World Earth Day 2024: Villages in India are championing anti-plastic efforts!

Earth Day is celebrated annually on April 22 and serves as a global reminder of the importance of environmental protection and sustainability. The theme for this year’s Earth Day is ‘Planet versus Plastic’, highlighting the urgent need to tackle plastic pollution and its impact on our environment. Pearl Tiwari, CEO of the Ambuja Foundation, offers her insights on Earth Day.

Plastic is ubiquitous in our modern lives, but the same properties that make plastic so useful to us make it nearly impossible for nature to break it down. In fact, they are so durable that plastic waste – both in water and on land – can persist in the environment for centuries. This means that our planet is literally choking on plastic.

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And yet the consumption of single-use plastic has never been higher! We have become addicted to single-use plastic products: a million plastic bottles are purchased every minute around the world, while up to five trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year.

Solving the problem requires changes at all levels: government regulations and policies; business ethics and sustainability; waste management; and finally consumer behavior.

Perhaps the last place we would turn for inspiration on this issue is the heart of rural India, where villagers are ‘walking the talk’ and taking action on this issue – by building sustainable, long-term waste management solutions that not only the behavior of citizens, but transformed their entire city!

Here are two inspiring stories that will catapult us all from just talking about the issue to taking action:

VADNAGAR, GUJARAT

In the small hamlet of Vadnagar, Gujarat, the community has come together to set up a Solid Waste Management Center and has undergone a behavioral change: reducing the use of plastic, recycling plastic and other waste, and transforming their village from a once ugly and unsanitary landfill. land, to an idyllic, clean rural community.

Vadnagar Gram Panchayat in Kodinar block of Gir Somanath district in Gujarat has set a healthy precedent for eliminating plastic waste and achieving visual cleanliness through an innovative and low-cost cluster level system for solid/plastic waste management.

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By establishing a system for the collection, separation and transportation of waste, while maximizing the use of available resources, the village is a unique example of what small communities can achieve when they work together and work together.

To start, they hired a sanitation worker to collect and segregate waste from house to house. Thereafter, a group was formed to collect and segregate the plastic at the waste segregation shed established by the Gram Panchayat. Although they initially faced challenges in that people would not separate their waste properly, consistent interpersonal communication, school programs, community meetings and behavior change activities ensured that almost all households took their role seriously and became an integral link were in the system.

As the focus of the Swachh Bharat Mission in Phase 2 shifts to addressing the issue of solid and liquid waste management in India, willing and committed communities like Vadnagar can tap into a variety of government programs to support them in their waste management journey .

In Vadnagar, a link between the local SHG and panchayat has enabled the community to avail the government incentive of Rs.10 per kilo of plastic waste provided, which has helped support the sustainability of their initiative.

MOHI KALAN IN RAJPURA, PUNJAB

Further north, in the village of Mohi Kalan in Rajpura, Punjab, the community and the Panchayat decided to do something radical about waste, by uniting and working with both an NGO and the Panchayat to create their own waste management system. solid waste management and to develop a facility on the border. the outskirts of the city. Nowadays, waste is regularly collected in every household by cycle rickshaw, with waste separated at the facility for reuse, recycling, recovery or disposal.

As each household receives bins for both wet and dry waste, they have also gained widespread awareness and education on the correct way to segregate waste for collection. Each household contributes €. 50 per month for the initiative – and the entire village reaps the benefits. Streets are clean and litter-free. The waterways are clear and the drinking water is not contaminated. Wet waste is composted to create fertilizer for use in local fields, and plastic and glass are recycled as much as possible.

And the word is spreading. Neighboring villages have admired their work and have approached the panchayat to follow suit and initiate a similar waste management initiative in their communities too.

With over six lakh rural villages across India generating 0.3 to 0.4 million tonnes of waste per day, solid waste management is fast becoming the need of the hour. But villages like Vadnagar and Mohi Kalan are leading the way, offering a shining light of what can be achieved when people come together and work with civil society and the government.

If historical growth trends continue, global primary plastic production is expected to reach 1,100 million tons by 2050. As the most populous country in the world, with some of the worst indicators of environmental sustainability, we cannot afford to simply sit around and wait for someone else to do something about it. Each of us must look at our own behavior and sphere of influence and, as Gandhi espoused, “be the change we want to see in the world.”

If the villagers of rural Gujarat and Punjab can do it, surely we can too!

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