WASTE LAND: A NATION OF LANDFILLS

SOME years ago, I was editing a newspaper in Mumbai and we ran a report on the city’s eternal garbage problem.

- CP SURENDRAN

The report mentioned a prime spot in the suburbs where a mountainous garbage landfill was posing a danger because vultures were wheeling over it, getting in the way of air traffic. The report did not go down well, as the proprietor of the newspaper happened to own the landfill. This column is not about my adventures as a journalist, but about India’s garbage problem.

Unlike the West, where the age of chips has followed a certain social and cultural stage that necessitated garbage collection in the cause of health and aesthetics, India seems to have skipped that stage. As a result, we might have to drive through rotting waste while heading to a robotics factory.

Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai—the waste piles high everywhere. In the capital, the waste is dumped 65 metres high at one landfill. It’s not taller only because the Municipal Corporation of Delhi is not great at collecting waste. This mountain, like many in other Indian cities, symbolises the country’s struggle with solid waste and will soon ascend new heights.

Garbage output is expected to reach 62 million tonnes this year and could soar to 436 million tonnes by 2050. A developing India means more waste, but we have no idea what to do with it except, at best, transfer it from one spot to another and hope the dogs and vultures will do a good job.