OUR OWN TRASH......

Dawn, Friday, June 12, 1992

OUR OWN TRASH......

By Adil Ahmad

Trash is a strong word. It conjures up all sorts of negative images - from the garbage heaps on the roadsides, to the Kalashnikov wielding, little birdbrain variety. All manner of trash gets generated in every society, the wisdom and stature of a society is determined by the reclaim ability, or recycle ability of that trash.

What are we doing about refining our trash? At the moment it is stinking up the neighborhood. It is clogging the wheels of progress. It is degrading us as human beings. You can't walk the streets of your neighborhood at night after dinner. There is all manner of foulness lurking in the shadows. The trash is overflowing, over the top and all around. The potholes are wide open and the roads all dug up. Does it begin to sound distressing?! We haven't come around to the real trash yet. The kind that gives you blood pressure and ulcers, or just an old fashioned cardiac arrest! These are the little rats in the system, forever putting a spanner in the wheels of smooth expedition.

The trash needs to be managed. There are some very redeemable items that got junked due to a callous system's insensitivity. These need to be put back to good use. The question is, who is going to do it? If we wait around for Uncle Sam it could be a very long wait, and our need for a better quality of life could not wait that long. So let each one of us start a one man-crusade to set things right, to manager the trash. And we could all start by personally taking out the garbage in that black garbage bag, properly tied up at the mouth. The disposal is important, because here your garbage is transferred into the public domain, and your freedom ends where the public nose begins. Every second intersection has the community trash collection point which is regularly cleared.

Those of us fortunate enough to be alive need to take a close look at the environment.  Does it reflect us? If it does, then that is what we deserve. But if it doesn't, then something needs to be done about it, and fast. We can no longer afford the luxury of procrastination. If you have a better way of doing something, then go for it, and get your procedure accepted and implemented.

"I realised early in the day that my sweeperess would not take the garbage two blocks up to the community can. It was just too much walking for her. So I bought those black plastic bags, and she collects the trash in a bag now. Its mouth is tied, and it rides in the trunk of my car to the community can." This is one activist housewife with an excellent idea! "It's a bit of a club that has come up around the can! There is this Japanese lady doing the same thing, and a grandfather who comes with his grandson to drop off the bags. I would think our can is pretty well organized."

We all need to get our cans organized. The trash will continue to flow. It is a by-product of mortality. The infrastructure to cope with its speedy and efficient disposal has to be put in place. Once again the need of the hour is organization, and the imposition of the work ethic. The bhangi must take pride in his profession, and must cease to be seen as a bhangi. He should be equipped with the latest technology can provide. A clean, healthy environ is what an aspiring clean, healthy mind requires.

Decluttering the mind, and then reinforcing it with productive inputs is the domain of the teacher, the professor, the don of education. So does one assume that it is guerilla warfare that they are teaching as a major these days? Instead of the bespectacled professor coming to teach class, we have Rambo complete with war paint! This is total, unadulterated trash and should carry a 'priority disposal' tag on it. This trash is cancerous. It could cripple society. The integrity of the education system must be sacred in the eyes of all and sundry. As sacred as drinking water, the poisoning of which would destroy a civilization.

Trash management is a science taught in the classrooms. It has been developed to a highly scientific proportion in the West and the East, and has contributed to hygienic, clean environments. Is our dilemma due to our being bad managers? Certainly not: The national pastime is minding somebody else's business! No, I do believe that we are so totally in love with ourselves that we are completely comfortable with our trash! Be it on the road, or in children's parks, even just outside our front gates. It is our trash, and has a dignity all of its own!