When the tourists take a step away from the tourism areas after coming to Nepal (Thamel and King’s Road in Kathmandu and Lakeside in Pokhara) and get into a common part of the city, many of them feel horrified with the amount of garbage all around. It’s even more shocking to realize that Nepali people are completely fine with that. The shops owners are peacefully sitting on the front steps and do not stir a finger to remove the garbage hole in front of them.
It’s very unpleasant.
And I believe Nepali people themselves should feel very uneasy about the fact that they look like people who like to live in the cesspits in the eyes of the tourists from the all over the world. I also believe that Nepali people should start turning into people who are capable of not making the cesspits around themselves. Remember the pride or something.
It’s impossible to treat your own self seriously if you live in a cesspit. It’s impossible to treat your neighbour seriously and with respect if he lives in a cesspit. You are so used to it, but it’s time to become unused. It will be a small step, but long way consists of small steps.
I offer a simple and effective way to solve this problem.
*) The initiative group marks out a small part of the street, lets say 20 meters for the beginning
*) In the beginning and in the end of this street there are standers saying “This is a clean part of the street. Please pick up the garbage if you see it here and throw into the nearest trash bin”.
*) It would be very convenient if the city authorities joined the experiment and provided the trash bins for the beginning and end of the chosen part of the street, and also covered the real small expenses for making the standers.
*) The house and shop owners on the street should be asked to support the initiative and remove the garbage as well if someone throws it there. And also those shops and houses owners could cover those expenses for the standers and the trash bins without waiting for the city authorities.
*) Send me a personal message here about the beginning of a «Clean streets of Nepal» action in a particular place, send pictures to email, and I will write post about it, so many people can follow the experiment.
*) It would be great if a few initiative groups cooperated together and the work started in a few parts of the streets at the same time.
*) Two weeks later after the experiment started, when people are used to see that part of the street without garbage, that part of the street extends for another 20 meters (adding one more trash bin proposedly).
The main idea of the experiment is that it’s impossible to create cleanliness everywhere at the same time, but it’s easy to make it piece by piece, especially considering it will attract a lot of people’s attention.
If that kind of work starts, I will open a particular website with a map of Nepali cities where everyone can find the spreading of the clean pieces of the streets all over the country in a real time.
Now it’s time to find out if the people who will support my efforts and start that kind of experiment will be found in Nepal? If they will, we could start and develop bigger and larger scale projects in future.
One must not wait for the city authorities to do anything. It’s necessary to start simple things oneselves and follow the tactics of the small steps.