With Care

We all are so obsessed with ourselves that we tend to overlook ourselves considering a part of us being alien to us and that is what I term as garbage. Garbage is a personification of the part of ourselves we no longer desire and that was once used by use. This only hints at our selfish trait of character and that we are cannibalizing the natural resources all around us and reducing it to mere garbage, so what are we eventually, part of what we no longer desire: The Grabage.

We tend to overlook fundamental fact that if we are able to be a little more imaginative, creative and resourceful we can transform the garbage into a pot of gold!

We junk most of the tin cans and botlles and also the rexine bags that can be used in the following way:

• The distributors of the manufacuters supplying their ware in glass containers can use the same network to retrieve the container and reuse it. This will reduce the manufacuring cost and also the resources utilized in further making new glass containers.
• The tin cans also can be recycled instead of junking them as garbage and yet another novel use of the tin cans is to beat them into sheets, weld them and use them as sheets used for shade roofing and also for creative partitions, frames and many household fixttures that are made from aluminium and tin foil sheets.
• The rexine and gunny bags too can be the medium of retail creativity with joining the sheets to make covers such as covers for automobiles and also as a covering for makeshift greenhouse frames that you can erect in your apartment balcony or on the terrace of your haouse. There is no limit to creativity as we say, "Sky is definitely the limit!" Just a novice feat of innovtion that I have personally tried is, have grown balcony vegetable garden in rexine bags, The gunny bags lovinly hold the tomato, chilli, garlic, onion, and many such plants that are in full bloom and fruition, that is what I am told as I am miles away from the garden.
• All the materials mentioned above can also be used for making the frames and fixtures for adobe homes that can be an economical and ecological solution to the housing problem most of the urban and rural underprivileged experience.  
• The bio degradable garbage is used for generating electricity and also for making compost, insecticides, bio gas too, so why not we have such waste utilities in the residential localities so that the localites can reutilize the garbage to their benefit and also refurbish the planet of its resources as it is pointed out that the rate at which humans consume resources is nearly 70% faster than the rate at which Nature is able to replensih the resources consumed by us. So, it is time for all of us to reflect upon how we are utilizing the bounties of Nature and above all, how selfishly considering the generations to come, our progenies, what will they think of us, there predecessors.

Have you given it a considerable thought? I think I need to do so myself.

Hazards Caused By Domestic Garbage (Garbage Management - 1)

The axiom "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" means, to be healthy and wealthy of health and mind, we need to keep ourselves and our surroundings clean. I am sorry to say, my neighbourhood is in a sordid state with the residents spitting while walking up and down the road in front of the residential apartment block I live in. any vacant plot of land or even on the roadside one will find piles of domestic garbage stuffed in plastic/polythene bags. often we have to clean our window panes as our immediate neighbours through tufts of hair out of their window that invariably stick to our window panes.Often empty packets of soap, mouth fresheners are carelessly thrown out by the people living in the apartment above ours invariably land up in our balcony. They even go to the extent of throwing out bucket full of dirty water out of their balcony, which transforms into "showers of blessing" in our balcony. Little do they realise the inconvenience they are causing not only to themselves but also to the neighbourhood.

The vacant plot of land beside our apartment block is the discuss and short-put throw practice ground for, all the houses around the vacant plot generously dump their garbage bags with a heave and a ho and off the bag is hurled into the vacant plot. If only these residents could represent India in Discuss and Short-put throw in the up coming Commonwealth Games (How true to the nomenclature "Commonwealth": garbage, if disposed properly can become a wealth for the entire neighbourhood.)

Impact on Health

• The garbage decomposes into dirt and dust is easily dispersed by the wind, back into our homes to contaminate our food we cook and the work we drink. The dust also mingles with the water stored in the sump of the houses close to the garbage dumping area.
• These garbage dumps also are breeding grounds of rats, and other vermins, mosquitoes and flies, known to be the carriers of diseases like malaria, typhoid, dengue, filaria, and above all, cholera.
• The decomposed garbage also contaminates the underground water, which becomes the sources of microbial germs.
• Such garbage dumps are high risk areas for children and rag pickers who play in or around the garbage area due to the hazardous chemicals generated by the decomposing domestic garbage dump.
  
• Burning the garbage in the immediate neighbourhood is the most dangerous way of disposing it as many of the plastic and polythene emanates hazardous chemical gases that are dangerous for the health of the residents.
• The strays living on the garbage dumps too are susceptible to the infections and diseases and invariably transfer it to the unsuspecting children and residents coming in contact with them.
  

Diseases and In Caused by Garbage

• Skin and blood infections due to direct contact with waste.
• Eye, respiratory and gastro-enteric problems caused due to exposure to air or wind borne microbes.
• Fumes from incineration of garbage are main cause of cancer too.
• Sputum and nose discharge on the street makes the residents susceptible to the infection and disease like: TB, Swine Flu, etc the person maybe suffering from.
  

Acknowledgement:

Some of the information taken from: UNEP report, 1996