Garbage Girl: Godliness is next to Cleanliness
Mount Kailash according to Hindu mythology is the abode of Lord Shiva. In the Vishnu Purana Kailash is described as the center of the world and also the one of the pillars of the world. Some Buddhists also believe that Kailash is the home of Buddha. The mountain itself is in Tibet (occupied by China since 1950). Most Hindus and Buddhists can no longer visit Kailash and circumbulate the mountain as they have for thousands of years because of travel restrictions.
However, about 500,000 pilgrims visit an area called Manimahesh Lake every year to catch a glimpse of Mount Kailash (this lake is located in Himachal Pradesh (India) at an altitude of approximately 13,000 feet). Hindu legends indicate that Lord Shiva performed penance on the banks of this beautiful but small lake. After reading a few reports about the sanitary conditions in this region I am wondering whether Lord Shiva will choose this region again for doing penance!!
During peak pilgrimage season (August/September) huge amount of clothes and other materials are discarded all over the lake and along the almost 14 Kilometer trail to the lake region (according to tradition after taking a bath in the lake the devotees have to discard their old clothes). Currently there is nothing in place to collect or recycle the trash. Is this shocking?
For most Indians this is not shocking news. We are used to living with filth all around us. The culture of keeping our houses, our neighborhood and the environment clean is not something that comes to us naturally. This is also due to the fact that our educational system and our government have failed miserably to educate us about the importance of cleanliness, being responsible citizens and potential side effects of living in unclean surroundings.
More importantly the infrastructure needed to collect, sort, recycle, store and monitor trash and other waste materials does not exist in most parts of India today. This is very surprising considering that this could potentially be a huge industry (The solid waste management industry in the US which has only 309 million people employs about 367,000 people. In 1999 the solid waste management industry generated about $43 billion in the US alone. The size of solid waste industry in the US is almost the same as the Indian IT industry).
This is an area where the local and state governments are trying to do it by themselves using completely old technology (it is still very common to see corporation workers sweeping the streets of major cities in India using brooms). The governments have obviously failed and privatization is the answer. Of course no amount of spending or technology is going to make any difference if we ourselves do not change our habits or learn from the mistakes made by developed nations.
Fortunately for us the world is not just standing and watching what I call the “trashing” of India like most of us are. A group of individuals mostly from foreign countries have joined together and formed an organization called “The Mountain Cleaners” in Himachal Pradesh in 2009. According to their website “The Mountain Cleaners are a group of volunteers who formed in 2009 in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. We are dedicated environmentalists who are committed to cleaning up India, little by little through a combination of direct action, liaison and awareness raising”. This organization is lead by Jodie Underhill who is now popularly known as the “Garbage Girl”. Mountain Cleaners have now undertaken the difficult task of cleaning Manimahesh Lake.
Garbage Girl told reporters in Shimla that “I was saddened to see how dirty it was everywhere even though the annual Manimahesh pilgrimage has not even begun. You can see garbage on every step of the 14-km trail. There is also a large amount of human waste around the glacial-fed lake which is a health hazard. We have a mammoth task ahead of us but I have every faith that we will make huge improvements”. The Mountain Cleaners depend on donations; volunteers and their own personal income to do this clean up.
Shouldn’t the Himachal Pradesh government, the people of Himachal Pradesh, temple authorities, and state park authorities contribute to this effort as well? After reading about the Mountain Cleaners I get the impression that this low tech but very local approach to environmental clean up and awareness has a good chance of becoming very successful in India.
Good luck and more power to the Mountain Cleaners!!
“It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference“ – Tom Brokaw
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Category: News & Government