Today I want to discuss the major trend I have seen in all the reading I have done and how I can use that knowledge to be useful in the realm of waste management in India and elsewhere.

First though, a small update: I’ve made arrangements for a private tour of two of my local county’s waste management facilities. One is a landfill and the other is a Waste-to Energy-Plant. There is also a Transfer Station which I will plan on visiting a little later. I will be going to the Landfill this Friday and the W2E site on Monday.  Between now and then, I want to formulate questions I can ask in order to broaden my knowledge.

• What, if any are the cons to this method of waste management?
•          ——– Toxic bi-products?
•           ——-  Space Limitations?
•         ——– E-waste and heavy metals?
• How important is public awareness to the effectiveness of the processes that go on here?
• How to do you make the public aware of what you are doing here?
• Is this a state run facility? Or a private company that holds a contract with the state?
• What challenges are you dealing with now?
• Who oversees the facility to make sure it’s functioning according to safety and environmental codes?

 

It’s an unlikely possibility but if I get a chance I’d like to interview individual employees too, out of earshot of tour guides and higher ups, to get a better understanding of working conditions. Since it’s a guided tour it’s not like I’m expecting to see the seedy underbelly of the SWM industrial complex in my home state. That’s research for a different project. My goal with this is to get a sense of how facilities like this are intended to function, to draw comparisons with similar facilities in India when I go and also, to be honest, get my hands dirty and actually SEE parts of the processes I’ve been reading so much about so that it’s experience and not just theory.

Now back to that trend I was talking about earlier. For last few weeks I’d been feeling a little lost with this project. I had lost sight of exactly what I hoped to achieve. I was reading and learning a lot, but I had no idea how I was supposed to make any of it actionable. What do I know? I have read how others have tried and failed or succeeded on a small scale, but again with no scientific or other educational background in this area I was beginning to think my reading was going to be in vein – that when I got to India I was just going to flounder around, not knowing who to talk to or what my point was before giving up and going to see the Taj.

But one issue kept arising again and again with these articles and it has helped point me in the direction of a potential SWM project.

Social Awareness.

I don’t mean like on social media, although that is a useful tool for sure. I mean advertising and education to those in India who don’t have access to social media, the internet or even a TV. The slums are notoriously under served for a multitude of reasons, but one is that aside from NGO’s painstakingly going door-to-door or holding community meetings that no one can afford to stop working to attend, there is no way to educate local people about the benefits of different SWM initiatives, how it effects them, and what kind of power they have. Pamphlets seem counter productive – just adding more waste to the pile and eating up more valuable trees. But wait…

https://www.botanicalpaperworks.com/how_plantable_paper_works

Plantable, Biodegradable paper!

Yes, I know – It’s expensive.But what if you could increase public awareness of SWM services and resources by printing about them on this kind of paper, distribute it to have it become flowers or vegetables once again? I’m idea-making here and of course if anyone reading this knows of an organization who is already doing this, I would appreciate a link because I would love to connect with them. If not, I think this (with financial support in the form of grants and other backers) might be a way to increase public awareness in places that are hard to reach. More awareness seems to = more cooperation for households and more participation from business and schools in the SWM process.

I could bring my skills as an illustrator to the table, by designing attracting leafless or flyers that would be printed on this paper.

This is only one idea but it has given me something to focus on and aim for. There are still many months before my trip, but now as I begin to make contacts in India knowing how I want to help will allow me to ask more pointed questions.

 

 

-Ashley