Plastic Waste

All of you must be aware that most of our states are trying to ban the use of plastic in any form, because it is harming the ecology system of the nature.As most of the food items are sold in PET bottles/jars/containers etc, and from these water bottles are the maximum in numbers , and all  these generally end up in city garbage. Due to which the city garbage disposal have a big problem in disposing. In the city like Mumbai, the local Municipal Corporation insist on separating dry and wet waste  before collection and it has been learnt that shortly they will stop collecting dry waste. Most of the housing colonies are left up with dry waste, which is generally of cardboard, plastic bottles and papers.These items are generally sold to scrap dealers  ( in common language Raddiwala). As there is no clear cut policy on plastic recycling in all the major cities of India, the PET bottles are becoming hazardous to the environment.

I had recently read an article about waste management in Germany, and few of the salient point I would like to share with you all :

1. In Germany garbage is culturally an individual problem. Right outside each house and building has three garbage containers-yellow for plastic, brown for organic waste and black for everything else except for e waste. For e waste there are containers in offices. Brown container is for garden waste, and in fact gardening is favourite pastime of Germans and they do not mind taking their twigs to special parking lots on special days for vermiculture projects.
2. For ages they have policy of ‘Return the PET’. Germany has been feeding deposit in barcode, called Pfand( pronounced faand) which means deposit in English. On weekends , most of the Germans drive with boot/dicky  full of bottles to feed Pfand machines. In return of these bottles , machine gives you a slip which you can encash at the counter.
3. For Glass bottle, in Germany, all major roads and small nook and corners are lined with huge containers for white, brown and green glass bottles, from here the glass bottles are sent for recycling. There are even containers for used clothes and shoes, and authorities insist that you tie the laces of each pair together so there is no mix up. There are even separate containers for dropping papers and cartons.
4. When a German family shifts houses, a couple of months earlier they have to call a special number, get an appointment, which will ensure that after you move out municipality will clear the house. And suppose you want to throw something  not wanted, then you will have to drive to designated  recycling area.

I think we Indians, should learn the waste management from Germans.I am sure that retinue of Ministers, MPs and MLAs must have already visited Germany on supposedly educational tours to see if we can learn some know how of waste management from the Germans. Yet it is not easy to have recycling infrastructure  like Germany. Why? first answer is: our psyche and attitude that dirt is not my business it is somebody else’s, and if you do not see the trash , it is not yours. Other answer is Germany does not have Kirana shops like we have in India, there they buy every thing from department stores and each store will have functional Pfand machine. In India every new thing is attempted half heartedly, like in Maharashtra the  authorities are insisting that the manufacturer should take the bottles back and charge deposit for the bottles when it is sold. Authorities do not understand the complexity of retail business, where the product from manufacturer goes to whole seller, and from their to Distributors and then to  Retailer and to consumer. I do not understand how the bottle will reach the manufacturer, back for recycling. In Mumbai, at some local stations recycling machines similar to Pfand machines are installed , where people can put their bottles for recycling and in return they get slip for some cash backs or  cash vouchers. But these types  of machines are very few, city like Mumbai need thousands of such machines.

Actually in a vast country like India, where in villages, people are still not having toilets in their homes, expecting the proper waste management is still seems to far fetched idea. Even in every  city, you will always find  some slum pockets, and there people do not understand waste management, for them survival is first priority. But govt should try to implement total waste management in all the metro and supposed to be smart cities in the country. But the attempt should be full fledged with complete  infrastructure. The govt has to be fully involved in the waste management, it can not be left to individuals and private parties.

I hope you all must have gathered some additional information from this blog.

Please communicate your views/comments/feed backs.