Kerala witnessed some early signs of change in 2016. Some welcome changes, some fraught with repercussions. Society will be watching if these signals become a trend in days ahead. It can be a boon or bane depending on how state tackles them.
As a community, known to be clean-conscious, we have quite strangely messed up our handling of discards so much that the State Government had to actually float a major campaign flagship project for reinstating the paradigm back into the minds of the people- Haritha Keralam under Nava Kerala Mission. But that is today’s story, and it is a story that may eventually end up as another well-meaning but miserably tragic one. And that is because the script could soon be rewritten by skeptics of this State – the elite, upward and west-moving Malayali, contributing so much to global thinking, but stuck with local inaction!
Nevertheless, even in this bleak scenario of inaction, we have a few islands of hope –initiatives of the Suchithva Mission or an Alapuzha waste management process getting global recognition or the post-Alapuzha attempts of a passionate economist Finance Minister (Dr Thomas Isaac) and team trying to build a campaign around waste. Harita Keralam is an offshoot of this movement. Studies show how waste burning emissions even induce behavioral changes and sex ratio shifts among population. Burning some kinds of plastic or chlorinated paper (most of which is so), even produces dioxins, known to be the most toxic of compounds that can cause cancer or even painful ailments like endometriosis.
Families that mindlessly burn the garbage are clearly perpetuators of a crime. This practice could easily be contaminating many a “healthy” life. Haven’t you heard many a cancer patient asking this question? “I have never drunk or smoked, I eat only from home, I have always lived a careful life, and yet I got this cancer, why?” Probably because you have a whole lot of neighbours who are either “indifferent” or “sneaky” or worst, “burning” the waste!
Obviously that is not the only way we get cancer, but it is surely one of the ways. What we do to our Nature, we eventually do to ourselves. I wish to believe Harita Keralam comes as a last push to change. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said it is not another Government pogramme, it is a citizens’ programme. And that also means that there is a lot more for us, as citizens to take up and do.
The “indifferent” and the “sneaky” ones need to be really worried. The law demands segregation, composting-at-source, and where this is not possible, clearly helping setup collective systems or joining the corporations or service providers systems and also paying for it. Converting Nature to garbage cannot be allowed anymore – be it governments, corporates, communities, families or individuals.
R Sridar (Author heads NGO, Thanal) email : mail.thanal@gmail.com Follow me @sridhar67
The conscious
Bala and Jaya’s family practises segregation. They are part of a residential association in Vattiyoorkkavu. Paper, plastic and other recyclables are separately collected from each room, as a practice in the house, and all fruit, vegetable and kitchen food waste have separate bins. The family is passionate about its garden and hence the organic waste (which incidentally constitutes 70 percent of the waste) is composted.
Recyclables and disposables are turned over to a nearby discards shop (in Malayalam “akkri kada”), sometimes directly and sometimes as a collective effort of the residential association. Some of the discards get good returns, and some the association gives away for free. Now, this residential area is more “conscious” and hence does not burn waste, and makes sure that the akkri kada periodically collects discards and sends them for recycling.
The indifferent
Ranjan & Janaki, both Government servants, live in Kowdiar and are members of a residential association. But they have no time, or so they feel. Sanitation activities of segregation and proper disposal do not get priority. They have bins to collect waste, but their household- parents, two children and a grandmother-simply disposes of all discards into the bin. This mixed waste then gets tied up in a neat little plastic cover, and the household awaits the “waste picker women”, mostly from Kudumbasree, to arrive. This “waste bag” is then handed over to the women. For the family, the story ends there.
We also observe that it is mostly the women in the household, who are called in to hand over the bag to the waste picker woman! Men are sacredly spared of this dirty job! Now where does this waste bag travel? From women, it gets into a little push cart, and from there to a corner of a side road where all the colorful bags from various “indifferent” households get piled. The women then untie/tear open bags. Then comes the dirty job; mixed waste segregation. Because the Corporation’s aerobic compost bins can only handle organic waste, and the rest has to be sent to recycling collection yards. At the yards, recyclables come so dirty, simply get tied up in big bags, and stay there awaiting the recycling agency to take away. Then? Imagine the plight of the hapless ones who have to open these bags, clean the plastic and other discards and get them ready for recycling. All the while, this family, feigning ignorance of the mess, goes about as everything is hunky-dory.
The sneaky
Mr & Mrs X (seriously I don’t want to give names for sneaky people) are not citizens, in the literal sense. Let us say they live near Pattoor in the heart of Thiruvananthapuram. Why Pattoor? Because it carries an important artery of the city, in a beautiful little stream, which to the short memory is a waste stream! And this stream is the unfortunate sink for all those colourful waste bags of a lot of sneaky families, shops and showrooms. Now the family of Mr X actually does not think about waste at all. The family has a bin to dump anything and everything- fruits, vegetable peels, food waste, plastic, paper, cloth and bottles. When this bin is full, or more often, when the bin starts to stink, Mrs X complains and Mr X (now this is a man’s job) ties it all into a big plastic bag and waits for the right time. Dark, and the traffic is low. The waste bag travels in a car, and as the car nears the bridge over the stream, it slows down and the white big bag flies out of the window and plunges into the stream.
For the family of Mr X, the story ends there. But for the hapless stream, it is just a daily story, which has been happening for years, probably since the arrival of the plastic bag. Along with this probably the “sneaky” families also grew in number. Now this family, a well-educated one, obviously knows well, probably even speaks about the hazards of this act, but that is where the catch is. The Sneaky are least bothered about it! There are also a few more dangerous variants – like the “Burning families” who are in to the traditional practice of burning all their waste, little knowing that today’s products and hence discards have such a lot of hazardous compounds, and the smoke emanating from them can cause serious pulmonary disorders, skin diseases, endocrine disruptions, neurological disorders and even cancers.
Home sweet home, help Mom
I belong to Ambalapuzha and my house is situated on roughly an acre. Whenever I am at home, I help my mother Shobha Nair in segregating the garbage in to food waste, plastic and non-recyclables. Since we have a garden, which also includes a small vegetable farm, we dump the food waste in a pit and convert it to manure. Fortunately newspaper waste can be burned. Over the last several years, we have reduced the use of plastic. Still we dig a pit and dump all the plastic. Since the pit is on the farthest corner of our house, we do not face any issues from the plastic dump.
Unfortunately Thakazhi panchayat, where we belong, is not proactive on garbage disposal. Plastic disposal is a huge headache there like in most other panchayats. I have always wondered why authorities do not use plastic for road tarring as seen in Bengaluru and other metros. Of course, plastic roads have been initiated in the State, but not as widespread as seen in other neighbouring States. We have enough and more plastic for roads. For now, it is a menace.
For the last several years, I have been a resident of Thiruvananthapuram city. As I pursue my Masters in Psychology at the Government College for Women, I stay at a paying guest accommodation in Kowdiar. Here my land owner, Latha aunty, does the same thing as we do in Ambalapuzha. But a woman comes to pick plastic waste once a week. Though I am yet to see her, I have always wondered where she must be dumping the plastic waste. It’s a cause of concern not only to me. All city folks must be wondering where all the plastic goes!
(Actor Gauthami Nair never shies away from reacting to social issues. Diamond Necklace is her popular film)
A first, Green protocol
For the first time in its history, Kerala witnessed a green and waste-free swearing-in ceremony of the LDF Government. Suchitwa Mission director K. Vasuki led a successful ‘Green Protocol’. Along with Thiruvananthapuram Corporation and the district administration, Dr Vasuki implemented a plastic-free and disposables-free Attukal Pongala. As part of ‘Ammakkoru Steel Glass’, devotees and residents were requested to donate a steel tumbler and plate each for serving food to devotees offering Attukal pongala. Though 10,000 tumblers and 3,500 plates fell short of the target, the Corporation plans to retain and rent them out for events.
Plastic ban a trendsetter
Thiruvananthapuram Corporation is probably one of the first corporations in the country to implement plastic ban of under 50 micron. However, the collection of plastic from residential areas is limited to the 15 wards where the kitchen bin is already implemented. The routine collection of plastics has been rated as fairly successful. The plastic being dumped at the resource recovery centre at various centres across the capital city is yet to be linked to recycling agents.
Kitchen revolution
A dedicated team of health inspectors and other hygiene and sanitation staff runs the kitchen bin project in Thiruvananthapuram Corporation. By now 10,000 kitchen bins, the most popular at-source waste disposal kits- have been set up even in tiny apartments. It’s been given for free though the service entails a monthly user fee of Rs 200. By last month, Thiruvananthapuram City Corporation had covered more than 80 percent of households in 15 selected wards in the first phase of city’s core areas, where there would be a regular arrangement even to collect dry waste.
Isaac’s passion pays off
Recently Alappuzha municipal chairman Thomas Joseph bagged the award for Clean City for the Venice of the East along with Panaji and Mysuru. It was Finance Minister T. M. Thomas Isaac’s initiative on waste management project that helped 52 wards under the Alappuzha municipality to get the award instituted by the environment NGO, Centre for Science and Environment. Door-to-door collection of waste was stopped. Instead, officials sought to create awareness among the public about the impracticality and harmful effects of accumulating waste. Almost 8,500 biogas plants have so far been installed in various houses. Plastic waste is collected once in two months and later transferred to Clean Kerala Mission which treats plastic waste, by making it reusable, especially tarring of roads.
Father of Thumburmuzhy
Thumburmuzhy Model aerobic composting technique, developed by Dr Francis Xavier at Thumburmuzhy Cattle breeding Farm, is a farmer-friendly cost-effective and eco-friendly livestock waste management system. Now aerobins have been placed at 17 points across Thiruvananthapuram. A minimum of five units per ward is on the anvil.
