A tattered left shoe lying in the middle of the road. The wafting smell of rotting food. A speeding garbage truck left a trail of empty wrappers in its wake. The third largest city in the world is also the victim of excessive garbage pollution. With a population of nearly 18 million people, Karachi is the third-largest city in the world and generates around 16,500 tons of waste daily.
Karachi is the most populated city in Pakistan, with 16 million people. The United Nations has predicted that the area’s population will increase rapidly within 10-15 years. This estimated population causes our environment to be filled with environmental issues such as improper use of garbage and the burning of garbage to find a shortcut in disposing of them, which is easier than a regular waste collection service, littering of plastic and excessive use of plastic and fossil fuel burning are the reasons why global warming has increased in our city, Karachi and has rapidly increased in 2022, causing our city to flood that has caused a plethora of deadly diseases along with deaths. Dozens of start-ups that had offices in basements in Karachi’s posh DHA area were inundated by flash floods, while polluted water surged into houses on the more modest Martin Road.
Flash floods inundated dozens of start-ups with offices in basements in Karachi’s posh DHA area, while polluted water flooded into houses on the more modest Martin Road. In addition, we use plastics daily. Research states that the world buys a total of one million plastic bottles per minute, which is approximately 1.5 billion plastic bottles per day! This is a huge amount of plastic. In Karachi, 70% of this plastic waste is misused, mishandled and disposed into places such as they’re sent to landfills or are sent to unmanaged dumps. But, have you ever thought about how this affects our environment? This not only affects our environment, but impacts our health, the marine life causing our country to remain heated, and significantly causing global warming at a high rate.
Our city, Karachi which was once known as the city of lights is now known as one of the dirtiest cities in the world. The current rate of air pollution in Karachi is one of the highest to date. Air pollution is excessive in Karachi. Research has shown that air pollution in Karachi includes solid and liquid particles in the air as well as certain gasses. The main sources of pollution are emissions from transport and industry, followed by emissions from waste incineration, refrigerators, generators, chili fries, and stoves used in homes and hotels (Dr. Humayon Zafar).
Waking up in the morning, getting in my car and on our way to school, while saying all the trash piling up on the roads is nothing less than torture. As per the authorities, the city has 250,000 tons of backlog garbage dumped in residential areas. The city’s garbage disposal is split up into many places, such as the FEC (front-end collection) from muhalla kachra kundis, street bins etc, GTS (Garbage transfer station) and LFS (Landfill sites). About 400-500 trucks running empty carry about 6,000 to 7,000 tons of trash daily at Jam Chakro, located at Karachi’s city center.
One of the main processes in Karachi in disposing of waste is burning fossil fuels, such as coal, petroleum wastes, non-renewable wastes and crude oil Karachi has increased over the past few years. As these gasses increase in the atmosphere, they absorb more heat, which causes the temperature to rise even more. As a result, rising temperatures are changing the climate, disrupting the natural cycles of the environment and ecosystems.
Trash can travel through the rivers and oceans, accumulating on beaches and within gyres. This debris harms physical habitats, transports chemical pollutants, threatens aquatic life, and interferes with human uses of river, marine and coastal environments. Burning of garbage releases toxins which leads to a rapid increase in climate change, which leads to more rain, heating our city, which is quite harmful to our people, animals and plants, as we’ve seen before.
Karachi, being the largest city in our country, consumes an excessive use of plastic. Large chunks of manufactured plastic products are used in our country, that aren’t recycled and are thrown in residential areas and our waters. The main issue starts with the littering of plastic throughout our country, which causes a lot of trouble for our animals and humans. Plastic litter is the most common killer of animals, and marine animals are the most notably affected. Each year over 100,000 fish, whales, turtles, and more drown after becoming entangled in or digesting plastic litter. Authorities seem to be at a loss when it comes to waste management. Plastic pollution is one of the prime and alarming issues in Karachi that have vast environmental and human health impacts which need to be addressed as a priority. Unfortunately, limited work has been done on the topic, especially on air and water pollution due to plastics in Pakistan. Informal solid waste management is being done by municipalities, which is not adequate, and the problem will increase climate change, heating our city.
Global warming in our city caused devastating rains, during the past few months, causing many deaths.
Mansha Noor from Caritas Pakistan spoke about providing relief to over 50 families from Holy Mary Goth and Rustom Goth that were stranded after the rains. “There was so much devastation caused by flooding and rain,” she says, “we could not even cook food under our dripping ceilings.”
