Srinagar- the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir in Sanskrit means a city of abundance and wealth. It was found over 2000 years ago by King Pravara-sena II. It was a part of Great Mauryan Empire in 3rd Century BC. The city is located in the heart of the Kashmir valley at an altitude of 1,730 meter above sea level, spread on both sides of the River Jhelum. The Dal Lake and Nagin Lake enhance its picturesque setting, while the changing play of the seasons and the salubrious climate ensures that the city is equally attractive to visitors around the year. Today Srinagar is a resort for the tourist who can experience, at first hand, the peculiar beauty of the valley that has attracted the Chinese, the Mughals and the British to it.
Presently Srinagar city, the ‘Venice of East’ or ‘Kashmiri Venice’ is facing a dangerous problem in the form of garbage. The major factors that make it a problem are:
The Biomedical refuse: it is any waste generated during medical care. Basel Convention describes it as the second most hazardous, next only to the radioactive category. The thin-film plastic carry-bags present in the garbage. It makes fields infertile by preventing water percolation and germination. Waste generated from healthcare settings is an important component of biomedical waste. Its management is largely neglected and it thus contaminates soil, water and air.
Electronic waste or E-waste is one of the fastest growing waste streams, with people changing their computers, televisions sets and mobile phones more frequently. Electronic products are a complex mixture of several hundred tiny components, many of which contain deadly chemicals. These chemicals are a strain on human health and the environment. People often don’t realize that synthetic chemicals such as lead, cadmium, mercury, dioxin and other substances used in the production of electronic items have trespassed into our bodies without our realizing it.
The thin-film plastic carry-bags present in the garbage. It makes fields infertile by preventing water percolation and germination.
Earlier it had never been any problem as the garbage being rich in organic matter was composted and used in agricultural fields. But the above cited wastes present in the garbage makes any type of composting useless.
This garbage problem acts as an obstacle in the way of making Srinagar a model city. But we should not lose the hope. We should remind ourselves the idiom ‘Where there is a will there is a way.’ We as responsible and caring citizens should take earnest steps to make our city really a model city. Yes we can make our city dustbin free and near-zero garbage. Some of the low-tech and low cost key steps that could be helpful in this process are:
Shops and households should give their wet waste and recyclables separately.
SMC should carefully and separately transport the wastes given in segregated form by the citizens.
Wet food waste should be dumped for composting and vermi-composting.
Mixed dry waste should be sorted into separate bays for paper, cardboard, plastic, rubber and wood for profitable sale to kabadiwalas.
Non-recyclable wastes should be used for the developmental activities like road-widening, plinth-filling etc.
Hazardous medical waste should be segregated at source or disinfected before the final disposal.
The shredded plastic road-waste can be used to make plastic roads. (Tamil Nadu has over 2000km of such successful plastic-roads in every district and eco-habitat.)
The corporates should start a voluntary take-back scheme of their end-of-life products. Individual consumers thereafter should give their electronic appliances that are no more useful only to the producers so that they can be handled in a more accountable manner.
Replacing plastic and polythene bags by paper bags.
Thus all types of wastes can be put to use. By these methods we can reduce waste quantities and waste-processing and disposal costs.
When the global buzz is to go green and clean, why should we still adopt a wait and watch policy. We have to move quickly to arrest the menace; the garbage laden with harmful wastes. Let us take a step and allow Srinagar continue to be a tourist heaven.
