YANGON, Oct. 16, 2009 (Xinhua News Agency) -- Myanmar's biggest commercial city of Yangon has been striving for its environmental conservation and sanitation and dwellers of the country's economic hub are urged to uplift the prestige as good citizens by following related disciplines not to throw garbage into back lanes, drains, pavements and public areas.
Such acts of reckless throwing of garbage are traditionally found in the city of Yangon for several decades if one makes a deep observation by visiting the city, especially the downtown areas, observers view.
The Yangon municipal authorities as well as official media Friday hold that "the active participation and cooperation of the city dwellers plays an important role in keeping Yangon neat and tidy to preserve the characteristics of a city", calling on the dwellers to follow the prescribed disciplines to help sanitation workers carry out their tasks.
According to the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC), to build Yangon as a clean, beautiful and hygienic environment in accord with the town characteristics, it is undertaking 10 tasks including the preventive measures against environmental pollution around Yangon, the systematic disposal of garbage, the carrying out of tasks of cemeteries and cremation and the control of the tasks of toilets and laundry.
In so doing, the YCDC undertakes its tasks with 3,000 sanitation workers and with the use of over 264 garbage trucks, heavy machinery and tractors daily.
The YCDC reveals that the residences of Yangonites daily produce various kinds of garbage, namely kitchen garbage, commercial garbage, residence garbage, factory garbage and construction garbage.
The garbage trucks in six downtown townships collected over 3, 800 tons of garbage from 240 back lanes, the YCDC said.
While offering such sanitation services, the YCDC levies tax for sanitation from dwellers quarterly in a year.
As part of efforts to recycle the discarded plastic items, the YCDC managed to produce plastic pellets to be produced as rubbish bags and buckets and a total of over 30 tons of polythene bags from various townships were incinerated in previous years.
According to the YCDC, it is negotiating with some foreign companies to generate electricity through methane gas from the garbage.
Meanwhile, the YCDC is also importing 12-ton Japanese- manufactured garbage trucks to accelerate the tasks, aimed at keeping Yangon clean and pleasant and creating hygienic environs.
With a total of 33 townships and an area of 757 square- kilometers, Yangon is inhabited with over 6 million people and 1, 450 tons of garbage were disposed daily, according to statistics.
