why can’t we?

kisse kahen

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reading an article in natgeo of feb2010 about a small country called the netherlands. as compared to india,they r small but great in what they r doing with their waste.

the article states that the dutch recycle as much as 65% of municipal waste.they believe”Waste is worth its weight in gold” a strange beleif,comparing waste to gold but true to their word,they have made it happen.

the companies and the citizens have converted waste to be treated as source of valuable raw material.most residual waste is incinerated  to generate electricity and a very small % ends up at the dump sites.

Approach is simple: avoid waste,recover valuable raw material from the disposal and generate electricity by incinerating the residual waste. we in india r doing it,the ragpickers start their work early and collect different items from the garbage.the paper disposal has its own industry,the glass is recycled,every little peice of garbage finds its end somewhere.yet we are facing this overwhelming problem of mountains of garbage in our rives which are a source of water and our lifeline.

the dutch are using an innovative technology to recover components from mixed material streams to their pure form.for example plastic combined with pebbles and metals or a blend of copper and aluminium .they r using separation by magnetic feilds and use the different densities of material to separate under the influence of magnetic feild.

in panipat,in india the oil refinary is using the membrane technology to clean process water.they are able to clean 15 million m3 of water everyday for half a billion people.at panipat,they are processing water from the petrochemical industry and making it clean enough to reuse in the factory oilers.it has become india’s first refinary with a zero liquid discharge.

the dutch are getting better at it.they say,whatever garbage/waste the customer brings in ,we sort it,clean it,process the residual matter into concrete blocks,fluff,compost,clean soil and the possibilities are endless.

i say if we have the will,the technology is there,then why can’t we make a small beginning, on a samller scale and then take it forward.

there is ban on washing clothes on the banks of river ganga.if u go for a walk along the ganga barage in kanpur, u can see at least 50 washermen washing clothes,with detergents and then drying them on the barage railing itself. 4 years ago when they had first released water into the main channel,the flow of the ganga was feirce.it was clean and the banks were not even complete by then.now ,when i look at it,my heart cries out.all 12 gates,2 open let out a black murky water downstream towards bhairavghat.and the dhobis washing clothes.it is pathetic.we call the ganga “mokshadayani”.i think now ganga must be joining its hands to us and praying to give her moksha. i am greatly attached to it because as a child i spent my summer vacations in kankhal and everyday would be a ritual to go for early morning bath at the rajghat with my grandmother.i was small and scared of the water that was cold but once my grandmother was standing kneedeep in the water she would outstrech her hands and call me and make me stand on the 3rd step and with prayers on her lips she would dip me and herself several times.the shivering wud go away and it felt as if we were rejuvenated.for me it was an experience that continued for so many years,but for ma ,she had spent half of her life there and bathed daily,summer,winter rain.and in the end as chance would have it,instead of taking her to nigambodh,plans changed due to traffic snarl and my brother took her to a clean stream of ganga in noida itself.it was clean with green banks and the mild breeze blowing and ma ‘s spirit happy to have found her ganga ka kinara again.