Saturday, 09 April 2022 | Paritosh Kimothi | Dehradun
The recent fire which broke out in the mounds of garbage at the treatment plant in Sheeshambada has resulted in the chief minister directing officials to look for another place to shift the waste treatment plant. This scenario appears to be a repetition with some changes. Some years ago, when the trenching ground was located at Sahastradhara Road in Dehradun, similar problems including toxic smoke from burning garbage and the perpetual stench from the vast mounds of garbage caused major problems and health issues to the locals apart from causing environmental damage. The trenching ground was shifted to outside the city at Sheeshambada where a waste treatment plant was also established. Almost comically, it was claimed initially that the facility will not stink as it was covered! But this should probably have given anyone with common sense a fair idea of how a major problem is only being exacerbated with skewed focus and wasteful diversion.
Firstly, garbage generation is the root case of the major garbage problem that most parts of this Himalayan state are facing- like most populated parts of India. Dehradun city alone generates about 300 metric tonnes of solid municipal waste every day. This problem is worsened by the false notion that collecting and dumping the garbage in one location while recycling some of it is the solution to this problem. The first step needed to address the problem is to act upon minimisation of garbage because generation of garbage is the root cause of the problem. Organic waste may seem comparatively less harmful as it can be turned to manure though increasingly more people are living in homes without gardens or space for compost pits. The municipal corporation and some other bodies have tried but not achieved major success in making and selling manure made from organic waste collected from homes of citizens- at least any such success story hasn’t been publicised. Another alarming aspect of this problem is that non-biodegradable waste is now almost omnipresent also in the once pristine mountains- provided humans have been there. The efficacy and sustainability of the waste disposal system in the mountainous regions can only be imagined considering the situation in Dehradun. People tend to wrongly think that shifting the garbage from one location and collecting it in another is the solution while they also go about littering most open spaces. The State government has made some efforts on and off without major success so far. The government had banned small disposable plastic water bottles in its officials meetings and functions though these soon returned. Similarly, polythene and disposable utensils had also been banned though confusion and lack of uniformity in observance of the prohibition meant that this too failed to succeed.
The root cause- the continuous generation of garbage is being consistently ignored by the government and citizens alike. The generation of garbage needs to be addressed seriously and minimised. Secondly, those who never leave an opportunity to praise the Prime Minister also need to work on aspects like innovation which he frequently stresses on as a means to solve various problems. For example, there must be a few options for making biodegradable plastics. Even though some are of the opinion that biodegradable plastics cannot solve the plastic crisis, there seems to have been no effort in this direction in Uttarakhand which could have tried to set an example considering the number of national and international level institutions it has. In the end, the solution lies in a combination of attitudinal changes along with provisions by the government. This may seem like an old and boring issue but it threatens to literally waste all efforts and ambitions at a time when the developmental race is picking pace with more infrastructural developments underway which will further enhance garbage production. It remains to be seen whether we realise the seriousness of the situation and act in time or wait till it’s too late.
