India is TRASHED!

I found an article that was particular interesting, about the extreme amounts of trash that have piled up in India, and what affects it has on the environment and culture. I know that when I visited India in January, it was impossible not to notice the garbage everywhere – mountainsides, burning in the streets, and all over the roads and trails. The article is written from Pondicherry, an area that I visited, and was written by an Indian man observing what the inundation of garbage has meant to him:

This year has brought a new hardship: the stink of burning garbage. I first smelled it about a month ago, a vague, almost indistinct smell on a Sunday morning, like something rotten in the air. A few days later my wife woke me in the middle of the night and said something was burning. This time the stench was unmistakable, overwhelming — a metallic taste in my mouth, a chemical roughness along the back of my constricted throat.

The problem of garbage has existed for many years, but because the are of Pondicherry is evolving and becoming more populated and popular, the author writes that the problem of garbage has changed from just a nuisance into a serious problem – the smell alone makes it a detriment to the tourist industry.

While all of India is affected, it seems that the garbage problem is more evident in cities. “India is drowning in garbage. The cities alone generate more than 100 million tons of solid waste a year.” This issue of garbage also reflects a lack of diligence on the part of the Indian government, for allowing the problem of waste to go so far. Although the Supreme Court in 2000 mandated that the problem of waste be addressed immediately, but seems that there is actually little being done about it.

I think that due to the capacity of change that can actually be done, added with the vastness of the issue, that the problem of garbage will remain in India for a long time. If the government chooses instead to just burn the trash, then there will be irreversible damage done to the environment, with levels of smog and toxins in the air skyrocketing.

With this article, I also attached a few photos that help to showcase the vastness of the garbage problem, even just from my month-long visit in January.