Making waste management part of our culture

(Diphu Market near Power House)

The innocent citizenry of Diphu Town have often been hit by accumulating garbage spewing out fumes of foul smell everywhere, just because our Town Committee is chronically failing to manage its finances, which again is the money given by the tax-paying citizenry. We hardly have any issue with the sweepers as they mostly continue with their work despite their salaries pending for up to 52 months. Wow, they are so large hearted, but how would they accommodate the Town’s interest for unlimited period of time with their home and hearth deprived of the most basic of life?

The bazaar is often the hardest hit as most garbage accumulate because of commercial activities and such activities bring with them their load of garbage.

As one was walking through the bazaar lanes one would have seen litter everywhere. Litter here. Litter there. Litter, litter everywhere. Bottles, paper, plastic, all of it. But again, had somebody wanted to throw a wrapper or an empty bottle and searched for a garbage-can they couldn't have found one because there were no such bins posted in the lanes for collection of wastes. Worst of all, Diphu bazaar does not even have a public lavatory.

So whose responsibility was it to look after cleanliness? Firstly, garbage cans should be a priority for anyone managing the township, especially in the bazaar area. But saying that would just mean pointing fingers at the easiest target to blame; because it cannot be said to be certain that, had the officials made garbage-cans available, people would have surely used it. A large number of the crowd might have littered anyway, but that does not excuse the responsibility of the officials to make garbage-cans available.

Also, so much littering wouldn't have occurred had the vendors selling items with wrappers and things that generated waste kept their own waste-basket at hand.

All the Alu-chat walas, chana walas, and all such vendors with their paper plates and wrappers and anything that generated waste should have been made to keep a waste-basket at hand so that customers who enjoyed their items could have left the waste there itself making it part of their business responsibility to dispose them later.

So where does the real problem lie? Is waste management not a part of our culture?

Starting from the consumers, to vendors, to businessmen, to the Town Committee: are we not conscious of all the litter? Is waste management not a priority in our daily lives and culture?

Because, it was not only in the bazaar area that littering is witnessed. Many of the public places are full of it. Roads, parks, rivers and tourist spots: nowhere does anyone seem to take littering seriously. In places like the waterfalls in Bhelughat, the amount of littering is just embarrassing to see, and to think of it, these are the places that tourists and people from outside visit and see.

As we are a people from the hills with abundance of nature let it be our priority to show kinship to our environment. As littering is a form of pollution and something that can possibly affect to bring shame upon the community where it happens, let us make waste-management and cleanliness a big part of our culture, our priority  and our community daily life.