For Badda resident Rabeya Jhumur, empty chips packets, banana peels, nut shells and used tissues frequently end up in an unlikely place: her handbag.
The private-sector employee does not want to throw them on the street. But while moving around Dhaka, she says finding a public waste bin can be surprisingly difficult.
“I never litter and always use a bin. But with hardly any public bins on the streets, I have to keep the trash in my bag until I find a proper place to dispose of it,” Jhumur told Dhaka Tribune.
“It bothers me to see people littering around. Yet I cannot blame them all alone, as there are hardly any bins.”
Her everyday predicament points to a basic but persistent problem in the capital: what are pedestrians supposed to do with their waste when there is nowhere to put it?
Dhaka generates more than 7,000 tons of waste every day, according to sources at the two city corporations.
Yet public waste-disposal facilities specifically intended for pedestrians remain scarce.
A Dhaka Tribune visit along the busy Mirpur 10–Farmgate corridor found no roadside bins installed by the city corporation.
Waste was scattered along several stretches of the route.
The picture was similar along another major corridor stretching from Banani Kakoli through Kamal Ataturk Avenue to Gulshan-2, where no public roadside bins were found during the visit.
For residents, the absence of even basic disposal facilities makes appeals to keep the city clean difficult to translate into practice.
Mohammad Aminul Islam, a resident of Manipuripara, said people could walk kilometres without encountering a bin.
“In other countries, there are bins along the streets for people to dispose of their waste. But in our country, you can walk for kilometers and still not find one,” he said.
“So even when people want to use a bin, they often have no option but to throw the waste on the street.”
Aminul said some shopkeepers have begun placing small bins outside their businesses, offering pedestrians an alternative.
But the arrangement does not necessarily solve the problem, as some of the collected waste is eventually dumped back onto the street.
From litter to waterlogging
The consequences of indiscriminate dumping extend well beyond dirty pavements.
Dhaka’s two city corporations have repeatedly identified plastic and polythene waste entering drains, manholes and culverts as an obstacle to the city’s drainage system.
Once accumulated, the waste restricts water flow and can contribute to waterlogging following heavy, and sometimes relatively brief, rainfall.
Dhaka experienced widespread waterlogging this year after several hours of rain.
City authorities identified accumulated polythene and other waste in manholes and drainage channels as one of the major reasons water was taking longer to recede.
The problem does not end with drains.
Where proper disposal facilities and awareness are lacking, waste also makes its way into the capital’s waterways.
At Badamtoli, one of Dhaka’s largest wholesale fruit markets, traders were found dumping different types of non-biodegradable plastic waste directly into the Buriganga River.
Urban experts have long warned that indiscriminate waste disposal compounds pollution and further undermines quality of life in a city already struggling with congestion, air pollution, waterlogging and pressure on public infrastructure.
11,000 bins came, then disappeared
The scarcity of public bins is hardly a new problem.
A decade ago, the authorities attempted a large-scale intervention.
In 2016, Dhaka’s two city corporations installed more than 11,000 mini waste bins on footpaths at a cost of around Tk6 crore.
The initiative was supposed to give pedestrians convenient places to dispose of small amounts of waste and discourage littering.
Within about a year, however, most of the bins had disappeared amid theft and inadequate monitoring.
Ten years later, Dhaka is still struggling with essentially the same problem.
The difficulty of keeping public bins in place has not disappeared either.
On July 20 this year, Dhaka North City Corporation said in a Facebook post that many newly installed bins were disappearing within 24 hours, even when they had been secured with chains.
The experience raises another question over the city’s waste-management system: installing bins is one challenge, but who is responsible for ensuring that they remain where they are installed?
Both city corporations have dedicated waste-management departments.
Assistant chief waste management officers are assigned to individual zones, while sanitation workers are responsible for designated areas.
DSCC plans 2,000 bins
Dhaka South City Corporation says it is now trying to address the theft problem by changing the bins themselves.
Dr Mohammad Safiullah Siddiq Bhuiyan, supervising engineer of DSCC, told Dhaka Tribune that its newly installed bins are made of concrete and fibre and weigh more than 200kg each.
Their weight and construction, he said, should make them considerably harder to steal than the smaller bins used previously.
DSCC Chief Waste Management Officer Md Mahabubur Rahman Talukder said 76 such bins have already been installed.
The corporation now plans to install 2,000 bins along Dhaka’s roads over the next six months.
If implemented, the program would mark a significant return of pedestrian waste bins to streets under the southern city corporation after the failure of the earlier initiative.
DNCC roadside plan yet to be finalised
The situation is different in Dhaka North.
DNCC has yet to install public bins specifically intended for pedestrians along its roads.
Mohammad Humayun Kabir, chief waste management officer of DNCC, said the corporation has instead provided 500 bins to schools, colleges, mosques and madrasas.
Another 500 are planned for markets, terminals and workplaces, and a tender for those bins has already been floated.
But a program specifically addressing the lack of bins available to pedestrians on streets has not yet been finalised.
“We are planning and working on it, but nothing has been finalized yet,” Kabir told Dhaka Tribune.
That leaves pedestrians in large parts of the northern city corporation area with few formal options for disposing of small amounts of waste while on the move.
‘Simply installing bins will not solve problem’
Urban planner Adil Mohammad Khan cautioned that another mass installation drive would achieve little if the city corporations repeated the shortcomings of previous initiatives.
Where bins are placed, how they are maintained and whether residents can conveniently use them should form part of a broader waste-management strategy, he said.
“Installing bins should not simply mean purchasing them and placing them randomly,” Khan told Dhaka Tribune.
“The authorities need proper planning and consultation with local communities to identify convenient locations. At the same time, dumping waste outside designated bins should be treated as an offense.”
He said infrastructure must therefore be accompanied by enforcement and maintenance.
“Without proper planning, enforcement and maintenance, simply installing bins will not solve the problem.”
For residents such as Jhumur, however, the immediate requirement is much simpler: somewhere to put a banana peel, packet or tissue without having to carry it around the city.