We all looked forward to the no-plastics era beginning this year from January in Chennai. Carry your own shopping bags? We were doing so for a long time. No one-time-use plastic bottles, no more plastic containers in sweet shops… the change had begun. Some people started small units and harnessed the services of those including the mentally and physically challenged to make bags out of newspapers and eco-friendly material.
I still remember jasmine flowers being delivered in neatly folded banana leaves, and leaf plates being used in wayside restaurants instead of plastic. Did we ever dream we would go back to this? Chennai was beginning to smile. Cows scrounging in garbage bins would not eat plastic by mistake. It was a matter of great concern when even elephant dung was found to contain plastic paper and bags.
But what kind of back-up do we have? Once we decided on a plastic-free society, why did we not gear up with affordable alternatives? It is true that we cannot eliminate plastic entirely. Milk still comes in plastic sachets. And let’s talk garbage. Most of us line our home garbage bins with those black plastic bags, which are tied up securely at the end of the day and thrown into public bins placed in the vicinity.
Coming to my own neighbourhood, our maintenance woman, who would put even educated ones to shame, regularly cleans the road of rubbish so we don’t have to look at the line-up of garbage opposite our building complex. She is elderly and well into her 70s, but the sight of rubbish leaves her disgusted. Where is the alternative to garbage bags?
We find that the garbage bin has been removed, leaving us bewildered. Maids carry the daily garbage in whatever they can find, or carry the domestic garbage bin itself and empty it on the footpath, which spews rubbish collected from
numerous homes, ranging from domestic waste to paper bottles and electrical discards. There is stench, and mosquitoes and flies have a field day; they are sure to spread disease. There is a school facing the garbage-filled road, and I would imagine the school authorities and the parents would have taken up cudgels and protested. The nonchalant attitude of our citizens is indeed too painful to accept.
Some of the maids being what they are, do not wash the home bins, and if one is not vigilant you see insects and flies devouring what is left in them.
When I visited Australia recently, I was so impressed to see my cousins using bags that looked like plastic and were as strong, but they were recycled bags made from discarded corn! They were green in colour and came in rolls from which you could tear off easily. Right now the scenario in our neighbourhood is desolate. Shops no longer sell the formidable-looking black plastic garbage bags. If anyone has a solution to this, I would be much obliged to hear about that.
With all the talk of Swachch Bharat and sanitation measures taken in villages, why aren’t toilets provided in each neighbourhood within walking distance for all? The net result is that the men, the workers from apartments and the surrounding areas find it convenient to relieve themselves against walls — so much so that I wish I owned a sling-shot. Probably I would be beaten black and blue for targeting them, but how do we shake people out of their complacency?
I have written letters to the City Corporation, sent representatives to plead my case, saying even e-toilets would do. But apart from a nod of dismissal and an assurance that it would be attended to and the quizzical look that says “why are you getting paranoid about trivial matters”, nothing has moved.
A movement of this magnitude requires young blood, the young who want to live in clean cities, who would like to spread civic consciousness, who would not hesitate to nudge the authorities to do something worthwhile for the community instead of sitting pretty going through files, sipping coffee and rushing home the moment the clock strikes five. I have heard that in certain areas citizens join hands to make the neighbourhood livable and clean, and we have to emulate their example. Two I know of in Chennai — Harrington Road in Chetpet, and
Valmiki Nagar, where one person has the drive and the energy to garner the strength from a team equally passionate about the cause and who initiates constant action.
I wish stringent laws would be laid down where rubbish-throwing is concerned, and people relieve themselves in public places. For a nation like ours, only well-enforced laws will work. We observe the hygiene laws laid down in other countries we travel to, but in India it does not matter as it is one more person among the milling populace who defies cleanliness.
kittsabi@gmail.com
