So I stay in a condominium in Gurgaon, a fairly new one at that. We shifted about two years ago, and people staying there from earlier, maybe a year before that. My parents finally felt like they belong to a place, and were happy to be active in the community.
My mother had always felt fairly strongly about garbage segregation. Me, not so much, but yes, even as kids in school, we had been taught about the difference between biodegradable and non-biodegradable stuff. At that stage, I did not do any proper research, but instinctively, and probably because it was something which was being taught at school, I did feel that yes, we should try to avoid the non-biodegradable stuff, and switch to biodegradable. For us at home, it was the simple matter of avoiding plastics while buying stuff and carrying a cloth bag instead. At school, we were aware that there was a compost plant, but again, did not really understand the full implication of it. We would ensure that we did not throw any garbage on the roads, and were ok to keep the empty packets in our pockets or in the car till we found a dustbin.
Fast forward a few years. Whenever we traveled to hill stations, I would see packets of chips, or fruit peels, or plastic water bottles, left over food, thrown casually over the edge and on the roads too. If on a road trip from Delhi to the hills, I would spot the famous Delhi landfills, looking as tall as a hill themselves, with predator birds flying over them, and God forbid if you opened the car window, a stench to make you faint. Even at this stage, I did not really understand what was causing all of this, and really did no research as to what could be done to prevent it.
Fast forward again to last year, when my mother finally decided to take up garbage segregation in the society, along with a few other residents, who really felt for the cause. I did not really think much about it, but the society came up with a mandate, and I was also led to understand that there were laws coming up in the city for the same, and since the actual execution of it at the household level wasn't really all that difficult, it did not seem like something which I could not do. Perhaps I was doing it at that point primarily because it had to be done. After all, how difficult was it to segregate garbage three ways?
1. Green bin (which was all your kitchen waste)
2. Blue bin- all your dry waste like paper and plastic (and yes, it included the used milk packets if they were properly rinsed out)
3. Red Bin- household hazardous waste. all your sanitary waste like sanitary napkins and diapers, medical waste like expired medicines, syringes etc, broken glass, the dust which your maid sweeps up with the jhadu, and so on.
Really not that difficult to do, there are three different bins in the house, and once you get the hang of it, really easy to just go to the relevant bin and discard it. And so as a family, we started segregating the garbage as per the norms.
My mom and a group of volunteers did door to door campaigns to educate other people. Now this was where it started getting somewhat disturbing. There were people who said they were already doing it (thumbs up to them). There were those who tried to understand the concept, did it for a month, and then somehow lapsed back to mixing their garbage. And then there were those who outright refused to do it. Positive reinforcement wasn't working. Housekeeping not clearing their unsegregated garbage wasn't working. Talking about penalty wasn't working either.
At this stage, I also started to try and understand why this was really necessary, and urged my mom that people may perhaps understand better if they knew the why, and not just the what.
Instinctively, I could understand the basics. Hazardous waste like sanitary napkins needed to be separated because it sickened me to think that those poor rag pickers actually ended up touching the soiled napkins and diapers in order to see what was wrapped in the newspaper (where it was being used). We barely want to touch these things when we use them or our babies do, and here we were ok with that poor man touching it. If he/she knew that a certain category of waste was hazardous to begin with, just imagine the improvement in his/her hygienic condition.
The rest of it, I must admit, I also did not understand. So finally, there was a session which was organized by this one NGO that's spearheading the cause in Gurgaon. Key points which were my takeaway:
1. At present, all the mixed garbage is being dumped into the landfills at various places. The amount of garbage daily is expected to be anywhere between 800 and 1000 tonnes (this is only Gurgaon). And since it's all mixed, the only solution which people find to get rid of them is to burn them all together. Imagine, plastics, paper, biodegradable, hazardous, all getting burnt together. The level of pollution it causes.
2. About 60% of this garbage (probably even more) is the waste which is actually generated in our kitchens. Vegetable/fruit peels, tea leaves, leftover cooked food (we recycle even that in our meals, but I am aware there are many households which do not like to consume leftover food, and throw it out. Won't even get into the debate of why it needs to be thrown out instead of say feeding it to the poor, especially given the high food prices which we keep cribbing about), egg peels,meat bones (again not getting into the veg vs non-veg debate), etc. First of all, the sheer quantum of this food waste was something I just did not anticipate. Secondly, I was not aware that about 80-85% of this was purely water. Which meant that if this waste was turned into compost, we could reasonably expect to get 15-20% of the weight as manure. My mom once mentioned that just in our society, we generate about 800kg of wet waste every day. Imagine, 100-150 kg of manure being generated per day (yes, I understand it's a very slow process because nature needs its time, I am talking about what can happen a year down the line). And guess what, the government is actually also willing to purchase this manure from the bulk producers of waste. So yes, you not only reduce the waste going to landfills, you make money out of it.
3. All the dry waste is capable of being recycled (not just paper, but plastics too). And you know something, a single bag of plastic requires about 20 litres of water to be made, whereas recycling it takes probably 1/3rd the amount. So when we say no to single use plastics, we are actually also conserving water, something which is already so scarce. It was advocated that we use steel plates for functions instead of disposables, to which someone had asked that what about the water being used to wash those dishes. Do the math yourself- 20 litres of to create one plastic plate vs maybe 1/2 a litre of water to wash that steel plate.
4. A lot of brands are now actually using recycled plastic to create their products. Apparently some brands of backpacks are actually all recycled plastic. Never knew that, but respect
5. Clean milk packets can be recycled if they are not damaged from the corners.
6. Tea leaves and egg shells if dried out and crushed are excellent manure, you can use them at your house for your own plants.
7. Electronic waste is a separate waste category altogether, and includes both electrical and electronic goods. Things like old batteries can actually be recycled.
Just do the basic maths. Out of your total garbage, 60% was used as manure, which helps in the long term greenery (and thus also helps us out with our dusty atmosphere, poor rainfall and so on). Of the remaining 40%, probably at least half can get recycled. Which leaves us with a relatively smaller percentage of garbage finally going to landfills, not stinking, because it is the moisture in the wet waste which adds to the stench. While the 20% of garbage is still a lot, still imagine the huge impact we will be having on the environment, on our general well being, and on the well being of those poor rag pickers, if we take such a basic step of segregating our garbage.
The mantra is simple- reduce your garbage where you can, reuse it where you can't, and recycle whatever you can.
Let's do our small bit for this planet we call home, and leave a a worthwhile legacy for our future generations.
PS: As part of the Swacch Bhart Mission, this is also now a mandate, with states coming up with their by-laws, and penalties will also be in place for those who do not comply.
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