By Saad Ashfaq
Lahore, a city of gardens and rich culture is Pakistan’s second largest city in terms of population. The city needs to get rid of its trash if it wants to grow and stay living. When there are more people, there is more trash. It’s bad for the environment and hard for people who work as sanitary workers to work when the right ways of separating waste aren’t used.
What’s worst about Lahore’s trash is that it can’t be handled properly. The people of Lahore don’t know or care about how to sort trash, so they put all the trash in one bin. It’s difficult for the cleaning workers to carry trash, which is already dangerous and hard on their backs. The sanitary workers have to pick through dumpster loads of trash by hand to find recyclables, organic waste, and other trash. This process has lots of dangers attached to it. Collecting trash from the piles without the right safety gear or training could cause them to get cut by sharp objects, burned by dangerous chemicals, or infected by medical waste. Lifting and carrying trash by hand is very dangerous for workers’ health and slows down the cleaning process.
The workers are put their health in great danger. Many of the workers get skin diseases, lung issues, and other health issues because of their work. Unfortunately, these conditions are often not treated due to poor healthcare, which can make their symptoms worse or even kill them.
This clearly shows carelessness and stresses how important it is to set up safe working conditions right away. Sanitation workers often come from the poorest parts of society. They have a hard time getting other jobs because of the name of their job. It makes them vulnerable to prejudice and social shame. This makes them poor and shut out of society. Because they don’t get paid much and don’t have job security, their finances are uncertain, which puts them at the very bottom of the economic ladder.
People who throw trash in the wrong places make things worse in more places than one. The water and air get dirty when places have too much trash because they give off methane, a strong greenhouse gas. People waste things and hurt the earth even more when they recycle the wrong way. They make more trash, which is bad for people’s health and the water and air quality. This is something that people in Lahore need to know more about, and the government needs to do something about it. People can change a lot about how they act after being told about it. This way of sorting trash might stop being a choice and turn into a job.
People can learn about this in news stories, schools, and community centres. It can show them how good trash disposal can really help them. People should be able to ask the government for the better management of their trash, and the government should make sure that sanitation workers have safe places to work. Part of this is making sure they have the right safety gear, fair pay, and health care. It’s also important to spend money on new trash management tools and technology to help these changes happen and make people’s jobs easier.
We can make it easy for the people who clean up our city’s trash by following some simple rules. Not only are these people doing their jobs, but they’re also taking care of the city and making sure it stays clean and safe. Lahore can become safer, friendlier, and better for the environment by first recognising and supporting the work of people who clean up after people. We can honour these unsung stars and make sure their work is known for them by working together and being good citizens. Let’s clean up and improve the environment of Lahore so that everyone can do well at work.
