For six months, garbage sat between I-10 and I-11. In the capital. And then we act surprised when people say Islamabad is changing.
This is not my opinion. The State Minister for Interior said it in the National Assembly on Monday.
The waste was dumped there. It was not lifted for six months. Now they are removing around 700 tonnes a day.
Six months. Foul smell, possible groundwater contamination, public health risk. Next to people’s homes.
I lived in I-10 from 2004 to 2022.
It always felt like a sector neither Rawalpindi nor Islamabad wanted to take responsibility for.
Officially Islamabad. Treated like a stepchild. Dirty. Management not acting responsibly. And plenty of other issues.
Crime too. Mobile snatching and robberies were common.
My friend Ihtisham’s mobile was snatched just after he left our home.
Our home was robbed while we were in our hometown for my grandmother’s funeral.
A cousin’s wife had all her gold snatched at gunpoint outside our home, as they were leaving for the market.
But that is not the part that stayed with me.
In the same answer, the minister said a one-kanal house in Islamabad pays only Rs160 a month for waste collection.
Rs160. Less than a burger. Less than one plate of biryani.
And out of that, only 10% is actually collected.
He also said people in posh areas, including along Margalla Road and the F sectors, pay “not a single penny”.
Let that sink in.
We pay the electricity bill because otherwise they cut the line. We pay the mobile package because otherwise the internet stops.
But garbage? “Yeh to CDA ka kaam hai.”
Haan, it is CDA’s job. Dumping waste in an open plot for six months is a failure. Nobody should defend that.
But we can’t demand a service we refuse to pay Rs160 for.
Both things are true at the same time:
- The authority failed to do its job.
- The residents failed to pay for the job.
And the result sits between I-10 and I-11 for everyone to smell.
Where Education Comes In
I work in education now. And honestly, I think this is an education problem as much as a management problem.
We teach students formulas, grammar and coding. We rarely teach them that the street outside their home is also their responsibility.
Here is what I think schools and institutes can actually teach:
- Civic responsibility. Paying for a service, using it properly, and asking for it with full right. Not as a chapter to memorise, but as a habit.
- Waste basics. Where your garbage goes after it leaves your gate. What happens when nobody lifts it.
- Community action. A class project to clean one street, or to find out who is responsible for a dumping site and how to complain properly.
At Uptech, my institute, these are conversations I want our students to have. Because a good developer or designer who throws the shopper out of the car window has still missed something.
And it is not only students. Residents need this education too. Most people simply don’t know the fee exists, or what Rs160 is supposed to pay for. Clear information from CDA and from community groups would help more than another complaint on social media.
Tech can help here too. These are ideas, not claims:
- A simple app or WhatsApp line where residents report a dump with a photo and location.
- A public map showing which areas are collected, and when.
- Open data on how much fee is collected per sector, so people can see where the money goes.
Students could build exactly these kinds of projects. Real problems are better practice than tutorial clones.
What Should Actually Happen
The minister said a proper transfer station will start working in I-9 within three months, and that CDA will hire an international firm for urban areas and charge the collection fee.
Good. I will believe it when I see it.
But if the fee comes, pay it. And then ask for the service with full right, because now you have paid for it.
A city is not clean because of the government alone. It is clean because everyone treats it like their own ghar.
We keep our houses spotless and throw the shopper outside the gate.
The gate is also ours. And somebody has to teach that.
– Umar H.
Source: Dawn, “CDA’s act of dumping waste between I-10, I-11 in Islamabad slammed in NA”, 20 Oct 2026.
