All well
All is well hither. Made friends with one of my neighbors, cooked some rice and potatoes, and wonder how I can kill time. Never have I ever wanted to come to work as much as over the past 2 days when I had absolutely nothing to do. Couldn't even find a decent book shop to go get something to read from. Will have internet at home soon.
Public transport is something that Patna needs to work on urgently. You can't even get an auto-rickshaw to yourself, but have to share it with 6 other people going the same direction- it is cheap, about Rs.5, but hardly comfortable. A cycle rickshaw is more expensive, at around Rs.10 to most places within the city center, but so terribly slow. Not only that, most of the men pulling these rickshaws look so weak that I feel I should be taking them somewhere instead.
I think holding a press conference to discuss what NSPL is doing and how the community can help would be a good way to start off a public awareness campaign. And public awareness is crucial. If people can be convinced to begin segregating their compostables from the landfillable trash- that would be a tremendous victory.
Out of sight is out of mind here, with streets swept clean, and piles of garbage around the corner.
The colony that I'm trying to develop as a model project has some rather furious residents. They want to know why there is so much garbage in front of their houses. Simple answer really- they throw it there. They want to know why NSPL doesn't regularly pick up all the waste lining their roads. Good question- why don't we? It's because we have a contract to pick up waste from each and every household in the neighborhood- from their DOORSTEP. They have absolutely no business throwing their garbage onto the street when we're coming to them and picking it up.
But of course, we have to keep the trash off the streets, so I'm planning to hold a community meeting, and then a drive that cleans the streets within the neighborhood of all the garbage we see. In the meeting it'll be made sure they understand that the trash on the streets is their fault- something they can easily avoid by simply giving us the trash instead of tossing it where they feel like.
But of course, all one hears is, "you should sweep more often" or, "your people should pick up all the garbage they see." Right, and who will pay my people to sweep the roads more often? Or who will pay them to pick up trash that shouldn't be thrown on the road in the first place? Of course, the residents think it should be done for the price which we're already charging- instead of correcting their ways, we should just throw more manpower into the situation.
Without public awareness, waste management is a one sided solution to a multi-faceted problem.
Public transport is something that Patna needs to work on urgently. You can't even get an auto-rickshaw to yourself, but have to share it with 6 other people going the same direction- it is cheap, about Rs.5, but hardly comfortable. A cycle rickshaw is more expensive, at around Rs.10 to most places within the city center, but so terribly slow. Not only that, most of the men pulling these rickshaws look so weak that I feel I should be taking them somewhere instead.
I think holding a press conference to discuss what NSPL is doing and how the community can help would be a good way to start off a public awareness campaign. And public awareness is crucial. If people can be convinced to begin segregating their compostables from the landfillable trash- that would be a tremendous victory.
Out of sight is out of mind here, with streets swept clean, and piles of garbage around the corner.
The colony that I'm trying to develop as a model project has some rather furious residents. They want to know why there is so much garbage in front of their houses. Simple answer really- they throw it there. They want to know why NSPL doesn't regularly pick up all the waste lining their roads. Good question- why don't we? It's because we have a contract to pick up waste from each and every household in the neighborhood- from their DOORSTEP. They have absolutely no business throwing their garbage onto the street when we're coming to them and picking it up.
But of course, we have to keep the trash off the streets, so I'm planning to hold a community meeting, and then a drive that cleans the streets within the neighborhood of all the garbage we see. In the meeting it'll be made sure they understand that the trash on the streets is their fault- something they can easily avoid by simply giving us the trash instead of tossing it where they feel like.
But of course, all one hears is, "you should sweep more often" or, "your people should pick up all the garbage they see." Right, and who will pay my people to sweep the roads more often? Or who will pay them to pick up trash that shouldn't be thrown on the road in the first place? Of course, the residents think it should be done for the price which we're already charging- instead of correcting their ways, we should just throw more manpower into the situation.
Without public awareness, waste management is a one sided solution to a multi-faceted problem.
posted by Behzad J. Larry at
4:38 PM
3 Comments:
I'm from Ahmedabad and here we have the same attitude to garbage- as long as its not IN the house its not my problem. I am very interested to know how you are going to put it across to them - that the garbage is theirs.
Indeed, there is no concept yet of ownership of waste.
Hey, Behzad. You can try out Aditya's 9-to-9 Supermarket for some good books. There are other book stores as well but I don't remember their names. This one (aditya's) is at Bander Bagicha near Dak Bungalow Crossing.
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