Swachh Bharat cannot be only about building toilets
A proper solid waste management system is crucial since urban India generates 151,831 tonnes of garbage per day
The Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) was launched in 2014 with the objective to construct household, community and public toilets to eliminate open defecation and implement proper solid waste management (SWM).
At the beginning of the mission, various cleanliness drives were organised in government offices and public places. The idea to promote cleanliness that should start with one’s own surroundings became the overarching goal of the mission. Initially a larger share of funds were allocated to SWM but by 2017 a larger share was sanctioned for toilet construction. Toilet construction as a physical indicator of the progress of the mission is far more plausible than SWM. The imagery of a constructed toilet has thus become synonymous with the mission and does not even lead you to question the largesse of the problem.
As of June 2016, only 53% of wards are covered with door-to-door collection of waste and on an average only 22% of waste is processed in urban centres, which means 78% of solid waste remains untreated and contaminates land or makes its way into rivers and lakes.
What gets overshadowed is that urban India generates 151,831 metric tonnes of waste per day. If not collected, treated and disposed safely, this can cause environmental and health hazards. Inadequate collection and disposal of waste encourages dumping it in public spaces, vacant plots and even drains. These become breeding grounds for diseases. People living close to these sites are not only exposed to an unsafe environment but also often end up working as rag pickers, thrusting them further down in the sanitation hierarchy. Many of these dumping sites are the only open spaces available in a neighbourhood and as they get characterised by dirt and stench they end up being used for open defecation.
Since behavioural change is essential to ensure toilet usage, it is important to understand that insanitary spaces will only encourage poor sanitation habits. There is far less shame attached to defecating in a garbage dumping site than anywhere else in the open.
The widespread existence of these spaces adds an element of acceptance and convenience towards open defecation. These spaces would cease to exist if there is proper collection and disposal of waste. Open defecation and SWM are as inextricably linked as our behaviour is to the surroundings we live in. Changing people’s approach to sanitation that has been deeply entrenched by the lack of services cannot be dependent on the mere construction of a toilet. The least the Swachh Bharat Mission can do is to clean our surroundings before expecting cleaner sanitation choices from people.