Heaps of waste are not uncommon in India. One can easily feel the stench from the waste heap before seeing it. These heaps are gaining height and so are the number of diseases. Every house produces garbage, rubbish and other kinds of waste that needs to be disposed off properly. It is easier to throw the waste around your house and hope that it will vanish by some magic. But is that the right thing to do? Are we doing justice to our society by throwing away waste that we produce? This article is going to be a must read for those persons who are unaware of their waste disposal duties. You should read this article even if you think that you know how to dispose waste properly
Waste management has 3 main components which are :-
- Storage
- Collection
- Final Disposal
Methods of proper waste management differs from area to area. In urban areas where people live in congested buildings, lack of land becomes a major issue for self waste disposal. In such areas the governing bodies should make proper arrangements for waste collection and disposal. In rural India, there is no waste collection or disposal system provided by the governing bodies and hence it would be better if every house owner disposes of their own waste by following the simple method explained below.
The first thing to do is to segregate the wastes from your household. This can be easily done if you store plastic and other non biodegradable wastes in a separate steel container. These should not be mixed with the biodegradable wastes (kitchen waste, left over food, paper, rotten vegetables). This is very important and should be strictly followed in every household. You can dispose the plastic wastes in public bins (if any) or give them away for recycling. The segregation is applicable to both rural as well as urban population.
Garbage includes all the waste produced from the preparation and cooking of food. This kind of waste should be disposed off quickly because if they are kept for long, it will attract flies and bacterias will start acting on them and ferment them. Garbages from every household should be disposed off at the household level itself. This can be done by digging Manure Pits.
Dig up 2 pits in your backyard which is at least 2 metres deep and 1.5 metres wide. If you don’t have that much space in your household, you may make the pits smaller. Fill the first pit with all the garbage, dead leaves, animal waste (if any), and all the biodegradable waste that you can collect from your house. Cover the pit with a layer of earth which is about 30 cms thick. You may use the other pit to dump the daily household waste after you have closed the first pit. This method of waste disposal is called as Composting and is a very easy and effective method. Bacteria will act on the waste inside the pit and convert it into manure within 6 months. You can sell the manure if you don’t use it for agriculture purposes. The second pit should be closed when it is filled with daily waste.
In Urban areas, digging up pits to dispose waste is not a practical solution. If there is space in your backyard, just do it.
Waste collection in urban areas are done by thousands of sweepers employed by the Municipality or the concerned governing body. Public waste bins are becoming a rare thing in these days and they are always piled up. There is no effective waste collection system in India as of now and this needs to be changed. Kolkata, one of the metro cities in India uses the Dumping method to dispose the city’s waste. Dumping is one of the most unhygienic and inefficient method which has been rightly condemned by the World Health Organization. India needs to invest more in Waste Disposal systems to improve the current situation.
The most powerful man in India had to take a broom in his hands to ignite the spark of cleanliness in the minds of us fellow Indians. But, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not succeeded in his “Clean India” mission. The ignorant who are still unaware of their duties of waste disposal continue to do what they have been doing and the literate section of our country are blatantly ignoring their responsibilities to the society even though they are aware of the importance of cleanliness. India is still a developing country with rural villages outnumbering the urban population. There are things that we can and should do to keep our household and community clean. I hope this article has helped you in understanding about proper waste disposal and how we can do it at our households and not blame the Government for the lack of an effective waste management system. I agree, it is the duty of the Government to build effective methods for waste storage, removal, collection and disposal. But that doesn’t mean that we have no responsibilities of our own.
Johny Best segregates his household waste and disposes them properly at his own backyard. Johny Worst on the other hand collects all the waste from his house in a polythene bag, and goes for a walk. He stops at an empty road, whistling casually, throws the bag as far as he can and goes back to his house. Now, the question is… Who are You? Johny Best or Johny Worst?
Image Credit – meaduva
