One man's trash

According to the saying one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Now I am not certain how true a statement this is but it occurs to me that in the UK we don’t think about our rubbish enough. Speaking from personal experience when I am at home I produce a lot of garbage, scraps of paper, food wrapping, plastic bags, bottles and cans etc. I try to recycle what I can but a lot still goes into black bin liners for collection by the council. The problem here in India is that, at least where I live, there doesn’t seem to be a particular system for waste collection. You have no option but to think about your rubbish because it is still very much surrounding you.

I remember the first time I noticed this on my original trip about three and a half years ago. I saw an elderly woman stooped over sweeping up all the rubbish outside the old hospital. She swept it all together into a pile and then, much to my surprise at the time, just dumped it over the wall into the neighbours’ front yard. I presume what happened next was that the neighbours just swept it up again and delivered it straight back, although I can’t be sure.

Today one of the other doctors mentioned to me that the nurses were going to clear up the big pile of rubbish just outside the front gate of the new hospital. I decided to come and lend a hand. The nurses gave me a pair of gloves and we got cracking. It stank. It was an enormous pile of all sorts of household waste. The plan appeared to be to collect all the plastic so we set about it with gusto. We had a big black bag and before long it was full to the brim with all types of plastic junk. The whole expedition had a slight air of holiday about it in some strange way and I barely had time to wonder to myself what was going to happen to all the other rubbish that wasn’t plastic ie all the paper, cardboard, cloth etc when my question was answered. It was shoved into a pile and set alight. Although not ideal this did add even more jollity to the gathering and a degree of risk as it was decided after a short discussion that the fire needed assistance and petrol was sent for.

I can’t deny that fire is fun but it does make you think a little about waste in general. Can we really as a world go on producing as much nonsense as we do and just chucking it away when we don’t want it? It might be quite shocking for me to see a pile of rubbish being burnt in the street (a very common sight here) but really is it any different to our attitude to much of our rubbish at home? We have our landfills and incinerators we just don’t happen to deal with it in such plain view. It is the classic western philosophy of “out of sight out of mind”. I was happy to hear that the plastic at least would be taken to a man in town who does recycling and I do think that trying to clean up our immediate area in a good step in the right direction but there is such a mountain to climb, not just in developing countries but all over the world when it comes to waste disposal and perhaps more importantly minimising the amount of waste in the first place.

Right then, I am off to take a shower because I smell like the bottom of a bin.

Love to you all.

A x

P.S. Sorry about these two blogs going up at the same time but such is the way with my rather erratic internet, I tend to just write when I feel like it and upload whenever I can. Also sorry that there is no photo but I figured that a photo of a rubbish heap might be rather unpleasant.