Election season in Bangladesh has a recognisable soundtrack and palette: loudspeakers, processions, and streets dressed in political colours. But it also has a less discussed footprint: plastic flex, laminated posters, strings, tapes, and broken frames that quietly outlast the speeches and slogans. What begins as “visibility” often ends up as waste, and that waste travels down to gutters, roadside drains, canal edges, and culvert mouths. Then, even modest rainfall can result in avoidable waterlogging. The election ends in a day, but the mess lingers for months.
The rules for this upcoming election are, on paper, stricter than before. The Election Commission has banned electioneering posters and tightened controls on banners in its code of conduct, with campaigning set to end 48 hours before polling. There have even been directives telling printing presses not to print election posters. Yet the hard truth is, rules alone do not keep drains clear; operational discipline does.
In the months leading up to an election, campaign materials—designed to withstand the weather—mushroom rapidly. Plastic-coated surfaces and flex banners endure rain and remain readable, which is precisely why they become dangerous once obsolete. Instead of breaking down, they fragment and move with the wind. Environmental experts have long warned that plastic-based campaign materials clog drains and waterways, becoming an environmental hazard.
In Dhaka, posters and flyers have continued to appear even as restrictions were strengthened. When enforcement is inconsistent, the cost of non-compliance feels low in the moment, and the volume of material grows. This matters because “a little extra” clutter refuses to stay as an aesthetic problem; it also becomes a source of blockages in drains and pipes.
The removal phase is also poorly enforced as urgency fades after the polling day. As the materials are often installed without clear responsibility for their removal, the city corporations inherit the burden while citizens inherit the inconvenience.
Urban flooding is usually a choreography of small failures—blocked grates, narrowed culverts, silt, and unmanaged solid waste. When campaign debris enters the system, it behaves like a net. It catches other garbage, slows flow, and creates chokepoints precisely where water needs to escape. The World Bank has noted how mismanaged plastic waste clogs drains and contributes to urban flooding. This is why election-season waterlogging can occur even without heavy rain: the blockage builds up out of sight and flooding suddenly appears at intersections and culvert mouths.
A report on post-election poster waste described how large volumes end up in landfills and are sometimes burned, polluting surrounding areas. Burning plastic clears drains but pollutes the air, and careless dumping just moves the waste from streets to rivers and landfills.
So, what can realistically be done this election season without turning the issue into a political fight?
The starting point is simple: drain protection must be treated as an essential service during polls. City corporations and local administration should identify high-risk drainage hotspots such as major intersections, low-lying wards, culvert mouths, and canal edges and carry out extensive clearing drives during and after election week. The aim is to prevent chokepoints from turning minor rainfall into flooding.
This effort should be paired with a strict enforcement of “no-material zones.” Sewers, canal edges, culvert mouths, bridge underpasses, and median gaps should be treated as zero-tolerance areas, not for political reasons, but because these are precisely the locations where a single torn banner can trigger a chain reaction of blockages.
Temporary waste collection points should also be established in densely populated areas. Election waste spikes at predictable locations such as meeting venues, busy intersections, and main corridors. Simple bins or collection cages, cleared out daily, are low-cost but effective measures to prevent loose campaign materials from being swept into gutters.
Planning for the aftermath is equally important. A post-election clean-up calendar should be announced in advance. Authorities should specify a short window for removal, identify the lead agency, and provide a clear channel for reporting problem areas.
Finally, disposal practices must be addressed. Collected campaign plastics should be transported to approved sites rather than burned in open spaces. Alongside this, communication should be treated as infrastructure: short, repeated messages such as “Do not block drains” and “Remove materials after polling” can meaningfully influence behaviour.
Bangladesh has an opportunity this election season to prevent waste-related plights for citizens. The poster ban, directives to printing presses, and tighter code-of-conduct provisions show that policymakers recognise the civic cost of campaign clutter. What remains to be seen is execution on the ground: keeping drains clear, enforcing smart no-go zones, and cleaning up promptly after polling day.
Shaikh Afnan Birahim
is a postgraduate student of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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