Swachh Bharat Abhiyan - A Further Perspective

There has been huge buzz about the “Swattch Bharat Movement”, the campaign by our honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Advertisements on T.V., photos on social media like Facebook, twitter are roaming around. Everybody is now somehow aware about cleanliness (we are actually following it or not is real question), need of dustbins in public places, not spitting on roads and public walls, not to urinate in public places and so on. There are number of NGOs supporting this campaign. But my point is what happens to that garbage after? All kind of garbage we put in single dustbin. There is no system in India. In many countries, there are different dustbins for different kind of garbage or different schedule of garbage vans for picking rubbish from houses for different kind of garbage. Types of garbage like – burnable, non-burnable, cans and glass bottles, plastic trays and packaging, paper and cloth.

Few months back, I was in Japan. I would like to tell you about their system. There is special kind of plastic bags called ‘gomi-bukuro’ in which only, you can collect the litter and throw it in government dustbin for your specific area. And there are days defined to throw this waste material according to its kind. Benefit of this system is government does not need to sort further this waste material and process would be simpler and safe. Industrial garbage (hospitality garbage, business garbage, office garbage, factory garbage) is not permitted to be placed with domestic garbage in the same collection areas.

It is very much risky to put hospital garbage, agricultural garbage or industrial garbage with domestic one. Agricultural chemicals put in domestic garbage and given same disposal system as of domestic garbage would be very much risky. Same applies to industrial one.

I would also like to give one another example. In trains, what we normally do is buy food or cold drink or water bottles and after finishing we throw them outside. Government could not help us in everything and we should not be crying all the time that I would have put garbage in dustbins but there were no dustbins. So what can we do is, always carry a plastic bag with you while travelling so that we can put all our garbage in that plastic bag and after getting off train, we can throw it in dustbin.

So my concern is while we are educating our population the need to use dustbins, we should also encourage them to put garbage according to its type and government should be first making such system. Writing on every public places that –“do not urinate” has no use if there are no urinals available. Mainly women are victim of this system.

Good thing about most of us (Indians) is- we do not throw things unto there is sure need of throwing it. We are even careful in unpacking the gift wrap or using old knickers for cleaning purposes. This is actually good thing but now-a-days it’s changing.

This mission would be successful only when masses would be enthusiastic about waste management and would refuse live in filth.