opportunities. It would be a good idea for landowners on the edge of the city to consider allocating, for a fee of course, waste land such as gullies or swamp land for garbage disposal. In time, the garbage becomes landfill that would, in future, turn waste land into nice useable land.
It is opportune also for the city council to consider sourcing out its garbage collection and disposal responsibilities to those who can do the job.
A starting point would be the groups who have volunteered to do the job.
The next issue, of course, is the safe disposal of industrial and chemical waste and of toxic waste.
Used oil is being dumped at the approach to the Kagamuga Airport and some say into the Waghi River. This is an environment hazard and requires strict monitoring.
For that matter, we need to hear it from the Department of Environment and Conservation what plans there are for disposal of toxic and dangerous waste in the towns and cities of PNG, particularly those in the highlands which control the headwaters of many of our river systems.
Toxic waste in the river system will be hazardous and with the growth of industries and resources developments in the highlands, this will increasingly become an issue.
Again, we raise the issue of a national waste management and disposal plan and policy.