That resident added that previously, dustmen came almost daily. So we went down to the street and could throw rubbish into the trolley. If you give the garbage collector a tip of 100 or 200 kyats, he will climb up to the upstairs and take trash. During these months, dustmen did not come regularly. Therefore, we had to go to the crossroads where dustmen load rubbish onto the truck. However, not every house tried to do so. Some throw rubbish bags into alleyways or put on roadside. That is why, Yangon becomes a city with full of litter.
These garbage collectors are being hired by the companies, the subcontractors of Yangon city municipal department. It is not clearly known why the previous method of collecting rubbish has stopped.
Some people, who do not have a contract with the city department, are doing cleaning work in some townships, such as SanChanung and Htarmwe. Wandering in the quarter and shouting ‘Is there any rubbish?’, these people collect garbage from those who want to dump their trash with a fee of 100 or 200 kyats. Then they go and pile this rubbish to a nearby garbage dump where municipal garbage trucks do collecting. By doing so, they make their living.
Local residents of Yangon said that there has become less health and cleaning service in the former capital of Burma, after government administrative body moved to Pyinmana region in 2006. Moreover, not all the tax collected from Yangon is spent on development of the city, said an anonymous staff from the municipal department.
The current mayor of Yangon is U Aung Thein Lin, an elected member of parliament from South Oakkalarpa township, for the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDA). It was seen that since over one year before election, he has been busy with his party affairs rather than the development and cleaning of Yangon city.
Apart from digging pump-wells under the name of USDA, building concrete roads, and inscribed the name USDA on these, and opening a free clinic called Phyo Saytanar to campaign for USDA, he was spending the tax of Yangon municipal department on his election campaigns according to some staff of this department.
Instead of collecting and disposing of rubbish in outer area of the city, municipal departments from some townships are usually setting garbage ablaze daily at the rubbish dump inside the city. This kind of act is really harmful for local people.