Waste: High up north of Thimphu main is a commanding viewpoint that is famous for many other things besides. From here southward, the city sprawls like a sleepless behemoth. This is Sangaygang where BBS’s giant tower stands tall, piercing into the deep blue of the sky on clear winter days.

More famously, however, this awesome viewpoint is known among Thimphu residents as the lovers’ paradise. That this is a place where random couples come to make love secreting themselves under the cover of dense overgrowth is testified by wonderful abundance of prophylactic sheaths. Condoms are so ubiquitous here that they are all over the place, like thousands of dead fish floating of a vast imaginary sea.

Concerned that Sangaygang is fast becoming a dump yard where nondegradable waste pile up by mounds by the day, Clean Bhutan organized a cleaning campaign on Saturday.

Some 100 Desuups took part in the campaign.

Easily they collected about two sacks of condoms and toilet papers,.Pet bottles, plastic bags, sanitary pads and underwear made the rest.

Here, although the place looks healthy and green from afar, waste is everywhere that it even hangs mid-air. From the branches of pine hang condoms like matured orchids of exotic species endemic to this forest.

“Wow!” said one sincerely scandalized Desuup, pointing to a tree branch some distance ahead. “This is some crazy feat.” Three condoms hang still from a branch some metres high, pointing earthward like strange out-of-this-world daggers.

Desuup Coordinator Jigme Sherab said that police should be empowered to monitor this place. “Installing CCTV might help tackle the problem.”

Bumthang’s National Council representative, Nima, who was among the cleaners, said even though there is no settlement here, the place is filled with household waste. “Maybe people dump their waste here when they miss the trash truck.”

Nima Gyeltshen, Thimphu’s National Council representative, said picnickers and visitors do not take waste back with them.

“It is good that the Thimphu thromde is installing CCTV in different places. Sangaygang should have a few,” said Nima Gyeltshen.

Clean Bhutan’s Executive Director Nedup Tshering said that 100 Desuups collected about 10 metric tonnes of waste from Phajoding base, Sangaygang, Takin Zoo area and from open-air gym in Motithang.

Nima Wangdi