Fuming at Festivals

No, I am not a killjoy, but I am definitely a supporter of ‘kill crackers’ – well, because crackers kill.  With Diwali just around the corner, I’m sure we are looking forward to an enjoyable festive season, not a fumes filled festival that leaves us all fuming! 

It’s rather strange, we are not a stupid people, and we know perfectly well the dangerous chemical cocktail that firecrackers are composed of – we can probably rattle off the names of the hazardous stuff they put into the crackers and the ailments they cause – so why then do we spend thousands of rupees (even when the economy is down and inflation is up) on actually harming ourselves? Forget about burning a hole in our pockets, it’s more like they've burnt a hole in our brains!

Probably what we need is a cultural change. Talking about culture is treading on explosive ground, people get all upset and uptight the moment you say something unsavoury about culture. But yes, I repeat: we need a cultural change. Culture is not a static sacred norm; it is a way of life that evolves over time. And in the course of this evolution not everything that becomes part of our life – ‘our culture’ – is right or good or perfect. Firecrackers, for example – to believe that firecrackers are an indispensable ingredient of our festivals, that’s a myth we need to correct, a custom we need to call a halt to.  

Like I said earlier, culture evolves – it’s definitely time to move on from crackers to a more sensible, safer and happier expression of our celebrations. Flowers, lanterns, stars, sweets, gifts, singing, dancing, we have a vast variety of options to choose from. If we introduce a change today, someday soon we’ll be able to say: “No, there are no firecrackers in our celebrations, crackers are just not part of our culture!”    

Meet the Change-makers

While we have scores of people moaning about the mess that Mumbai is in, we have a few others who put their proverbial ‘best foot forward’ and take those necessary steps on the road to changing the situation.  One such group of change-makers is the ALM leaders from Bandra. Their relentless solution seeking attitude is indeed inspiring. Just this morning one of the newspapers carried an elaborate article on how they have been tackling the garbage issue in their locality, especially the composting of the wet waste that they have begun. Here are a few excerpts from that news item, quotes from some of the ALM leaders who are spearheading the project.

Christopher Pereira: “In ALMs meetings, where everyone complains about garbage issues in their neighbourhood, I say I do not have any problems. When they ask me why, I tell them about the compost system. I do not need to wait every day for the BMC truck to take away my garbage. You come and see, I tell them.”

Maria D’Souza: “We have appointed a helper to collect wet garbage from all the flats in the building and deposit it in the tumblers installed in the garden. He gives me updates of residents who do not segregate it and I personally meet them and request them to. Everyone sees that the system works, so no one poses any objections.”

Denzil Rego: “These boards are important to spread awareness about the cause. When members of non-practicing societies see it, they want to find out more and approach us. We constantly monitor societies and buildings that follow composting as a regular practice. There are a few who put up the board, but do not practice composting. In such cases we cannot mollycoddle them, they have to be equally involved in the process.”

Shama Kulkarni: “The BMC has set up a rule where they will fine buildings that do not segregate their garbage. I think it is time they take this seriously; it is the only way people will take garbage separation and composting seriously. They spend a big chunk of money in transporting waste to landfills. This system of composting will take the load off them, if everyone follows a two-bin policy, segregating their wet and dry waste. In the past year, a few households, societies, schools, and institutions in Bandra have not had the need to use the daily BMC garbage trucks. This is a good sign.”

It’s a good sign indeed and hopefully other localities will soon follow their example! 

Celebrating the Mithi

Across the globe, the last Sunday of September every year is celebrated as ‘World Rivers Day’. Well, I really don’t know if we in Mumbai have any reason to celebrate when it comes to rivers, given the fact that our rivers in Mumbai are in such a pathetic state – especially the Mithi that flows through a significant part of the city. At best, this putrefied flowing embarrassment – that sets out from the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Borivali, and 18 kms later meets the Arabian Sea at the Mahim Creek – can be described as a sewer. 

So what has caused this once delightful river to have metamorphosed into this disgusting sewer? As India’s ‘Waterman’ and Magsaysay Award winner Rajendra Singh pointed out, “It is the collective apathy of the people of Mumbai, absence of political will, and administrative lethargy, that are all responsible for the current oppressive state of the Mithi”.  

“Collective Apathy”, how true – for indeed ‘indifference’ is our middle name. This collective indifference, springs from our Collective Ignorance. I wonder how many of us living in this chaotic megapolis are even aware of the existence of the Mithi. Probably we are just vaguely conscious that some river called the Mithi flows through the city; but do we even know its course, or would be able to actually point it out? Two years back we did a programme called ‘Meet the Mithi’ – on seeing the poster announcing the event, someone wrote to me asking “What is a mithi?” Our ignorance obviously breeds indifference.

And then there is our Collective Indiscipline. We litter, we dump garbage, we pollute, we destroy and we care a damn! In fact this has got so crystallized into our character that we don’t even realize the damage we are causing. And so we go about callously converting the Mithi into a filth stream. From the religious devotee who piously flings the ‘flower offerings’ (plastic bag and all) into the river, to the unscrupulous factory owner who pumps hazardous industrial waste into it; from the hardworking housewives washing clothes of the banks of the Mithi, to the hundreds of nearby inhabitants who blissfully crap into it every day – this gross indiscipline has turned Mumbai’s best known river into a grisly gutter.

But no, we've not reached the end of the road, or rather, the end of the river. People like Janak Daftari, Rishi Agarwal and Gautam Kirtane have been fighting the Mithi battle for long. And on World Rivers Day we celebrate their determination, their fight. And hopefully their fight will become our fight too. 

CSR and the Environment

The Parliament recently passed the Companies Bill, which will now replace the Companies Act of 1956. This new law makes it mandatory for companies to spend 2 percent of their profit on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Of course, this refers only to companies with a net profit of more than Rs 5 crore. It is heartening that even before this law was enacted, companies have been voluntarily spending on CSR projects. While projects related to education, health and women’s empowerment have been hot favourites in the CSR sector, environmental projects have recently been gaining popularity. With CSR now becoming mandatory for corporate biggies, I guess, or at least I hope, there will be even greater commitment towards addressing the social and environmental issues we are facing.

In terms of the environment, I would believe that the first step in exercising responsibility would be for companies to engage in a sincere and serious green audit of themselves. They would need to examine the environmental impact of the goods and services they produce, a review of their production and marketing processes, a thorough assessment of their own ecological footprint. Obviously, the objective of this exercise is not just to know the amount of environmental damage the company is causing (no company is going to put money on the table to dig out its faults), but rather to determine how this damage can be reduced or minimized.

Further, it would definitely be worthwhile for companies to invest part of their CSR funds into eco-friendly technologies. Solar power, for example, would be an area to be explored. Given the fact that all companies consume huge amounts of energy, be it in their production plants or corporate offices, moving over to solar energy would definitely be a step in the right direction. Similarly, in terms of water, creating rainwater harvesting structures or constructing grey-water recycling plants, would be highly beneficial. Investing in good waste management systems is yet another avenue to considered.

And yes, donating CSR funds to meaningful environmental projects is crucial. Often companies approach environmental organizations, asking them to hold some ‘symbolic event’ such as a tree plantation or clean-up drive. Sizable funds are poured into these events that produce no results – except good photographs that can be published in the company’s annual report. It is time to move from the ‘symbolic’ to the ‘significant’, funding projects that significantly impact the environment. These ‘significant projects’ are not ‘events’ that can he conducted in a single afternoon, they need time, but in the end, they make a difference. 

Let's hope we see some 'responsibility' exercised as the companies go about acting on the demands of this new 'Responsibility Act'!  

BMC Flops Again

We are almost at the end of July – the month that was supposed to witness Mumbai sprucing up. But the BMC has flopped again!  

In February this year, the BMC had solemnly announced that it would make segregation of dry and wet waste at source compulsory from July. Flexing its muscles over the issue, the BMC had declared that it would stop accepting mixed waste. Taking an even further aggressive stance, the civic authority had threatened to slap huge fines on defaulters and to punish repeated non-compliance with imprisonment. On its side, the BMC had promised to put in place all the infrastructure needed, press into service additional collection compactors and upgrade segregation centres.

Well, July is almost over, and none of this has been implemented. Instead, as it happens all the time, we have been dished out a new set of promises, another package of plans, and a further revised schedule. We have now been told by Manisha Mhaiskar (Additional Municipal Commissioner) that segregation at source and house-to-house collection of waste will be implemented by March 2014 and that separate disposal and treatment mechanisms for dry and wet waste will be put in place by March 2015.

So what is our reaction to this recurrent delay in implementing a proper waste management system in the city? Are we heaving a collective sigh of relief that we have been spared the task, at least for the present, of segregating our waste? Are we just glad that we can continue to dump our waste as we want and where we want? Or are we seriously upset that we have to wait for another year or two, before we have a more decent and sensible system of handling our waste.

But actually we don’t have to wait. It’s true that the BMC has deferred the enforcement of the law, but what stops us from enforcing it upon our homes and our housing societies? ALMs, for example, could take up the responsibility of setting up workable waste management systems in their respective localities.

And let’s keep the pressure on the BMC to deliver – for unless the infrastructure is in place, our own efforts will only have limited value.