Counting Down to 90 - Week 1560 - The Hyperlocal Solution to Garbage on the Road
Local problems need local solutions for which residents of the area involved need to lose their apathy.
The Concept Explained
Bhavin Jankharia
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Two weeks ago, when I discussed hard/material vs soft/non-material progress, one of my major arguments for the lack of soft progress was that people still throw garbage on the road. The situation may be better than it was 20 years ago, but garbage on the road is still garbage on the road.
Bhavin Jankharia
It is a recurrent theme with me. When I first restarted bhavinj.com in Sep 2023 with the idea of moving all my writings to one place, my first column was titled “The Pipe-Dream of a Developed Society”. In that column, I argued that as long as we continue to behave badly, including throwing garbage on the road, we are at least two generations away from being “developed”.
Bhavin Jankharia
The road on which I live, Manikrao Lotlikar Marg, ends at a junction. To the left is Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road and to the right, the road between Don Bosco and ICT.
The corner on the right along the Don Bosco walls is a “garbage dump” where everyone in the neighborhood and people from across the railway tracks from the Matunga Labor Camp area come and dump their garbage.
It is extremely disconcerting to go past an open garbage dump that stinks and has hovering flies and mosquitoes with plastic bags often strewn across the road, thanks to dogs and rag-pickers, especially when we go for our walks or runs.
Over the past few years, we have tried to figure out solutions. Whenever we call the BMC, they immediately send a truck and have the garbage removed and then post a pic saying it is sorted. But the garbage comes back the next day. We’ve spoken to the local corporators, MLAs and to aspiring corporators and MLAs prior to elections, but to no avail. Bijal has doctor friends in the BMC, who have promised to help, but every solution is a short-term one.
The people who live in the buildings opposite the garbage dump are 1 and 10 percenters. We have spoken to them too and they shrug their shoulders either to say they have no solution or to say they don’t care. There are successful businessmen, a celebrated High Court ex-judge, a famous Jain Derasar and its owner, and many others but they haven’t been able to do anything or don’t want to do anything.
Over the last two weeks, the garbage started slowly disappearing and yesterday, it was completely gone. A new redeveloped high rise called The Vista (earlier Alankar) stands across the dump. We went in and spoke to the security guards, one of whom, Kishan told us that over the last week they had actively worked with the BMC, staying awake till 3 and 4 in the morning, catching the perpetrators from the Labor Camp area in the act, with photos and videos, trying to scare the hell out of them to stop them from throwing the garbage there.
This was amazing. With the encouragement of the residents of this building, a concerted action plan was made and executed and the garbage was gone. If the residents of a place affected by garbage and similar issues decide to do something about a problem, a solution can be found. You can’t just sit in your flats and hope that someone else will take care of the problem. Solutions have to be hyperlocal.
Yesterday, we continued our walk to the lane that goes to SIWS College, past the Acworth Leprosy Home. There is another garbage dump, just outside the Acworth gate. We went in and spoke to the security guards there and they said that it was the local residents of the buildings opposite filled with 1 and 10 percenters, who themselves were dumping garbage right outside the Acworth entrance.
These are the issues that need sorting out. The Coastal Road and Atal Setu are important, but equally important are our home and work environments, which need to be clean and peaceful.
But guess what…the garbage was back today. It was a concerted attack, likely by the Labor Camp people, who most probably brought the garbage in a small tempo or car and dumped it between 2 and 4 in the morning. Let’s see how this plays out over the next 2-3 weeks.
Two generations…that is my guess of how long it will take for us to be so-called “developed” or “progressing”, unless we stop being apathetic and try to find our own solutions to our own local problems.
PS:
I once wrote a funny piece about the hiring process for sweepers. I have reproduced it here.
Bhavin Jankharia
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