Garbage here, garbage there, garbage garbage everywhere!
By Adwait at 20 January, 2010, 8:52 am
What’s on my mind right now? Apart from the stupid knee injury, is that why is there so much garbage being disposed? The amount of garbage that the couple of yellow municipality bins in my area have is insane. They stink, have a number of stray dogs (nothing against the dogs, but they might get infected and as their best friends, we might too) and are overflowing with the garbage growing exponentially over the days. It is a disgusting sight. I’ve also been reading in the news papers recently that Devachi Urali had become a disaster of sorts due to improper management and lack of discipline by the civic bodies.
Devachi Urali is the garbage dump land where all the garbage from Pune city eventually lands up. There are mountains of garbage piled up at the site. Imagine humongous piles of garbage. By garbage I mean all possible types of waste. Wet garbage, dry garbage, electrical waste, toxic waste, all sorts of trash which is of no use anymore, is collected and dumped at Devachi Urali - irrespective of its contents. This is a terror to the nearby residents. This leads to contamination of land, air and the local water supply. The toxins and various other wastes seep from the mountains and affect the water table of the land, causing the ground water to get contaminated leading to more and more diseases being spread amongst the people. The fumes and burning of this trash, needless to say is as harmful as the former. Hence all in all, we are contributing to this grave situation of the overflowing garbage situation in our country.
Then how can we change? How can ‘I’ help?
This is the first question which comes to someone’s mind when an issue regarding public welfare and betterment of society arises. Actually there is a very simple answer. As Mohandas Gandhi put it more than 50 years ago - “Be the change you want to see in the world “. No one could have put it as simpler as this. If you think that there is a garbage problem in your neighborhood / city/country, then start by changing the way you dispose your garbage.
There is one basic principle everyone must follow. The simple rules to be followed are indeed simple. One must separate the dry garbage and wet garbage. The dry being the plastics, paper and all other trash from around the house which is NOT bio-degradable. Then we are left with the wet garbage. This includes all the kitchen waste which are bio-degradable. This is the easiest forms of separation and the most effective.
There is one idea which I find amazing, rather helpful. It is called home composting. I believe that the wet garbage that is accumulated in all our households should not be removed out, and thrown. Instead it should be kept within our house / society / community / institution and home composting should be started. Imagine, the only garbage leaving our house will be dry. With home composting the whole element of wet garbage disposal vanishes leaving us with only dry garbage. This will make things much easier for the whole garbage scenario in our country.
Home composting is a revolutionary idea of sorts and if executed systematically it will make a huge difference not only in the garbage department but to the general eco balance in society. The compost recovered from home composting is rich manure which is highly recommended in agriculture as opposed to fertilizers.
Right now, with all the global changes happening it is in all our best interests to do what we can to save and protect the environment. Garbage is a very small issue in comparison with the global changes happening today. But it is one such issue that we can make a difference to by sitting at home and by simply segregating our garbage with a little more interest.
And yes of course, everyone please STOP using polythene bags.
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