The Great Indian Garbage
A lot has been said and done about the garbage (Kachra in Hindi) problem of India. By garbage I don't just mean the household garbage bin but domestic and public hygiene problem. This blog is about my personal views on the matter and presents the situation as a commoner.
I don't think there is any human being alive or dead who likes garbage. Garbage is a problem and most of us run away from it like every other problem, rather than tackling it. Very few try to find a solution to it. The basic reason behind this kind of attitude is the filth that is associated with garbage. Nobody wants to get there hands dirty or wants a foul smell around them. This nature of human is justified but we are only responsible for this filth and smell. How can we just throw away the waste and don't care about what happens next or this affects u. Just throwing away the garbage is not the solution. The aim should be garbage reduction rather than just getting rid of it. You might clean your house by throwing kilos of garbage bags but those garbage doesn't disappear from earth, they are just dumped somewhere else, which is an equally severe problem for you as well as others.
India is one the largest producer of daily garbage and has huge dumping grounds near every major city. Just google dumping ground and you will see what happens to your domestic garbage bags. Cleaning our own 100 yards will not help us. We need to reduce our garbage generation rate. I am not of the view that we should stop garbage generation, it is not possible, some waste will always be there whatever may be the process but, what I strongly believe in is, reduction in daily garbage produce will help in the long learn. Garbage is a kind of pollution. We are polluting the earth. But that's not important as we cannot go back now and correct our mistakes, what we do now and further about it matters. Most of the developed countries have efficient garbage disposal system whereas India is far behind in this regard because we have ignored the importance of garbage treatment. All we want to do is keep our house clean. But, what happens when we walk on the street and there is a pile of garbage besides it or travel by train and there is waste everywhere on the platforms or when we are driving behind garbage collection truck, we immediately start blaming the authorities or others for what we experience. Again, putting the blame of the crime on others which we all have committed together.
India is a very unhygienic country, for a fact. Public cleanliness is not our stronghold. We have many systems in place to keep our localities, cities, states and country clean but the result is zero. Recently our Prime Minister launched a nationwide initiative 'SWACHH BHARAT ABHIYAAN', which is really a commendable effort, I must say. But, that's the role of government. That's the secondary solution to depend on. Primary solution should be our own actions. We will not need any such initiative if we curb the problem at its origin, which is generation of uncontrollable amount of garbage. Minimum waste generation will automatically lead to minimum efforts required to dispose it. We are not understanding the importance of individual effort. We are always waiting for others to act or a one time solution. But in this case there is no one time solution. We had already crossed the lower threshold of public hygiene. We don't want to stand in our bus stops, we don't want to travel by sleeper class, we don't want to use public toilets but we will still dump our waste in these places. We spend thousands of rupees on cleaning our house, car, office but we will not donate single rupee for cleaning our public places. Right now very few of us are considering this a problem which I think will become a major environmental threat for India.
Some people say, poverty is the reason behind the poor state of hygiene. I don't get this concept. How is money related to generation and disposal of waste? Just because most of our population is below poverty line doesn't mean that they cannot keep their localities clean. Yes, waste is disposed of publicly in poor areas but the reason behind it is not poverty. The reason behind it can be the density of population in such areas which is not considered while planing a disposal system. Still, it doesn't give anyone right to pollute the area with waste. Some states like Sikkim has adopted some policies but we need more concrete nation wide law system to eradicate this issue. It's all in our mind, no one wants to get dirt on their hands.
Law needs to play a very vital role in this matter. Law generally comes in when the situation goes out of control and it's been long gone that the waste situation is out of our control. Thus, it is now very essential to introduce strict and applicable laws for public hygiene. It is we who are responsible for such miserable state of our nation and thus we should be ready to pay the price. Someone times harsh decisions are the most effective ones. Countries like Singapore have adopted such laws but we Indians are happy with praising Singapore rather than using those laws in our own country. The condition in metro cities is the worst. Cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi are the biggest contributor of nation's waste due to the concentration of population. Some states like Sikkim has adopted some policies but we need more concrete nation wide law system to eradicate this issue.
The only hurdle in solving this problem is, we. But, we are also the solution.
I don't think there is any human being alive or dead who likes garbage. Garbage is a problem and most of us run away from it like every other problem, rather than tackling it. Very few try to find a solution to it. The basic reason behind this kind of attitude is the filth that is associated with garbage. Nobody wants to get there hands dirty or wants a foul smell around them. This nature of human is justified but we are only responsible for this filth and smell. How can we just throw away the waste and don't care about what happens next or this affects u. Just throwing away the garbage is not the solution. The aim should be garbage reduction rather than just getting rid of it. You might clean your house by throwing kilos of garbage bags but those garbage doesn't disappear from earth, they are just dumped somewhere else, which is an equally severe problem for you as well as others.
India is one the largest producer of daily garbage and has huge dumping grounds near every major city. Just google dumping ground and you will see what happens to your domestic garbage bags. Cleaning our own 100 yards will not help us. We need to reduce our garbage generation rate. I am not of the view that we should stop garbage generation, it is not possible, some waste will always be there whatever may be the process but, what I strongly believe in is, reduction in daily garbage produce will help in the long learn. Garbage is a kind of pollution. We are polluting the earth. But that's not important as we cannot go back now and correct our mistakes, what we do now and further about it matters. Most of the developed countries have efficient garbage disposal system whereas India is far behind in this regard because we have ignored the importance of garbage treatment. All we want to do is keep our house clean. But, what happens when we walk on the street and there is a pile of garbage besides it or travel by train and there is waste everywhere on the platforms or when we are driving behind garbage collection truck, we immediately start blaming the authorities or others for what we experience. Again, putting the blame of the crime on others which we all have committed together.
India is a very unhygienic country, for a fact. Public cleanliness is not our stronghold. We have many systems in place to keep our localities, cities, states and country clean but the result is zero. Recently our Prime Minister launched a nationwide initiative 'SWACHH BHARAT ABHIYAAN', which is really a commendable effort, I must say. But, that's the role of government. That's the secondary solution to depend on. Primary solution should be our own actions. We will not need any such initiative if we curb the problem at its origin, which is generation of uncontrollable amount of garbage. Minimum waste generation will automatically lead to minimum efforts required to dispose it. We are not understanding the importance of individual effort. We are always waiting for others to act or a one time solution. But in this case there is no one time solution. We had already crossed the lower threshold of public hygiene. We don't want to stand in our bus stops, we don't want to travel by sleeper class, we don't want to use public toilets but we will still dump our waste in these places. We spend thousands of rupees on cleaning our house, car, office but we will not donate single rupee for cleaning our public places. Right now very few of us are considering this a problem which I think will become a major environmental threat for India.
Some people say, poverty is the reason behind the poor state of hygiene. I don't get this concept. How is money related to generation and disposal of waste? Just because most of our population is below poverty line doesn't mean that they cannot keep their localities clean. Yes, waste is disposed of publicly in poor areas but the reason behind it is not poverty. The reason behind it can be the density of population in such areas which is not considered while planing a disposal system. Still, it doesn't give anyone right to pollute the area with waste. Some states like Sikkim has adopted some policies but we need more concrete nation wide law system to eradicate this issue. It's all in our mind, no one wants to get dirt on their hands.
Law needs to play a very vital role in this matter. Law generally comes in when the situation goes out of control and it's been long gone that the waste situation is out of our control. Thus, it is now very essential to introduce strict and applicable laws for public hygiene. It is we who are responsible for such miserable state of our nation and thus we should be ready to pay the price. Someone times harsh decisions are the most effective ones. Countries like Singapore have adopted such laws but we Indians are happy with praising Singapore rather than using those laws in our own country. The condition in metro cities is the worst. Cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi are the biggest contributor of nation's waste due to the concentration of population. Some states like Sikkim has adopted some policies but we need more concrete nation wide law system to eradicate this issue.
The only hurdle in solving this problem is, we. But, we are also the solution.
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