Cleanliness - Whose job is it anyway?

This Sunday - October 2, 2016 - marks the 147th birth anniversary of the father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi. But even more significantly for us, it also marks the second anniversary of the formation of our volunteer group - We Mean To Clean. These two years have seen us go through various ups, and some downs; we have swelled in our number - but still only a small army on the ground. This sinusoidal journey has brought along with it a lot of insight on how to make our city clean - and in an attempt at sharing some of that insight, here we enlist some of the challenges we have faced over this time, as well as proposed solutions to those problems:

1. Littering

Littering is probably the most well-known and visible problem of them all - widely discussed, but very rarely acted upon. The most common excuse that we have heard from people littering in general is that there is no dustbin nearby - it is as if the lack of a dustbin in their vicinity automatically rids them of any responsibility towards maintaining cleanliness. A basic habit - of holding on to your waste, be it cigarette stubs, packets of chips or soft drink cans - goes a long way in helping this city move towards achieving a cleaner appearance. 

2. Posters, Public Urination and Paan Stains - Defaced walls

There is an unending list of boundary walls - near metro stations, flea markets and even schools at times - that have been absolutely smothered by posters of coaching centers, political parties and job requirements. Over time, we have observed a very important correlation - walls vandalised in this manner are the ones which will be unabashedly used by the public urinators and the paan spitters. It is as if the posters signify neglect - and that neglect is sufficient persuasion for them to justify further defacing the wall as something that is akin to throwing a matchstick into a volcano. To reclaim the walls of this city is a problem that has a multi-fold solution, but the first step is to begin removing these signs of neglect from them.
 

3. Single-Use Plastic Bags

A number of attempts by the state government to impose plastic bans have all found themselves locked in litigation - the Honourable High Court of Delhi will be hearing arguments for and against a proposed ban on plastic soon; regardless of the outcome of that case, a culture of non-use of plastic must be inculcated in this city. In our attempts at spreading awareness about the hazards of plastic use, we conducted drives at East Delhi's Dabri Mor fruit market - there it became evident very soon that what is lacking is not the awareness - most people, in fact, were better versed with the alarming statistics associated with plastic use than even us - but the the will to refuse the plastic bags - pannis, as they are colloquially called - handed out to them by the sellers.

Any initiative that promotes holding on to plastic - using it as much as possible and eventually recycling it - is the need of the hour. The Delhi Government could do well to emulate one such scheme introduced very recently by the Kerala state administration - of buying waste plastic from citizens and recycling it to build roads.

4. Solid Waste Management

It is absolutely inconceivable that any world class city will have a mountain of garbage giving off an absolutely unbearable stench right beside its busiest border. We’ve ourselves visited the site only to get a rude shock about the state of people living around that area. The words 'ticking pollution bomb' have been used all too frequently for the Ghazipur landfill site and yet, there is absolutely no sense of urgency in our citizens, and indeed the administration, to come up with some sort of solution to the problem.

The crippled solid waste management architecture of this city can be dramatically overhauled institutionally - but those measures can be supplemented by a single step that the community must begin to take immediately - Waste segregation at source. Separating the organic waste from the non-biodegradable; composting all the organic waste generated in one residential colony, and eventually giving away the least possible waste to the municipal corporation to handle are all steps that - even though few and far between - are being taken at various places. The sense of urgency that has compelled residents to take action at some places needs to be spread as far as possible.

On Oct 2 - we will be getting together to do all of the above - educating people about littering, collaborating with the MCD to reclaim a site converted to a garbage dumping spot, ask the people around to minimize their plastics usage and discuss with them methods to reduce their waste generation - in our attempt to tell those around that cleanliness is also our job, anyway!

You’re also welcome to join us on Oct 2. For more details please visit: http://bit.ly/Shramdaan02Oct16