Diyarbakır set to bring back garbage containers

DİYARBAKIR - Anatolia News Agency

Deputy Mayor İpek says Diyarbakır has bought 800 garbage containers. AA photo

Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality will put garbage containers back onto the city’s streets thanks to the ongoing peace process, as the containers were previously removed due to security concerns. 

“There were garbage containers everywhere in the city in the past and the city was cleaner. 
All of them were removed for security reasons. We will re-install them in the streets as there are no security problems,” Diyarbakır Deputy Mayor Hafize İpek said at a press conference in Diyarbakır. 

In the past, some bombs had been hidden in garbage containers in crowded streets, but security is being loosened due to the ongoing peace process between the government and the imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan.

İpek said the municipality had bought 800 garbage containers and that 30 of them would be placed at schools and public institutions. 

At the same time, the municipality has launched a local advertisement campaign, taking out billboard ads with questions like “Does the garbage on our streets come from outer space?” and “Have wizards dirtied our city?” in a bid to alter residents’ attitudes to waste. 

A municipal project to construct a waste integration facility has finally been approved, İpek said, adding that solid waste would be recycled at the facility.