India’s Trash Mountains A Fetid Symbol Of The Country’s Plastic Problem
Ravidas in New Delhi is a slum like no other. Its alleys are spotless, its drains regularly washed down with water and its houses painted in bright crayon colours and decorated with plants. There are no fetid open sewers brimming with human waste. Piles of trash do not line every alley. The residents of this proud community run a tight, environmentally conscious ship. “Everyone is working together to keep it clean because this is where they live,” said Kishwar Jahan, 60, the self-appointed leader of this 350-person slum in the east of the Indian capital. “If you walk further down from our house it is dirty because people are not responsible enough,” she said. Ravidas’ residents know that India has a trash problem and are trying to do their part to fix it. Kishwar Jahan said cleaning the slum is a community effort and everyone needs to be responsible. India consumed an estimated 15.5 million tons of plastic in 2016-17, according to PlastIndia Foundation, an organisation of major associations and institutions connected with plastic.
That number is predicted to increase to 20 million tons by 2019-20.
While one of Jahan’s four sons gives a goat a soapy bath nearby, a man walks past carrying
a basket of plastic and other household waste.
The plastic will be removed from the community, but residents have few good options for where it ends up.
There is no processing of waste in most Indian cities, according to the Central Pollution Board, and in some cases, trash is simply burned in open dump yards on the main highway.
Most likely, what is collected in Ravidas will end up on one of the huge landfills around New Delhi, where non-biodegradable materials mix with recyclable plastics -- a mounting symbol of India’s trash turmoil.