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Waste ManagementIn India waste has always been disposed on the roads in front of the house and for centuries this has not disturbed anybody - on the contrary: it has pleased the cows, crows, donkeys, monkeys, dogs and pigs that were feeding on it. The leftovers have been burnt in the evenings and the smoke of this fires repelled the mosquitos. As all the so disposed waste has been of organic nature - mainly from kitchen and garden - it never accumulated to stinking ugly heaps of junk that you can now find EVERYWHERE in India. Nothing was thrown away that would not decompose - those things were collected by hawkers and beggars and converted into income; in fact a very efficient recycling system that provided jobs to many people. The trash that you can spot now in every corner, every road and even in the most remote places is a new phenomenon as it is the result of the lately introduced cheap and fancy packaged consumer products and disposables, which together with their worthless plastic or aluminium wrappers will NEVER disintegrate. Disposables have been unknown to India before the opening of the market, as each and every tiny bit was a precious resource - way to precious to be wasted. (Note: of course this was sometimes bothersome as even razorblades at the barbers and syringes at the doctors were thoroughly reused and probably contributed to the rapid spreading of many infectious diseases - although proper sterilizing would have done the job...). It took the death of many cows that ingested plastic bags (they did not know the difference between newspapers which they can digest and plastic bags which will accumulate in their digestive tract and slowly and painfully kill them) before a law was installed that forbid the use of any non decomposing plastics for carry bags. But as usual such laws don't work out: in the cities the police made a quick good business out of 'fining' failing shop keepers, the industry never had to account for their products/packaging and in the villages one never heard of such a law.  While the cities are currently investing into proper waste management systems, the heaps are growing in the villages. The garbage is laying everywhere and the wind will take care that it gets evenly distributed far and wide. As this seems still not to disturb any one (apart from the tourists), it will probably take some time until the use of trash bins and appropriate disposal (burying and/or burning outside of the village - any better suggestions welcome) will become common practice. top
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