Kachara Kachara bahati hai...

There's so much plastic in this culture that even the vinyl leopard skin is becoming an endangered synthetic." — Lily Tomli
Joke apart the above statement humorously shows the mentality of our society & ignorance about the biggest problem ever the mankind has faced,                  the Garbage or Waste!

Most important aspect of the Eco housing rather this aspect makes any new home not to get tag of Eco friendly & that is Garbage! One may ask why so? Simple, if you don’t build houses no new garbage creating centers will be created in Metros but that’s not possible as we all need houses to live, so all we can do is to understand the process of garbage generation & try to minimize it's production!

In early nineties there was a beautiful movie naming Ijajat... There was a song  " Katara katara bahati hai... jindagi hai..." when ever I move on the streets or any public place I just remember these lines except the word "Katara replaced by Kachara"! Yes we are flowing with Kachara i.e. garbage! When ever we visit foreign countries we are zapped by the cleanliness over there & that’s the first thing comes to our notice & yes the stale smell of air isn’t there rather we are not uses to such clean & fresh air. Those who are from rural must have experienced it when they come to any big city. And why rural even when we go by Deccan queen to Mumbai, immediately after crossing Kalyan the air fragrance changes & we try to reduce our intake of the same & then at the end of the day feel dizzy or giddy while coming back to Pune.
The basic difference in our & western culture is in the concept of cleanliness. Many American houses may be extremely filthy from inside but outside of the home when in public they give utmost important to this aspect. Exactly reverse is the case here, we may live in a filthy surrounding but most of the times our homes are chakachak! The easiest way of removing garbage for us is throw it out of our door! Just don’t bother what havoc it’s making outside until your own doorsteps are clean! This is where we are going wrong. As with increasing urbanization the generation of garbage is also on rise & for using any formula to find out the solution on garbage issue first we need to understand the society's mentality on this front. As in our mythology story, we all like Parijat flowers but we don’t want the tree in our premise!
Few years back when there were not so many companies’s selling there ready made products. And now right from pizzas to refrigerators (thanks god they don’t deliver cars in gift packing) every thing gets delivered in pack form & the packing in itself has own importance! And do mind once you open the pack & done with your product the packing is now junk in other words "Kachara'! And it’s increasing in multiple of the population as every ones need something & so does the packing of the same thing!
Now along with this our food as well eating habits have been changed. Earlier we were supposed to clean up every thing whatever has been served in the plate & still if it’s any leftover the house lady usually used to gave it to people who couldn’t afford even a day’s meal or to cows & animals of that category. But with the time earning has increased but our values has decreased & we feel shame in following such acts instead we just dump the left over in our garbage bean! The need of the time is make the end "Kachara maker" aware" ,here the end kachara maker is a common man living in any Metros of the country & assisting to generate more garbage by his daily activities ,may it be any Jarda pouch or CD's i.e.  E waste!

Even look at the way our definition of celebrating has been changing! No one says don’t celebrate but the times are changing, earlier the fire crackers weren’t that common & only at Diwali we use to bang them up. But now in any marriage or smallest of the election result or any get together we saw people using loads of firework. Who's going to look at the hip of burnt thrash after such show?  The festival like Ganpati with all due respect to the efforts of many NGO's about reducing "Nirmalya" i.e. the waste material of Puja,isnt getting reduces instead after the procession its impossible to pass from the place where the idols are being immersed! Is this the cause for which we started celebrating such festivals at so large scale! Here no law or any prohibiting act of the govt isn’t going to help us is a fact.
Best way for any garbage issue is try to disintegrate the same at the source only. But it depends on lots of thing such as quality of the society we are dealing with & their exposure to these kind of knowledge as well their understanding of their own responsibility! Mostly they are reluctant as they feel ok till the garbage is out of their eye site. Rather each grownup person as well children of the schools should be made mandatory to visit the garbage dumping yard of the city i.e. " Kachara Depot" & see the life of people living surrounding it. And this should be at least once in a year as then only one will realize how he individually is also responsible for this problem!
About setting systems there are many for wet garbage, right from vermicomposting to mechanical treatment & each can be adopted as per the site condition of individual establishment. But important is our approach towards the same. Many a places I have seen people are reluctant to segregate dry & wet garbage. Many don’t want to take efforts to collect it & then nobody is interested in maneuvering the vermi plant on daily basis. In addition to this at many places because of outer pressure the Municipal Corporation them selves collect the garbage! Now who will take effort if the garbage is getting taken care by outside agency!
Such systems should be banned rather provide such services at very high property tax so each society will be taking care of their own wet garbage. The PMC has made Vermicomposting mandatory to all new upcoming projects since last 3 years but who is going to keep check about actual using of them as well are they of adequate capacity? Does the Builder have set a system amongst the residents before giving them possession for maintaining them? For bigger townships maintaining a vermi pit is a difficult job so one has to think of setting up a mechanical plant for treating wet garbage & converting the same in maneuver. Many developers have done that like in Magarpatta city. More & more builders should do such thing & more customers for such colonies should demand it from their developer!

Similarly who is taking lead of incorporating such systems of treating wet garbage & segregation of dry garbage too in existing development. The PMC along with the Developers can try for some solution for their existing schemes.

Aware & educate but at the same time use proper methods of colleting as well treating  i.e. recycling & reusing of the generated garbage and filter these systems to the end level. Because it’s not only PMC's or any other Govt dept's job but it’s for our own better living we need to take care of our garbage.
--
Sanjay Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev
Envo_power Committee,Credi,Pune
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http://visonoflife.blogspot.com/
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