Kathmandu Metropolitan City is preparing to place 4,000 dustbins in public areas around the city.

Officials said the drive aims to make the capital city cleaner.

“We have already procured the bins. They will be placed in public places including bus stands and pavements, so pedestrians can use them,” said Rabin Man Shrestha, chief of the Environment Department of the metropolis.

The metropolis places large-sized dustbins in public places every year and also sells them to interested people from the metropolis at discounted prices.

The city office has also recently hired 300 cleaning staff—150 men and 150 women—who are being deployed to collect waste discarded in public places, including roadsides and riversides.

Officials said the cleaning staff have collected 40 tons of waste from the hill around the Swayambhunath area.

To clean the city, the metropolis has so far been using 100 workers deployed under the Prime Minister Employment Programme, the national flagship scheme introduced as per the constitutional provision that guarantees employment to registered unemployed people. They are tasked to collect dust, and clear weeds off the pavements.

Shrestha said the workers deployed under the Prime Minister Employment Programme will be replaced by the staff hired recently. “We will also deploy cleaning staff in major locations of the city such as Samakhushi and Kalanki, among others,” he said.

The metropolis has been using broomer machines to dust off the roads in the city.

Officials say they also plan to deploy the staff to clean the major rivers Bagmati and Bishnumati.

The KMC has also started segregating household waste into degradable and non-degradable at its waste transfer station in Teku since last week, officials said. Non-degradable waste such as plastic and metal will be sold while the degradable variety will be transferred to the dumping site, they said.

Waste segregation at the source was one of the measures that Mayor Balendra Shah touted would help solve Kathmandu’s chronic garbage problem. After he assumed office, Shah had asked city residents to start segregating wastes at home. But the measure didn’t work out, largely due to a lack of preparation on the KMC’s part.

Kathmandu Valley generates over 1,200 tonnes of solid waste every day, nearly 60 percent of which comes from the KMC alone. Experts say 60 percent of organic waste originating in the Valley can be converted into compost and the remaining 30 percent of non-degradable waste can be recycled.