8/14/2019 Sarathi2009 11 Be the Change

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Be The Change

Satabdi Das

One year back I used to work and live in Noida. And because of frequent pangs of homesickness Iused to travel almost once a month to Kolkata. Earlier it was by flights to save time. But later I

became fond of Rajdhani. The reasons being not only it's cheaper than flights but I found thejourney very comfortable and not at all hectic compared to flights. Just after New Delhi station,there is a stretch of slums which are very carefully tucked away from the public eye in Delhi. Andright after that there is a huge stretch of land filled with heaps of waste - mostly plastic. While itwas very comfortable to sit inside the air-conditioned Rajdhani, sipping your welcome drink andlistening to some classical music playing on the speaker, the passing scenes outside were of sharpcontrast. There we were, travelling in one of the finest trains in the country, totally immune to thefilth outside, sipping a drink from an aluminium foil container and adding further to thatstupendous amount of waste lying outside. And there are those people whose shanties are amidstthat garbage filled area. Their children are growing up with that filth. Soon the scene outsidechanges as Rajdhani gathers speed. But the thought remains. Who generates such huge amount of waste? Surely those poor people cannot because they need to consume in high volume, which theydon’t, to produce that amount waste. It's beyond anyone's doubt that the poor in India, who live onless than Rs 20 a day, do not have the means to consume in large amount. It's people like us who

gift our waste to them.Let's not go into the current social structure of India and the problems faced by those millions whoare living on the margins. Let's focus on ourselves and the eco-footprint that we are keeping behindus. Most of the middle or upper middle class people like to buy vegetables, groceries from the bigbranded shops. And I have very rarely seen people carrying their own bags on such occasions. Iremember my grandfather used to carry cloth or jute bag whenever he used to go to local market.And in a day's vegetable/grocery shopping hardly there used to be any plastic carry bag. But now,everyone uses plastic and it has become one of the big sources of pollution. To talk about our veryown Bangalore, once upon a time this city used to be a garden city, a green city with lots of lakes.Now the lakes are vanishing in a rapid rate in the name of urbanization. The Bellandur Lake nearold Bangalore airport has now been converted into a tank full of stagnant polluted water. The otherlakes Ulsoor, Yediyur, Hebbal lake are also facing danger of similar fate due to pollution. And notonly water pollution, air and land pollution are also killing this green city.

But there's still hope. People are becoming aware gradually. They are taking small steps in theirlives. And that is contributing collectively to the betterment of the city. Reducing use of plasticand use of unnecessary items is a good start towards reducing one's eco-footprint. Many people aredoing basic segregation of biodegradable and non-biodegradable kitchen waste at their respectivehomes. And they are making compost out of their bio-degradable kitchen waste. There's a homecomposting unit called Daily Dump which makes home composting a very easy job. The compost is avery good soil amendment to be used by the gardening enthusiasts. But many people do not haveplants at their places and hence they do not need the compost. Daily Dump, in their case, buysback their compost. Daily Dump has quite an informative website which provides all theinformation needed to start composting at home. They also visit their customers if requested tosolve all the problems related to home composting. I have been using Daily Dump for 8 months andit works fine for me. At the community level also various citizen groups, offices and institutions areputting efforts to manage their waste. Vellore, for example, has quite a few organizations like CMChospital, Vellore Institute of Technology where solid waste management centres are established

inside the campus. These solid waste management centres are self-sustainable and support peoplefrom low income groups. These centres generate revenue from selling non-biodegradable items(like plastics, glass bottles, metal caps etc) and making vermi-compost, bio-gas from bio-degradable waste. The waste management centre at Vellore Institute of Technology particularly ismanaged by physically challenged people who didn't have any other source of income.

The environmentalists say that if the global average temperature increases more than 2 degree Cabove pre-industrial temperatures then there will be catastrophic effects. While we need policylevel changes from Government and more environment-concerning steps taken on big level toprevent that, individual and community level efforts on this front is also highly needed to save theplanet.