Essay on Proactive efforts I would undertake to ensure Swachhta in society
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No personal stories here, just answering the question about what you should be doing. When it comes to trash, I am a big believer in prevention is better than cure.
Take responsibility for the trash you generate!
Organic waste - Compost your wet waste. Your wet waste contributes to 60% of your city's trash, and makes up most of the weight of the collected garbage. So just by redirecting all of it into composting, you can make a sizable difference.
If you own land adjacent to your residence, create a compost pit and compost in batches. Use soil and/or dry leaves to cover up "fresh" wet waste. Use vermicomposting to speed up the process.If you do not own land, compost in containers. Check out products like Daily Dump for simple solutions to composting in apartments. We know that composting can even be done in simple cardboard boxes. It's just a matter of using enough dry matter, and keeping enough aeration to speed up composting.Utilize your compost either by donating it to nearby nurseries or gardens, or else just grow your own food in buckets, by growing it directly in the fertile compost. To learn more about growing food in all kinds of space availability in cities, check out Green Souls*, or attend one of their workshops. Learn more about permaculture.
Inorganic waste - Reduce, if not, then Reuse, if not, then Recycle
From my answer to Why don't people in India believe in waste recycling?:
The three R's of dealing with inorganic waste are in a specific order for a reason.
Reduce - is the most effective strategy in dealing with waste. Reducing the need for creating products that will become waste requires tremendous foresight and systemic policy changes. Examples of this are - selling grains, spices, etc by the weight, like we've been doing in India for centuries, and the west is now catching up, by making this "cool" in "conscious" grocery stores like Whole Foods that are also very profitable businesses. Also, previous generations reduce the need for plastic bags by using cloth bags for shopping, another trend that is popular in the west.Reuse - is the next line of attack. If a product is needed and is likely to contribute to trash, let's try to avoid letting it become trash, and let's keep it in productive use. Examples of this are - old fashioned notions of reusing everything from plastic bags to mineral water bottles, not creating food waste and consuming leftovers, passing down clothes from the older sibling to the younger ones, etc. This needs a measure of austerity that is unheard of in a super-consumerist society, and India is aspiring to be one. The biggest advantage India carries in a global economy and the biggest draw for other countries is the huge untapped market of consumers.Recycle - this is the last option, if others are exhausted. Recycling uses up energy and resources, increasing the carbon footprint. Thus it is obvious why it's the least holistic option. There is a lot of innovation going on in the recycling domain that I know of - Indians with entrepreneurial spirit who have never seen the inside of a B-school tackling problems head on. However, as in any industry, there is a push back from vested interests, whose business model these might disrupt.
Recycling to scale also relies a lot on waste segregation. This is finding takers in cities at the level of individual households, but there is no incentive for the other parties involved to make this measure a success. Waste collection in big cities is often contracted out, and the payment paradigm encourages dumping when it needs to encourage waste segregation till the end of the chain.
Littering - don't indulge in it yourself, and don't tolerate it in others. Speak up whenever you can, and stop others. Get rid of the shame associated with asking othersnot to litter, and transfer that shame on to the litterer.
From my answer to What is the best way to promote Swachh Bharat Abhiyan?:
The best way to get an Indian to care about something is to attach a degree of social shaming to it.
This fact was well understood by a production company tasked with making ads for promoting the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan (Clean India Initiative), and they came up with a hilarious and effective ad.
What a great ad! Whenever someone litters, the bystanders start a slow clap. So practical and simple to implement, and can really bring about a change in social conditioning. Hopefully, bystanders enjoy the public shaming of the newest bakraenough to join in the applause. Hopefully the garbage-creator turns red in embarrassment, mutters an apology, and cleans up his mess.
Ultimately, we as common citizens have to make responsible waste management a social mandate, because all the money in the world, all the social media campaigns, and all the Instagram selfies can't substitute actual sincere human intent and effort.
Take responsibility for the trash you generate!
Organic waste - Compost your wet waste. Your wet waste contributes to 60% of your city's trash, and makes up most of the weight of the collected garbage. So just by redirecting all of it into composting, you can make a sizable difference.
If you own land adjacent to your residence, create a compost pit and compost in batches. Use soil and/or dry leaves to cover up "fresh" wet waste. Use vermicomposting to speed up the process.If you do not own land, compost in containers. Check out products like Daily Dump for simple solutions to composting in apartments. We know that composting can even be done in simple cardboard boxes. It's just a matter of using enough dry matter, and keeping enough aeration to speed up composting.Utilize your compost either by donating it to nearby nurseries or gardens, or else just grow your own food in buckets, by growing it directly in the fertile compost. To learn more about growing food in all kinds of space availability in cities, check out Green Souls*, or attend one of their workshops. Learn more about permaculture.
Inorganic waste - Reduce, if not, then Reuse, if not, then Recycle
From my answer to Why don't people in India believe in waste recycling?:
The three R's of dealing with inorganic waste are in a specific order for a reason.
Reduce - is the most effective strategy in dealing with waste. Reducing the need for creating products that will become waste requires tremendous foresight and systemic policy changes. Examples of this are - selling grains, spices, etc by the weight, like we've been doing in India for centuries, and the west is now catching up, by making this "cool" in "conscious" grocery stores like Whole Foods that are also very profitable businesses. Also, previous generations reduce the need for plastic bags by using cloth bags for shopping, another trend that is popular in the west.Reuse - is the next line of attack. If a product is needed and is likely to contribute to trash, let's try to avoid letting it become trash, and let's keep it in productive use. Examples of this are - old fashioned notions of reusing everything from plastic bags to mineral water bottles, not creating food waste and consuming leftovers, passing down clothes from the older sibling to the younger ones, etc. This needs a measure of austerity that is unheard of in a super-consumerist society, and India is aspiring to be one. The biggest advantage India carries in a global economy and the biggest draw for other countries is the huge untapped market of consumers.Recycle - this is the last option, if others are exhausted. Recycling uses up energy and resources, increasing the carbon footprint. Thus it is obvious why it's the least holistic option. There is a lot of innovation going on in the recycling domain that I know of - Indians with entrepreneurial spirit who have never seen the inside of a B-school tackling problems head on. However, as in any industry, there is a push back from vested interests, whose business model these might disrupt.
Recycling to scale also relies a lot on waste segregation. This is finding takers in cities at the level of individual households, but there is no incentive for the other parties involved to make this measure a success. Waste collection in big cities is often contracted out, and the payment paradigm encourages dumping when it needs to encourage waste segregation till the end of the chain.
Littering - don't indulge in it yourself, and don't tolerate it in others. Speak up whenever you can, and stop others. Get rid of the shame associated with asking othersnot to litter, and transfer that shame on to the litterer.
From my answer to What is the best way to promote Swachh Bharat Abhiyan?:
The best way to get an Indian to care about something is to attach a degree of social shaming to it.
This fact was well understood by a production company tasked with making ads for promoting the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan (Clean India Initiative), and they came up with a hilarious and effective ad.
What a great ad! Whenever someone litters, the bystanders start a slow clap. So practical and simple to implement, and can really bring about a change in social conditioning. Hopefully, bystanders enjoy the public shaming of the newest bakraenough to join in the applause. Hopefully the garbage-creator turns red in embarrassment, mutters an apology, and cleans up his mess.
Ultimately, we as common citizens have to make responsible waste management a social mandate, because all the money in the world, all the social media campaigns, and all the Instagram selfies can't substitute actual sincere human intent and effort.
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