Some hope please? AKA "My rant"

I was just wondering whether anyone can make me feel better about the apparent direction India is heading. I knew it would be dirty and crowded etc, but what gets me is the rubbish. Everywhere there is rubbish. I thought on the plains and along the ganges and in the cities was bad enough, almost understandable considering the population and apparent lack of waste disposal infrastructure. But here i am in the lovely mountains and even with relatively moderate population and such amzing natural beauty, all the waterfalls, creeks, forests, paths and streets are clogged with rubbish, and it makes my heart sink. I have talked to some indians about it, and they agree there is a problem, as they toss there plastic chai cup over the cliff. I read somewhere on this site a while ago about how the people are too concerned with survival to think about rubbish but i don't believe that for a second. Sure the government has a big part to play in helping the situation but every individual has a responsibility to sustain his/her own environment and the state of this environment is disgraceful and ugly and shameful. Maybe we can organise a "clean up India" week, or maybe decade, but of course we need somewhere to put the new mount everest of rubbish! BAN non biodegradeble plastic bags, BAN pre packaged silverfoil satchets like pan and other products, BAN disposable chai cups (earthenware taste better anyway, BAN littering!!! Ahh I feel better now..

there is also a realisation among most indians that the rubbish you see is someone elses livelihood. all those plastic and bottles are collected and sold by some poor child/family.

But i see your point. In india people will clean their front rooms/verandahs and kitchens thoroughly. their clothes will be battered to an inch of their lives to get the dirt out and they will all take regula baths, but ask them to keep their toilets clean and they will look at you as if you are mad. So a nice house will have a rank toilet. why i ask?

No, I'm afraid there is no hope. You have answered your own question... there is no problem, and, if there is, it is someone else's.

Sorry.

That's a terrible habit that unfortunately isn't confined to India only. Most third world counties I've visited have similar problems. I've spent alot of time in Central America and people throw crap out the bus windows all the time. Plastic bags, bottles, you name it.
But one thing about India is that they recycle alot of trash. If there's a way to make a rupee off of some garbage then alot of poor Indians do that. Alot of people live off of recycling.

Imagine the garbage that could be without these people.

I felt the same way in Kodaikanal hills.

Sikkim has outlawed plastic bags.

I read somewhere on this site a while ago about how the people are too concerned with survival to think about rubbish but i don't believe that for a second.


Mate are you in for a culture shock!!!
still, its still the best place I would go for a holiday
Watch the people cleaning the street in para Gangh the sweep the crap to the next shop then someone in the next shop pays them to sweep it away from their shop...which just hapens to be the next shop and so on and so on. very enterprising

The great Laloo promised to outlaw plastic cups on the trains and buy the clay pot ones.......... has it happened?

Would be great if it did.

I think there is hope! Organisations and small enterprises such as Conserve India are doing a great job re-using plastic waste.

Check out this site

http://www.conserveindia.org/main.php

See at the top of their page what a vast range of products they manufacture, bags, shoes, belts etc, and all made of plastic bags picked form the garbage!

I saw something about it on CNN or BBC, can't remember where, and they even sell them in London high fashion stores, where a handbag sells for 40 Pounds! They are really beautiful. And the Indians who collect the bags and wash them etc are paid well.

I'm sure there are more enterprises such as this one, and that they will continue to prosper.

( I just registered on IM...cannot recall my former IM name from last year!)

I'm Indian and get laughed at all the time when I carry my trash back home to dispose of. Can't help thinking what the OP thinks: there really is no hope.

I've travelled to many countries. While they are not perfect ( exporting e-waste/garbage ain't good), I shudder at the attitude here - "it's not my problem, we use servants - it's their *job* to clean after us"

Coincidentally, I was reading about this very thing the other day, on the London India High Commission web site.

If you want to see what the garbage turns into, see The India Shop!

When we were in Goa last year there was a big display in the park in Panjim where people were getting organized to create awareness. There was a huge plastic mountain in the middle made up of water bottles. We spoke to the organizer and it was really great to see the awareness that was going on. Again, I believe this is one of the richest states (and one of the cleanest) and therefore now can focus on the environment. I also know that in Ottawa we have a recycling program and that the plastic bags that were disposed of were sent to India and China! It contributed to our feeling good about using plastic (it gets recycled, when in fact it actually goes to a poor country with it's own waste problems) but did nothing to solve the problem. When this was made public plastic bags were no longer "recycled" and now people are encouraged not to use plastic. Arg.

Laloo and his clique live in million dollar mansions and travel free on government planes: some distance from clay potters. They must have been going by their childhood memories. In the meantime, while these guys were running crime gangs in Bihar, most of those potters, who once used to make simple cups, had discovered newer markets and more profitable uses of their skills: complex decorated and often emporium quality pieces.

I think the plan was quietly shelved when Laloo discovered that there weren't enough clay cups produced to meet the need. Besides, he had already received all the publicity he might have hoped to receive.

Why not paper/cardboard cups?

Railways do use paper cups but those are mass produced and an announcement about helping poor clay potters must have seemed better politics to Laloo (the railways minister). Probably was.

However, he forgot to consult the potters themseves and it turned out they weren't suffciently interested.