TellAll

Nonchalant attitude mainly responsible We asked: What are the reasons that come in the way of following guidelines for proper disposal of waste by individuals? My understanding is that a lack of proper understanding of how and why waste should be disposed, apart from a general lethargy and lack of accountability, is responsible for the malaise among individuals. Most individuals have no idea how the absence of any sense of waste management impacts our lives and of those around us. In India we follow by example and, despite our claims of cleanliness, have no idea what it means to be clean. Another major reason for failure of individuals to follow guidelines would be the lack of a proper understanding of the issue by the civic authorities themselves – who often set guidelines which make less sense than they do. The fact that there are, even today, no enforcement capabilities in the hands of the civic authorities makes the problem even more confounding. Nor is the social consciousness ripe enough to prevent the outrage that goes on every day around us. Only when individuals are made aware of such issues from childhood, and good examples set in the home and outside, will they understand their responsibility towards self and society and contribute positively to a clean and healthier living environment. Surojit Mohan Gupta, freelance editor The most important thing in properly disposing waste is awareness of sanitation. Once a person is aware of it, there is nothing that can stop him to dispose any waste carefully no matter how many hindrances crop up. Instead of waiting for proper dustbins and cleaners, we can start disposing any waste in bin bags of our own. Bin bags are not really expensive or heavy. Whenever we are about to chuck a sweet wrapper or a piece of tissue paper, we can use one of our bags and tie them up and keep them near us. When we get up, we can throw it in proper public bin. There is no need to chuck any rubbish on the street whether it's monkey nut shells or whatever. Another thing I would like to emphasize on is ‘motivation’. We must somehow imbibe in us the right motivation to keep all areas clean. Maybe the school teachers or parents should instill this in kids while they are of tender age. With motivation one can overcome the bad and most common problem, ‘laziness’. If we can overcome laziness we can contribute a lot towards sanitation. We can understand about the people who are living in poverty. Poor people can be helped by school children, who should be taken by teachers to slum areas where they teach the slum dwellers what and how to go about sanitation. We must remember that disposing any waste in streams, rivers, lakes, seas, oceans, or hills or mountains is simply a very bad idea. When we go on a picnic for example, we must carry our bin bags and throw all our waste in them and dispose them in public bins or bins at home to start with. If we keep making excuses that we have no proper bins or social cleaners we will never be able to be clean or stay clean. Let's not depend on anybody else other than ourselves. Start from ‘Me’! Mary Bunch Forman, Homemaker Pollution, a most discussed topic in India, has been considered as the biggest threat to mankind and other living beings. Rapid population grown and the increasing industrialization are considered to be the major causes of pollution. Garbage left in the streets and thrown in the riverbanks haphazardly are another ways of air and soil pollution. Today, the attitude of urban dwellers to waste generation and disposal has caused great damage to the human ecosystem. The poor attitude of urban dwellers to waste generation and disposal has impacted negatively on the human health and sanity. The second one is, the garbage collection system is not well managed in India, and people dispose the garbage wherever possible mostly in the drainages or the river banks. The third one is due to the lack of knowledge of disposing the wastages; people trash the garbage in a way they want. We can see garbage all around in most of cities including in the roads, play grounds, parks and even in hospitals. People throw the garbage without realizing that it is affecting their own health and will deteriorate the future generation’s living standard. Manish Yadav, doctor, KGMU Topic of the month: Against norms constructions in residential areas causing decline in green cover and open spaces in urban areas. As not many would wish to report against neighbor killing greenery, how should this issue be tackled? You may send your views in 200 words at [email protected]. Please also attach a colour photo of yourself.