This week’s article, ‘Public-Community Participation in Household Waste Management in India: An Operational Approach’ by Snigdha Chakrabarti, Subhendu Chakrabarti and Amita Majumder analyzes a survey taken from the Baranagar Municipal area of Kolkata. This article touched on several issues that I am personally interested in, such as, how much do local communities know about government services (or lack thereof), what are they willing to do to improve the cleanliness of their neighborhoods and what motivates people to act. It also examines the ways in which integrated waste management systems have failed in the past and how they might be improved in the future.

The survey found that socio-economic status, education, scientific and environmental awareness, gender and age all effected whether residence were willing to adopt a waste separation program (Seperating waste into biodegradable and non) and whether they were willing to pay for extra services.

The article  stresses the need for balance. A system in which the government is in complete control generally ends up being expensive and inefficient, particularly in India’s case where tax revenue has not kept pace with the amount of services needed to address the growing waste volume.  On the other hand, a purely privatized system is motivated by profit, rather than providing a basic service for the benefit of society. In such a set up, one can imagine the needs of the people going unheeded, and corruption easy to come by. SWM systems run solely by community participants are not sustainable, because community members work on a volunteer basis and lack access to infrastructure and resources.

The article proposes an interesting integration: Have Government Municipalities provide infrastructure, dumping sites and accountability/monitoring, allow private companies to use these for a fee. They can cut costs further by selling biodegradable compost as fuel or fertilizer, and charge locals a fee for extra services.

It sounds like a good framework for a middle or upper-class neighborhood, but it seems to me that for poor areas and slums, you wouldn’t be able to charge locals for services even if they knew how beneficial the services were. The article doesn’t address this.

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Aside from this article I spoke today with my Hindi tutor about pollution and waste management in India, and from our discussions and what I have read I can see two recurring trends – the Indian youth are spear-heading the movements to clean up India through awareness programs like Swatchh Bharat and it’s that very access to information that is slowly changing the tide in favor of a cleaner India.

Education and Awareness. If you want to get anything done people have to know about it. Seems obvious, but I can imagine myself trying to get people to appreciate the value of clean streets – as if it should be self evident – without realizing that my certainty didn’t appear out of a vacuum. Someone taught me the benefits of a clean house, clean streets, clean body etc. I learned in science classes about organic and in-organic material. So the Indian youth have hit the nail on the head and I will be eagerly watching their progress before my trip to India in the fall. I hope to connect with some of the organizers of Swachh Bharat and talk about their campaign.

-Ashley