Life in Bangalore: Garbage Crisis - Page 2

The reason for this is obvious. The residents know two things: one, they themselves are not going to keep the area clean. Garbage will be thrown haphazardly, many a times the filth landing all around the dumpster rather than in it; second, the municipalities will not pick up garbage promptly according to schedule. It is allowed to fester for days and weeks before being picked up and even then, quite a bit of it is left behind because the garbage pick-up trucks are overflowing.

The other part of the problem, and arguably the larger component, is the attitude of Bangalore's residents. Even when there is a trashcan in plain sight (outside fast-food restaurants, for example), no one bothers to use it. Wrappers are strewn on the sidewalk, banana peels fly out of rolled-down windows of cars, and straws are dropped nonchalantly on the streets, as are plastic drinking cups. Empty sites are promptly co-opted to be garbage-dumping sites ("flip that garbage over the fence, no one is watching").

It's definitely not the case that Bangaloreans are not clean. Oh, no! They all keep their houses clean, the fronts of their houses clean, their backyards clean. But this attitude toward cleanliness just doesn't translate to keeping the streets clean, keeping the community clean, not dumping garbage in the neighbor's empty site, and not dropping garbage on the streets wherever one feels like it. I'm talking about people with education and with good jobs, the ones that are supposed to know better.

Sometimes as I'm walking or riding around Bangalore, I look at the people--on the streets, on bikes, in buses, in carts--and I think where does one even start if a sizeable portion of them is to be educated on how to properly dispose of garbage or not to defecate on the streets. When people are worried about basic things like where their next meal is going to come from, safe drinking water, and a roof over their heads, proper garbage disposal, I'm sure, does not even figure on their lists.

But the other portion of the population - the ones with the education, the jobs, and the ones that don't lack the basic amenities - surely, they have no excuse!

Article Author: Sujatha Bagal

Sujatha Bagal is a writer based in the Washington, D.C. suburbs. She also blogs about parenting, travel, books, movies, food and politics at Blogpourri, which she started in Bangalore to document life as an expat in that city.

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