Garbage Solution

 

                Being a tourist destination, what we need are specially demarcated areas, with clear instructions:" Dump beer cans/bottles here", “Place your plastic here" "Leave your extras here". Negative signs such as: "This is village Panchayat of ____. Keep it green. Don't throw your waste here” are clear signs of a body that doesn’t really think well along with being not very inviting to tourists, or anyone for that matter.

     

   The biggest problem that anyone in Goa, especially those who live in apartments, faces is where to dump our waste. I don’t mean plastic bags or wet waste. I am talking of things such as old pillows that are beyond use, old utensils that can’t be used for gardening purposes in tiny flats, old broken kitchen apparatus that can’t be fixed or mended, compressed wood that is beyond recognition and can’t even be burned for firewood.

   

     I’ve tried asking the scavengers to clear my yard but they refuse to take certain waste as it’s of no use and can’t be renewed/recycled. When I checked with the garbage collectors, they have instructions to pick certain items from homes. Where then do we keep the rest?

       

    When homemakers are faced with limited space issues, it would be ideal if we could have some solution to this problem. Instead we are met with clear hoarding that we shall be prosecuted by government bodies if caught dumping our waste anywhere. Why can’t we have some areas where we could dump such waste?

    

    And if the only response that the government comes up with is we are not responsible for it, I would say, let’s put the onus on the creators of such products.

    The company that produces and sells such products have to mis-en-place certain dump-yards where the consumers could place their waste. It could even be at a certain cost to the consumer. Let the beer companies that manufacture cans/bottles collect the empty waste. Let the cloth companies tell us where to leave old fabric/products. Make sure that all companies have stringent laws in place to accept the leftovers they generate.

    Planning for a clean Goa is not difficult. In fact, we have such a great system, if we didn’t have ministers, our state would function on auto pilot. It’s the unnecessary interference by the powers that be that put a dent in our system. Execution of those duties is something that we all need to learn in order to be fully functional.