It’s something that had to come into focus, headed for priority and it’s better late than never – the war against waste has truly begun after the prime minister himself led the charge. As expected, there was a lot of symbolism amidst scepticism as political leaders of the ruling dispensation tried to outdo each other in catching the PM’s eye, clumsily handling the unfamiliar broom which most of them might not have touched in years since they became big-time public figures.
The media which should have been at the forefront of this campaign merely reported the event triggered by the PM’s initiative. Everybody seemed excited by the prospect of a cleaner India where people would behave themselves and display better civic sense. Much of the talk was on cleaning up the trash that lay all over as far as the eye can see. Intriguingly nobody seemed to be aware of where the waste would go from the streets although this is as important as not littering the neighbourhood if not more.
I think any discourse on cleanliness must include the sustainable waste management options that ensure optimum recycling of the waste and eventual conversion of most of it into energy. Now, the question is, in a country where people don’t flinch before littering just a couple of feet away from their very doorstep, will any such initiative see the light of day? For instance, just after swearing with the PM that they will neither litter nor allow others to litter, the officer clique of the government of India shamelessly littered the very spot where they sat, with water bottles and other trash.
These were highly educated people who supposedly help political leaders frame public policy including those related to cleanliness and hygiene. Most of them are IAS officers, who are presumably the role models for young people interested in civil services. They didn’t have the patience to wait for the cleaning staffer to come for their empty bottles and other trash. Is that a puzzle? Yes, definitely it is, for most people who haven’t bothered to study the hypocrisy of the Indian middle classes.
Let’s hope the prime minister knows the scale and dimension of the challenge he has undertaken. We all know that he is a clever man and he’s well aware of the pressure points of the bunch of “half devil and half child” specimens he has to work with. Beyond the officer clique, the scene isn’t much different across the country. The maxim, ‘seeing is believing’, is not just true in India but all over the world. Mr. Modi’s Swachta campaign managers must ensure the disappearance of the collected trash to convince people that it’s not an eye wash.
The typical Indian attitude to involvement in something they don’t consider a priority is, ‘what’s in it for me?’ This is where the energy potential of waste comes into play. Merely talking about it won’t work with this trash-hardened population; setting examples with infrastructure and success stories will help. If a system of energy credits redeemable against gas or electricity charges, is worked out for the individual households, involving people and communities won’t be much of a problem.
It won’t be long before the filthy and smelly waste becomes a valuable item. Well over half of the waste matter generated in India is organic, which in turn makes it ideal for biomethenation or converting it into methane gas to drive small scale power generators. The power thus generated could either be fed into the grid and proportionate energy credits given to households on the basis of their trash output. The other option is to feed the power into a localized micro grid for proportionate utilization by the community whose trash makes it possible. It’s not rocket science, but this basic infrastructure needs to be in place for the Swachta campaign to succeed.