It is obvious that public spaces in India are in dire need of cleanliness. The benefits of clean public spaces are also quite clear. It is not only an aesthetic issue, but will also result in better health and prosperity. Millions of Indian citizens believe that a cleaner India is in all our interests and yearn for it. Yet our public spaces remain in a sad and deplorable state. They attract ridicule from around the world. The causes for this state of affairs are many and multifaceted. Some are rooted in history and others in present day poor governance. Other reasons are cultural and behavioural and are the result of the poor civic sense of our people.
Lamenting and hand-wringing is going to take us nowhere. Commentary can bring about awareness and hopefully consequent change in systems and behaviour, but in reality seldom changes the fundamental problems. Laws will work only if implemented properly and respected and adhered to by the people.
So, what do we do? Do we just accept and come to terms with the reality that India is going to be one of the most polluted, unclean and unsightly nations on earth for the foreseeable future and forget about it ? Do we forfeit our sense of shame and dignity and the well being of our children and grandchildren and get on with our meaningless lives? Do we regard the squalor that surrounds us as an integral facet of Indian culture and ignore it? Is holding our noses and looking the other way, when people urinate in public, defecate in the open, spit, litter the streets, dump their garbage on street corners and letting their sewage in to the nearest waterway or body, the sign of a true Indian? Or better still do we join the pack and truly identify ourselves with the status quo as most of us do, although we ought to know better?
How do we change this despicable situation ? What can we do if are ordinary citizens? What can we do if we are in positions of power? Power does not necessarily mean political power. From a teacher to a CEO of a major company, others too in society have power over yet others in society. Whoever we might be and whatever we might do, we all have the power and duty to change society in a positive way. Some have little influence and others have more.
It is a useful exercise to take stock of what is being done and explore future directions
1. Clean Up Campaigns: These are laudable efforts organized by members of the public, clubs, NGOs, institutions and sometimes by governmental organizations to clean up a specific place. These are usually organized as a day of cleaning activities when a group of people join together to remove the existing litter/ garbage lying around a specific site. These sites can be a beach, street, railway station, bus stand, place of worship, pond, lake or park. Sometimes these are organized around a special day such as Coastal Clean Up Day or a National Holiday while others are periodic or sporadic events. Some are quite small, such as the group of young men who spend some weekends cleaning temples around Chennai or very big as the annual clean up of the Marina organized by the Chennai Trekking Club.
Clean up campaigns are great in increasing awareness. They are direct and drive home the point. They show the people the result of the clean up. Volunteers often spend hours removing tonnes of waste and the place looks much cleaner. However they are not practical as a solution to the litter. They would only be useful if people change their behaviour. Often it is distressing to note irresponsible members of the public littering a place within hours after some other citizens have spent many hours cleaning the place voluntarily. There is a disconnect that has to be bridged.
2. Better cleaning by local government: Cleaning operations have improved in India over the last few years. Many local bodies have hired more workers to do the cleaning. Some Indian cities such as Surat in Gujarat have come a long way. Others are only just starting. In Chennai conservancy work as it is called has improved and more workers more shifts have been deployed. These are commendable initiatives and the results are obvious. But more work is yet to be done. Cleaning by city corporations is difficult to maintain if the public does not cooperate. No city corporation can keep up with cleaning if the public continue to litter and engage in other unclean habits. Moreover city employees have to be properly paid and looked after. They have to be given proper equipment and safety gear. Labour is still relatively cheap in India and this could be source of employment for millions of of unskilled people.
3. Source Segregation: Segregation of waste at source has been widely promoted by various actors including local bodies, NGOs and the media. It is indeed a noble effort. Source segregation if properly done will vastly reduce and possibly eliminate the waste that has to be disposed of by the corporations and other municipal bodies. It can even lead to a zero waste city as some claim. All biodegradable waste will be composted, used to produce biofuels or biogas or incinerated to produce electricity. Some countries like Sweden have taken this to great heights. If we can get our population to adopt source segregation to a large extent and we evolve mechanisms to dispose of the segregated waste in a clean and hygienic manner it would be the best solution. But the question is whether this is practical in a country like India, where we are hard pressed to make people drop their waste in a bin in plain sight. At the risk of underestimating our people, we wonder whether source segregation is but an impractical and utopian dream. Greatness is built on visions but our future cannot be built on unrealistic pipe dreams. In any case, if it is to work, source segregation cannot be an elitist endeavour. Yet source segregation has to be encouraged as it has the potential to transform the waste management landscape.
4.Composting: Composting is easy and adds immediate value to waste. All biodegradable waste can be composted and the end products are valuable manure for gardens small and big. Individual homes have to be encouraged to compost and larger communities can do this on a larger scale. When people see value in the compost they will willingly adopt the practice. Municipal bodies can do this on a very large scale but need properly segregated waste. But composting is not without problems. If not properly done it will lead to the infestation of rats and other pests as well as cause a stink and other hygiene issues. People also have to invest time and energy which some might not be willing to do.
5. Waste to Energy Plants: The last Union budget contained provisions for cities to build waste to energy plants. The expectation is that these will create useful energy from waste and will lead to cleaner cities and more power generation at low cost. In Western Europe this has been very successful despite stringent environmental standards to prevent pollution. These have never been very successful in India mainly again due to the lack of proper waste segregation. Moreover there has always been a vocal lobby against these plants. Their reasoning is diverse and sometimes misplaced. Some fear the possible air pollution that might result and others fear loss of employment of rag pickers who eke out a living by digging through piles of waste to pick valuable recyclable material. This is ludicrous as no one should be encouraged to engage in such unsafe and unsanitary work.
6. Organizing rag pickers: Some cities like Pune have tried to organize waste pickers and engage them in waste management in an organized manner. They have achieved some success. If these ragpickers could be rehabilitated to work in the waste management industry in safety and with dignity it would be a win-win situation. The ragpickers would gain steady meaningful employment and society would solve an inhuman practice. Their children would be prohibited from working and living in unhealthy conditions and will get proper schooling.
7. Sanitation: Despite the dismal statistics sanitation standards are improving. Individual adoption of toilets is slowly but steadily gaining ground in rural India. Villages are giving up open defecation in ever increasing numbers. Culturally acceptable and locally appropriate toilet technology is available. It won't be long before we reach a tipping point in this regard and open defecation will be a thing of the past. Public toilets have been notoriously difficult to maintain in India. The public has never been able to use the toilets in a hygienic manner nor has the local government able to maintain these. The reasons are complex including apathy and lack of civic sense. Here too there have been recent improvements. The Namma Toilets coming up across cities in Tamil Nadu makes one cautiously optimistic.
8. Sewage Treatment Plants: The technology for adequate sewage treatment and disposal is widely available in India. Even small organizations have invested in adequate sewage treatment. Larger city corporations have to build adequate capacity. New residential development projects should be mandated to provide adequate sewage disposal facilities. Where connection to a municipal facility is not feasible, they should be forced to build their own. Letting the sewage out into the nearest waterway, as it is now often done, cannot be an option. Greed has a limit in a civilized country.
9. Cleaning water bodies: Recently there have been a number of instances where people have banded together to clean a waterbody. The enthusiasm shown by the people of Coimbatore to clean up Periyakulam was indeed heartwarming to see. Water is life-giving and this is very true in India where water, especially of the clean kind is often scarce. Ancient Indians considered water sacred and protected it. Modern Indians still consider water holy but pollute it without any concern. Yet there is hope. Movements for the protection of our waterbodies are slowly mobilizing and will only get stronger.
10. Waste processing plants: Segregation of waste cannot be the only solution because there will be folks who will never segregate. This is true for any society. We have to build facilities that can process unsegregated waste. Dumping waste in unscientific land fills is not an option. It will be more cumbersome and expensive than processing segregated waste but can be done. It will be labor intensive and the millions of ragpickers rummaging through the mountains of garbage at landfill sites can be engaged in this labor in a dignified and safe environment. As source segregation becomes the norm these plants will evolve accordingly.
So in conclusion there are reasons to hope, but much work to done. For a cleaner India in the near future the general public and governing bodies have to shed their apathy and come together to work in unison. No solution will work for all settings. There will be a variety of solutions. We can build and maintain a clean India and we will.
Jai Hind.
