Every one of us is found proudly pronouncing that cleanliness is the half of faith. Verbally, we are highly supportive of this religious cliché and use it abundantly in our daily conversation to express our concern for the issue of personal hygiene and sanitation in the surroundings but do we really mean it when we bring this word on our lips? Do our lives practically reflective of our proclamations? Have a silent look over yourself and think.
As far as our personal hygiene is concerned, we can say to some extent that, we are extremely conscious of it. Highly conscious in the sense that it is a common practice of all of us to wash face again and again using a variety of costly cleansers and rubbing as many times as possible in a day. Beauty items are applied to clean and further enhance our state of freshness and prettiness. Cleaning dirt from face and body is truly our half-faith.
We do the same thing with our own homes by taking care of its internal & external décor and whitewashing them every year or on special occasions. Every nook and corner of the house is cleansed either by our own hands or by keeping a maid with strict instructions and issuing them special operating procedures (SOPs). Everyone or head of the family makes sure cleaning & its maintenance politely or rudely whatever deems suitable for the members.
On the contrary, miserable and pathetic conditions of sanitation right outside our homes; in the streets, squares, roads, markets and recreational places is evident of our actual belief in the noble message of cleanliness. Once city is swept by sanitary staff early in the morning or as per schedule, every one of us starts contributing by littering everywhere across the city in all possible forms; throwing wrappers of candies and leftovers of eatables, spitting around on roads and showing carelessness while putting garbage into bins.
Ironically, in our society, waste or litter is supposed not to be kept in our houses or possessions like vehicles. Anything such as litter is believed to be thrown out of our possessions on the streets, roads or wherever we are moving. It is bad and highly condemnable to make our homes or places dirty because we own these places as ours. Waste disposal behavior of all of us shows that our surroundings do not belong to us. The major reason perhaps is that there is nobody to make citizens realize it.
As a nation, we can’t let this happen forever. Effective measures must be taken to make citizens realize that billions of rupees are being spent only to get our surroundings rid of millions and billions of tons of waste generated daily. All of us must know that the country isn’t magically swept, but rather a force of thousands of sanitary staff along with customized machinery works at midnight when everybody is taking a rest after adding dirt to the state of cleanliness in the surroundings. Have they ever thought about where the waste goes, which they produce and unkindly throw out of their homes daily? Have they ever wondered what would happen if waste had never been collected and removed from the city and we continued bucketing surrounding it with filth? People enjoying a neat environment must know about this entire story and must pay respect to the services of concerned departments by changing their practices to comply with the standard instructions.
If we talk about Lahore only, Lahore Waste Management Company’s dedicated force of more than 9000 sanitary workers; well-equipped with gadgets and backed by modern machinery, is rendering their untiring services to transform Lahore, once known as the city of gardens, into a world’s one of the cleanest places. Around 6000 tons of waste is not only being managed in an environment-friendly manner but also using waste for composting.
The belief that cleanliness is the half faith must be completed by taking care of a neat environment not only inside our homes but also in the nook and corner of our beloved country.
Courtesy: The Nation
https://www.nation.com.pk/23-Nov-2022/cleanliness-is-next-to-godliness
