Survival amid stench
We need to clear the clutter at the basic level before moving into higher realms

By Meha Mathur
How does a person maintain himself? To make a judgment don’t look at his face but at his feet. How does a lady maintain her house? Don’t make an assessment looking just at the drawing room. Toilet and kitchen upkeep are better pointers. Similarly, how hygienic and aesthetic a society are we? Don’t go by our manicured parks and swanky
shopping areas. Look at the garbage piles.

For all the progress we claim to have made as a country as a society, garbage disposal and drain clearance gives the game away. We have invested billions in making our presence felt in the Space, but refrain from taking any initiative for an organised, cohesive garbage management system that could improve the sight and smell of our cities. We now boast of plush Penthouses in Belvedere Park, Pent Houses in Great Lakes Apartments. But even though we have borrowed these modern names from the West, we stop when it comes to garbage disposal rules followed in every American and West European home since many decades — that of keeping two dustbins at home, discarding degradable waste like peels in one bin and nondegradable waste like bottles in another bins, thus making easier the task of segregation of waste. And to use the old example, we insist on keeping our home and front lane swanky clean, but look the other way if the back lane is emitting foul smell or if the drainage in the next lane is clogged thanks to polypacks our household help has dumped there.

This perhaps has to do with the quintessentially Indian hatred of filth, and our inhibition in cleaning it. To say that public sanitation is a non-issue, that Indians are used to living with it, is being off the mark. Our emphasis on the daily sweeping-mopping testifies to our finickiness about cleanliness. Why would we not demand cleanliness in public spaces and on roads when we appreciate it at home? It’s more a result of some very strange notions of cleanliness, purity and pollution. It’s something like: ‘My hands need to remain pollution-free, the flush button could be polluted, so I will not flush before leaving the toilet.’

It’s also a result of our ‘I-me-myself’ mindframe, coupled with ‘chalta hai’ attitude. Once the garbage has left my home, it’s none of my concerns. Such is the height of apathy that we don’t even want to admit, for simple laziness, that stench-free atmosphere is our right. For the bijli-paani problems, we take to streets, block traffic and beat up government staff. But I have never heard of a demonstration over garbage issue.

Appalling and unbearable as the condition of Indian cities is becoming, garbage management is one taboo area among Indians. Indians are fanning out in every possible area, coming out with new ideas and encashing them, but only a handful have dared to enter this beat. Interestingly, it’s a mountain of opportunity waiting out there. Clubbing your scientific understanding with a business idea could turn out to be a winning proposition, and could usher in a new wave altogether. You could think of a new way to recycle batteries, which leak out into soil and underground water and cause immense harm. You could think of producing special material for dustbins, which, while being leak resistant, is biodegradable. Or you could think of faster decomposition of waste matter. Or you could think of a revenue model, tie up with various companies and send them back their empty packs.

IT sector might become saturated in a few years’ time, but the management of software refuse is an unexplored territory, not yet opened up in India.