Wastewarriors
Many of Gurugram’s condominiums are part-managing their own waste, thanks to the efforts of a group of committed, environmentally conscious men and women,
What can responsible citizens do when faced with civic authorities who largely do not function? Or function in fits andstarts? Whentheycan, they vote the municipal leaders out of power. Sometimes, they hold protests. Andwhen pushed beyond endurance, they take matters into their own hands.
A growing number of enlightened professionals in Guru gram has done just that. Faced with sloppy and a pathetic waste management by the authorities ,29 condominiums in the Millennium City have started disposing of their own garbage. Almost 10,000 households are part of the effort now.
In almost all the cases, the initial impetus came from an individual, which then found support in the community and the Resident Welfare Associations( R WA ). Among the better known waste warriors of Guru gram are Monica Khan na G ula ti in Nirvana Country who heads NC R Waste Matters, a Facebook page setup in 2015 to bring like-minded people on board, Ke sh av Jain i in Garden Estate,Vee na Pad man ab han in Richmond Park, Smita Madhuk ar AhujainSu mm it, Ajay Nay y arin Va stu and Priy aM ehri shin Regency Park 2. They, along with a host of others, have been leading the charge against ballooning land fills that threaten to poison the groundwater.
These waste evangelists have been educating their neigh bo ursa bout the advantages of segregatinghousehold waste into dry and and wet waste. The wet waste—mainly food and kitchen waste —can be easily com posted, while dry waste—
suchasplastics, wood, metalandsoon— canbe recycled. The remaining stuff, that which can not be de graded or recycled, is smaller and more manage able and this reduces the volume of waste finding its way into land fills. Thanks to the untiring efforts of these committed men and women, many of Guru gram’ s condos now have their own com posting units, which typically cost ~500,000-800,000tosetup.
But it hasn’ t been easy getting peopleonboard. Gurugram’swaste warriors say they face a tremendous amount of resistance from the word go. Recently, when some residents in a complex called Malibu approached their neighb ours with the request to segregate their waste, some people attackedthem, sayingtheywere simply trying to make money out of the whole enterprise.
Even after people understand the advantages of sorting their waste, andrea lise that decomposing waste inland fill scan create a toxic soup that can contaminate the groundwater, they do not always follow the rules. It’stoughto break old habits. Besides, many wonder whether making the effort to segregate their waste will be in vain .“A lot of people feel that they may make the effort, but eventually the municipality may not take the trouble to dispose of the garbage correctly… so why should they bother ,” says KeshavJaini, a resident of Garden Estate, which has been com posting in-house waste since 2015.
Moreover, since the population at these building complexest ends to be highly mobile, the task of educating and convincing people is an ongoing process as there are always new entrants to be brought on board.
The other hurdle that waste warriors face is that not everyone is ready to pay for the com posting or the waste management service. So thenot only to convince people about the benefits of the effort, but also to persuade them to loosen their purse strings for a worthy cause.
In short, being a waste warrior is no walk in the park. Those who lead the movement need to be part politician, partdiplomat, andpartpatient and indefatigable warrior. Anyone who has lived in a large apartment complex knows that these places are hot beds of politics. The selection of new president san dR WA members is fierce ly contested. And every time a new team takes charge, it tends to run down the decisions taken by the previous lot. Intheprocess, alotofgood work often gets undone.
Diplomacy is a crucial skill necessary for waste warriors. They have to listen to oodles of unsolicited advice. There tired folk, the returned NR Is( who invariably know it all from their experiences overseas ), former members of the armed forces( who always know how to do everything better than civilians )— everyone keeps up an unending stream of advice, which cant esta waste warrior’ s patience .“Everyone knows what needs tobe done but nobody wants to do it ,” says GinaKrishnan, a writer for this newspaper and a waste warrior in Malibu Town, one of the recent entrants to this ecological ly sensitive club.
Oflate, though, fear seems to be getting the better of apathy as citizens real is et hat they may soon dr own under mountains of garbage. The B hand war ila nd fill looms not far from many Guru gram’ s complexes. No one wants a possible repeat of the G ha zip ur landfill collapse which took place in 2017 and resulted in two deaths.
Where do the authorities stan donall this? Mostly, they content themselves with giving out contracts to waste management organisations that have a less than sterling record. They also attend meetings with citizen groups, where a lot is promised but little delivered.
Indeed, the list of initiatives the municipality of Guru gram could potentially take to control and manage urban waste could makeup a slim volume. And the failures begin from the word go, with their inability to implement the laws for collecting and disposing of garbage as they currentlystand.
But it’ s not all bad news. Guru gram’ s current Municipal Commissioner( M CG ), YashpalYadav, is looking at ways to encourage com posting by households and has even offered some financial support to residential complexes that are making the effort to manage their waste.
Clearly, Ya dav has his work cut out for him. Padmanabhan, who, along with a few other like minded residents, waged the battle for waste management in their condominium Richmond Park in 2014, says that many laws are already in place. What the MC G needs to do is ensure that they are implemented and compliedwith, sheadds.
The MC G is also required to see that the total waste going to the landfills is reduced. It should ensure that citizens segregate waste and that it collects this segregatedwaste and disposes ito fin the least harmful way. Also, it needs to monitor and pull up bulk waste generators( condominiums, hospitals, schools, malls, restaurants, office complexes ), which are required by law to manage their own waste.
Besides fighting the battle in their own complexes, many of the warriors have been sharing their experiences wit hot he rR W As, communities and schools. Khan na G ula ti of NC R Waste Matters regularly visits both government and private schools to explain the benefits of waste segregation. Door-to-door awareness campaigns areonaswell. In Malibu, See ma Vi jay an has been giving demonstration son easy pit-com posting for house son the ground floor. R olly Jain, another member of the Malibu group, has been teachingresidents how to com post using low-cost methods. Each time a resident is won over to the cause and starts doing his or her own com posting, it’ s a small victory for the waste warriors.
Gurugram’s waste evangelists have been winning many little battles. But the war is far from over.
GURUGRAM’S WASTE WARRIORS SAY THAT THEY FACE A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF RESISTANCE