Let’s stop creating so much garbage!

The Mega Clean-up Drive saw 30 trucks filled with the garbage

Recently, at least 17 tonnes of garbage has been cleaned up in a mega drive at the Aarey Milk Colony. Last Sunday, at least six JCBs, five Taurus lorries, eight dumpers, and more than 180 BMC staffers participated in the drive, which was one of the largest clean-up drives in Mumbai.

There are a number of agencies that have worked in cohesion for this drive, from the BMC, Aarey Dairy, Forest Dept, an NGO to citizens have come together for a cleaner Aarey Colony. A wildlife conservation organisation pointed out the direct link between human-leopard conflict and garbage. There were several spots which were in danger of becoming garbage landfills. The mammoth drive is set to go on for several weeks.

Every single stakeholder, and that means most citizens, need to treat Aarey as a precious, wondrous Mumbai resource. The colony, with its green spots, tribal padas and tabelas, is such a wonderful gift to the megapolis and we need to see it through that precise prism. While these clean-up drives will achieve the aim, we cannot have clean-up drives continuing forever. Sustainable garbage management will have to be installed to make the environs garbage-free.

Enough waste bins, directions on disposing garbage and fines that pinch for flouting rules should get one started in the right direction.

Of late we have had organisations coming together for clean-ups, at parks or beaches and other public facilities. While we do doff our hat to involvement and awareness, it is a sad commentary on our times that we need to continually clean-up, with no let up in sight.

Garbage and rubbish should decrease drastically, so that these clean up drives become few and far between, civic sense and discipline takes over ensuring less littering and rubbish. Move towards making those garbage tonnes, anywhere at all, into a trickle.