We have observed with keen interest the current cleansing exercise going on at the Latrikunda Sabiji highway and marketplace.
Although the exercise was initiated by market vendors, KMC police officers and community warders, as well as the councilor, have taken an active part in it in the spirit of leading by example.
Since Monday, these officials and people in the market vicinity of Latrikunda Sabiji have embarked on a massive cleansing exercise of gutters at Latrikunda Sabiji market, starting from Kaw-Junction to Tallinding.
This exercise is a good example and worth emulating by other market centres and areas, especially when we are in the rainy season when gutters and potholes are filled with stench and stinking water that cause serious harm to human health.
The environmental cleansing exercise should be a regular practice in, around or away from marketplaces.
Our market centres, especially, are always inundated with filth and garbage around the stalls and booths where goods and foodstuff are sold.
This does not only affect the vendors and nearby residents, it also poses a serious hazard to the health and lives of consumers or people who go to the market to buy goods.
We must, therefore, endeavour to clean the environment, especially in and around our marketplaces where the items we use to prepare the food we eat come from.
One of the lessons learnt from the Latrikunda Sabiji area and market cleansing exercise is the hazardous filth and waste caused by plastic bags and rubber containers we throw inside gutters and places around our environment.
These things cause regular or permanent blockage of gutters, preventing water from flowing through easily and causing filth and flood that could be avoided if regular cleansing is carried out.
A pertinent call is also being made by the cleansing volunteers on the National Roads Authority (NRA), the National Environment Agency (NEA) and other relevant institutions to help with necessary logistics to get the exercise done much better.
We should really put hands on deck to take the Latrikunda Sabiji market area example further replicated in other areas across the country, so that we curtail the piling in our surroundings of filth and garbage, which create hazardous odour and toxic chemical substances, as well as give life to harmful bacteria, parasites and viruses that are of lethal nature to human life. Let’s regularly clean our environment.
“Environmental
pollution is an incurable disease. It can only be prevented.”
Barry Commoner
