WASTE DISPOSAL & MANAGEMENT-Kerala Style

Hundred percent literacy has made the people of Keral among many things, aware of the dangers of solid waste being generated by this consumeristic, hypocritic majority. So the best way to dispose the waste is to thorw them along the highways or waterways in big bags or throw these to wherever it is convenient, when no one is watching. These pics are of the wastes being thrown into a small branch of an irrigation canal and as the flow has been reduced tons of items like these are there all along.Are the people very much aware of waste 'disposal'- the daily washing ,neatly dressed,politically highstrung,educated people of Kerala where alcohol consumption among other things make them very spirited.

Just like every other person in India, people in Kerala think 'As long as the trash is not in my house, I am good. Don't care where it goes after I chuck it out of my window or balcony'

It's a massive problem sure enough, exacerbated by dogs, cows, monkeys and other and other scavengers.

India badly needs to stimulate civic pride in it's population. And provide the necessary infrastructure to deal with ever increasing piles of consumerist garbage.

It can't be denied that India has a big rubbish problem but there are small signs that some people an state governments are coming to terms with the issue.
For example in Cochin there are numerous neighbourhood schemes where for about Rs50 a month your rubbish (which you have separated into vegetable matter and other items will be collected daily and your road swept clean. Where we stay there are no more piles of rotting waste at the end of the road. The vegetable matter is taken to a biomass digester to be converted into gas/electricity. Several guys come each week and collect plastic bottles, glass, paper and cardboard. This has resulted in the area being much cleaner than say 4 years ago. Thin plastic bags are banned and increasingly shops provide recycled paper bags. In Kerala it is now against the law to dump rubbish bags by the roadside and the police have nabbed people who break this law. Grey water channels are being cleaned and I know of a pond that was so full of rubbish you could not tell it was a pond but is now being cleaned and 'beautified'.
These schemes appear to have come into being because people were fed up up with walking near stinking piles of rubbish and the rats that they attracted. Sure there is a hell of a way to go before things are approaching clean but it is a start and should be encouraged. Given time the dumping rubbish will be considered antisocial and hopefully you will see an improvement.

Thats good new clive I was really dismayed by the state of Cochin the second time I went there.

Check out www.mountaincleaners.org, and "The Ugly Indian" page on facebook for other reasons to smile.

I agree that educated people should know better than to trash the environment. It seems to be a problem endemic to India, though, and unrelated to education. Nor is it a problem specific to Kerala.

No one anywhere seems to give a damn, even about cultural monuments. At Uparkot Fort, Junagadh, there are two wells, Navghan Kuvo (said in some accounts to be the first stepwell in India) and Adi Kadi Vav (a longlong stairway down to a cylindrical well) that are engineering wonders for the country to be proud of. Both are used as rubbish dumps – and not by the locals, who have no occasion to be up at this touristic site, but by the very tourists who have come to marvel at the greatness of their own country.


Navghan Kuvo, Uparkot Fort, Junagadh, Gujarat



Adi Kadi Vav, Uparkot Fort, Junagadh, Gujarat



Adi Kadi Vav close-up


Innocent that I am (even though I come from a country that is no slouch about making a mess of the environment), I approached the bottom of this well expecting to walk out onto the dry, if litter-strewn, floor of the well to take a photo toward the sky and the rim of the well. I was so intent on looking up that I almost failed to notice the "dry" floor was a deep pool of water utterly hidden by floating rubbish.

And by the way, alcohol has nothing to do with the problem either – Gujarat is a dry state.

Come on now - don't tell me gujarati's aren't as bad a bunch of drunks as anybody when they get half a chance

It's called Diu, dear.

Same in Bundi, lovely twin Baori full of trash, it's tragic.

You can as well call it WASTE DISPOSAL & MANAGEMENT-Indian Style. Every Indian irrespective of place, age, education yada yada has this compulsive urge to throw something somewhere at regular intervals. This is real 'unity in diversity'!

Indians have a lot to cover before they can even start to comprehend the meaning of clean outdoors.. For now it is an impossible task with 150 crores of people happily throwing the garbage all around.

For us, India is a one big dump and we have learnt to survive side by side with the garbage without any prejudices or hate.

doesn't look any different from any other place I've been to in India.... unfortunately!

I agree a hundred percent to what you say. But the people of Kerala are said to be generally more educated and aware and what surprises me is the per head quantity of wastes being generated here. So much of "packed everything" is bought by people here and you have to see to believe how much of polythene covers are thrown around. I have not seen so much of waste in so small a place as we see in Kerala.