Bangladesh's Volunteer Army Fights Climate Disease

On a humid September morning in Dhaka, the world's most densely populated city, streets fall quiet as residents prepare for weekly prayer. From the silence emerges a disciplined force: dozens of young volunteers gathering at the shores of a small lake where the stench of rotting waste hangs heavy in the air.

This is not a government cleanup crew or a corporate social responsibility initiative. These are ordinary citizens—university students, teenagers, and young professionals—who have taken it upon themselves to tackle one of Bangladesh's most pressing public health crises. They organize into teams, some picking litter while others navigate canoes through stagnant water, collecting plastic containers, banana peels, and years of accumulated waste.

Their mission extends far beyond beautification. In a country where pollution claims more than 272,000 premature deaths annually, these volunteers are fighting a battle that municipal services cannot win alone. They are confronting the source of a climate-fueled disease epidemic that threatens millions.

Bangladesh has experienced a dramatic warming trend over the past century. Between 1901 and 2019, average temperatures increased by nearly 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) during some months. This warming, combined with increasingly irregular rainfall patterns, has created longer summer rainy seasons and warmer winters—perfect conditions for mosquito proliferation.

The insects thrive in warm, humid environments rich in the organic matter found throughout Dhaka's waste-filled waterways. Mosquito larvae can survive even in moderately polluted water, and even a small amount trapped in plastic bags or cups becomes a breeding ground.

"Without action by the people, without action by society, [dengue] is not possible to manage,"

says Karibul Bashar, an entomologist and epidemiologist at Jahangirnagar University and advisor to the World Health Organization in Southeast Asia.

The consequences have been severe. In 2023, Bangladesh recorded 321,179 reported cases of dengue and 1,705 deaths—the country's worst outbreak on record. While official numbers dropped to just over 100,000 cases last year, health experts warn this is likely an undercount due to limited healthcare access in rural areas and incomplete hospital documentation.

Bangladesh Clean, the organization coordinating these efforts, was founded in 2016 and now comprises more than 50,000 volunteers, mostly teenagers and young adults recruited through social media and word of mouth. Every Friday, they fan out across the country to clean waterways and neighborhoods, organizing approximately 15,000 cleanup events since the group's inception.

For volunteers like Rahat Sarker Hridoy, who joined in 2021 after seeing the group advertised on Facebook, the work is deeply personal. "It's important for my country, I never get tired of doing these [events]," he said during the Uttara cleanup, soaked in contaminated water. "I dream one day my country will be neat and clean. I can't do this alone. That's why I joined the organization."

Umme Kulsum Siddiki Brishti, a university student volunteering in the Uttara neighborhood, sees the effort as part of a larger cultural shift. "All of us young volunteers are working hard to clean [up] and represent our country to the world," she explained during a break. "We are trying to change people's mindset. Nowadays people are getting more aware, and I believe the situation will improve because humans can change."

The scale of the challenge is immense. Dhaka is home to over 36 million people and growing rapidly, expected to become the world's largest urban center before 2050. Municipal services have been unable to keep pace with this breakneck growth, making the city one of the world's most polluted. More than half of its daily trash remains uncollected, creating ideal breeding grounds for disease vectors.

While volunteers tackle the visible waste, scientists are developing high-tech solutions to predict and prevent outbreaks. Karibul Bashar is creating an artificial intelligence system that combines mosquito population data with infection rates to generate early warnings.

The approach involves placing mosquito traps in neighborhoods and analyzing both mosquito density and the number of infected people in surrounding areas. "We can develop an early warning system," Bashar explains from his laboratory on the outskirts of Dhaka, surrounded by dengue-infected mosquitoes.

"If the mosquito density is high in a place where patients are already present, we can say the disease will spread rapidly. [It] can flag this on a government server, showing where the next hotspot is likely to emerge in the next two or three weeks for dengue."

Early warning enables rapid response and control measures. Bashar's work highlights the dual approach needed: community action to eliminate breeding sites and scientific innovation to predict where interventions are most urgently needed.

The Aedes mosquito, indigenous to tropical areas, has now spread to every continent except Antarctica. As climate change accelerates and global connectivity increases, Bashar believes mosquito-borne diseases "will be a very big threat in the future" worldwide.

Bangladesh Clean represents a growing recognition that in rapidly urbanizing megacities, traditional municipal services cannot keep pace with environmental and public health challenges. The organization's model—combining social media mobilization with regular, scheduled cleanups—offers a replicable framework for other cities facing similar pressures.

The effort addresses multiple interconnected problems simultaneously: reducing pollution, eliminating disease breeding grounds, and fostering civic responsibility. Each volunteer action, from removing a single plastic bag to clearing an entire canal, contributes to a larger ecosystem of public health protection.

As Dhaka continues its trajectory toward becoming the world's largest urban center, the work of these volunteers becomes increasingly critical. Their efforts demonstrate that when government services are overwhelmed, organized citizen action can fill the gap, turning environmental cleanup into a life-saving intervention.

The stakes extend far beyond Bangladesh's borders. With climate change creating warmer, wetter conditions globally, the model of community-led disease prevention offers valuable lessons for cities worldwide facing similar climate-fueled health crises.

The battle against climate-fueled disease in Bangladesh illustrates a powerful truth: in an era of rapid urbanization and environmental change, community action can be the first line of defense. The volunteers of Bangladesh Clean have transformed a simple cleanup effort into a sophisticated public health intervention.

Three critical elements define their success: scale (50,000+ volunteers), consistency (weekly cleanups across the country), and integration with scientific research and early warning systems.

As temperatures continue to rise and cities grow larger, the need for such grassroots mobilization will only increase. Bangladesh's volunteer army offers a blueprint for turning environmental stewardship into a matter of survival.