odzer's blog

I wake up fairly late but I was moved out of my bed yesterday by the loud shrill voice of my neighbours wife. She sounded like a rabid cat. As I could not help my morbid curiosity and she was screaming at the bin men who had come to collect the payment for their services I eavesdropped. It seems that our local ’safai karamchari’s’ or bin men have decided to work independently from the association that runs this area. Now some days ago I had received a letter from this association which is mostly a silver haired club warning me about the dangers of paying the garbage men who had dared to step out of their domain.

Interestingly this letter does not mention anything significant about garbage collection except the fact that if the association loses control of the garbage collection then the prices for such services are sure to shoot up. They are also worried about the fact that the garbage collection guys will take many days off. So what are the conditions in which these guys have to work? Garbage in India is just a mess, literally. People seldom use bin liners or bags and its collected in cycle carts and it smells. These guys handle this noxious stuff with their bare hands. Probably they get paid a pittance and I can imagine they are sick and tired of these old fuddy-duddies telling them what to do all the time. So I say yeah let the garbage guys run the garbage. I am sure they can do a better job and for once let them tell people how they want their garbage laid out for them. It is time that the grossly spoiled people of this country learn how to manage their trash.

As for the price at the moment we are paying around 150 Rupees or around US$ 4 for garbage collection services. This has to be paid every third month. I think it is a ridiculous price per house for such services. It should be this much at least per month! People do not mind paying for useless things here so why not pay to have a cleaner environment around them? Remember the plastic ban? Which has failed by the way since plastic bags without handles are now used by everyone. When I said in my previous posts that garbage was the main issue I was not that wrong. This post basically proves it. I am glad the bin men have gone on the war path. Basically we are all in a mess.

This post is in response and in protest of Chandigarh Administration and its Department of Environment. I will continue to put updates periodically unless the notification to ban plastic bags is either withdrawn by the Administration or is struck down by the courts. It is now my intention to fight the government on this online because I see this as a mega downgrade in my quality of life. All of those who are affected by this ban in any way are requested to use the contact me form (opens in a new window) so that we can formulate strategy to fight this ban. Regular posts will continue on this blog as usual.

City Beautiful? Who are they kidding!!!!!

I must warn you that this is going to be a long post. I promised last week that I would be writing something about garbage ‘management’ in my city and well to be honest also to a large extent about this country. No one will dispute that India is a dirty and a filthy place. As a lot of countries it has its good sides and its bad sides but the piles of stinking garbage lying around in the open in our cities is definitely is a great put off. This week the Indian flag landed on the moon and we have made great progress in many fields over the last couple of decades. However we havent been able to solve the litter lining our streets in the 5000 years of our civilizations glorious existance. Now do not get me wrong I probably live in one of the cleanest of Indian cities if not the THE cleanest city. However it is not difficult to see how little effort they put in to managing the garbage. I am not going to oversimplify the problem a large part of the problem is the people themselves. The way they litter the cities is just dreadful. No one bothers to use the bins and people just throw their refuse anywhere they see. As for household trash no one separates their garbage here. Plastic, household kitchen waste, toxic waste all go in this one giant trash can which is usually not lined with any plastic bags. So you have really disgusting stinking and smelly trash cans. What really makes it worse is that people who deal with the trash or the bin men usually work without any equipment to handle the trash properly. The country that is planning to send men to the moon does not even provide its municipal workers with gloves or overalls! Does not matter if they die of diseases like hepatitis or cholera.

So how is the city that has banned plastic bags changed the way it manages garbage to protect the environment. The answer is that it has not. Instead of putting in money to educate people how  to dispose of trash properly or training staff they have taken this so called ban as be it and end it of the situation. When you have fixed basic sanitation you can have higher aims and do something about the environment etc but if you can not even manage the garbage and lets honestly ask ourselves is that not a municipal and local governments number one job you have no right to tell people about the virtues of using or not using a particular type of carry bag! The government is simply getting away by pulling off a publicity stunt while the people ignore the stink of the reality.  As you can see from the images in the gallery above the lies and untruths of our administration stink to high heavens. Shame on you Chandigarh Administration and Municipal Corporation, you are exposed for your incompetence. In fact all of these photos were taken in central Chandigarh! I can not even imagine what the condition must be in outer areas. I am reminded of a poem I once recited when I was a kid at school. I am posting it below :-

SARAH CYNTHIA SYLVIA STOUT
by Shel Silverstein

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Would not take the garbage out.
She’d wash the dishes and scrub the pans
Cook the yams and spice the hams,
And though her parents would scream and shout,
She simply would not take the garbage out.
And so it piled up to the ceiling:
Coffee grounds, potato peelings,
Brown bananas and rotten peas,
Chunks of sour cottage cheese.
It filled the can, it covered the floor,
It cracked the windows and blocked the door,
With bacon rinds and chicken bones,
Drippy ends of ice cream cones,
Prune pits, peach pits, orange peels,
Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,
Pizza crusts and withered greens,
Soggy beans, and tangerines,
Crusts of black-burned buttered toast,
Grisly bits of beefy roast.
The garbage rolled on down the halls,
It raised the roof, it broke the walls,
I mean, greasy napkins, cookie crumbs,
Blobs of gooey bubble gum,
Cellophane from old bologna,
Rubbery, blubbery macaroni,
Peanut butter, caked and dry,
Curdled milk, and crusts of pie,
Rotting melons, dried-up mustard,
Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,
Cold French fries and rancid meat,
Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat.
At last the garbage reached so high
That finally it touched the sky,
And none of her friends would come to play,
And all of her neighbors moved away;
And finally, Sarah Cynthia Stout
Said, “Okay, I’ll take the garbage out!”
But then, of course it was too late,
The garbage reached across the state,
From New York to the Golden Gate;
And there in the garbage she did hate
Poor Sarah met an awful fate
That I cannot right now relate
Because the hour is much too late
But children, remember Sarah Stout,
And always take the garbage out.

So all in all one thing that is pretty clear is that someone or the other is not doing their job as it should be done. The garbage pile reeks of incompetence. Now if the people who have banned plastic bags wake up from their dreamy slumber and confront the real problem? The problem of our filthy ways? If we just threw the trash in a proper manner surely we can even manage plastic bags? As a parting note though I would like to say something else. Garbage disposal is not free in Chandigarh, we have to pay bin men every 3 months although the amount we pay is a pittance around 120 INR or US$ 2.46 at today’s exchange rate. This money does not go to them but the local association that manages the area where you live. I had a chance to have a brief interview with my trash guy this week and I asked him some questions. He informs me that after they have picked the garbage from homes they seperate the garbage with their bare hands and pick out all the things that they can sell like cardboard etc. Previously they would also have the ragpickers take out the plastic bags which they can not do anymore. Most of Chandigarh’s poorest of the poor have been also deprived of their one source of living. I think it is time that environment enthusiasts wake up and take stock of some real problems instead of making new ones.