Pakistan is the land where managing urban waste was invented. No civilization before the Harappans of the Indus valley had a standard of civic cleanliness to compare with our forefathers four millennia ago. For many years I have pondered upon the reason for our deplorable modern condition in comparison with that time. The answer lies in the classes of urban waste that these people created and our present forms of pollutants.
Perhaps, the terms, biodegradable, non-biodegradable and recyclable and non-recyclable hold the keys to the problem. Harappans dealt with a biodegradable variety of solid waste and effluents. Even their detergents were naturally purified by the flow of water and their non-biodegradable bricks were recyclable. Another lesson that the ancients knew well and even our more recent ancestors, till pre-colonial times were aware of, is the fact that one man’s waste is another man’s need. Perhaps it would not be incorrect to say that one man’s pollution is another man’s raw material. Chammar, the indigenous name by which we sometimes address the sweeper, derives from the function of processing animal hides. The Hindus declared them outcaste and gave them space outside the town for their smelly occupation but the Harappans assigned them an area in one portion of the town, as noted by Kautilya. The Brahmans were unwilling to let a sound of their chant of mantras reach the ears of the Shudars and Dalits while the Muslim muezzin is keen to be heard as far as possible. These cultural variations based on belief notwithstanding, the majority of South Asians apparently used to dump their rubbish into the streets during my childhood.
I used to wonder why we in Pakistan couldn’t shed the caste and occupation classification which seemed to be at the root of this practice till my neighbor peeped over my boundary wall and asked me to throw freshly cut grass from my lawn into his yard so that he could feed it to his cows. I found his looking over the wall offensive on Islamist and modernist grounds, the first because it violated the purda of my house and the second because it was an invasion of my privacy, and I told him so. But most of all I found his request amazing as it meant that he was inviting me to repeat both improprieties and to compound it by an act of littering on his property. He was equally amazed at my anger as on my reticence to throw litter into his property because not only did a number of double story buildings let people look into my yard; but also because he wanted to save both of us the bother of the transfer of grass by wheelbarrow as it meant a trip of two hundred yards every time.
In his view, it was an eminently reasonable and convenient arrangement for moving some biodegradable material through a distance of a few yards which would clear my lawn and serve his animals with a minimum of effort for both parties and he would avoid invading my house for the length of time that it would take to move the grass. Put in that light I too could see his point. Today a great deal of waste is non-biodegradable and non-recyclable. Even worse, a portion of the waste cannot be adequately treated despite the developments of science. Hospital waste, if incinerated indiscriminately, may be harmful. Most packing materials are synthetic, non-biodegradable and cannot be recycled easily.
This kind of garbage needs very systematic waste management. This has been possible in some highly educated communities of the developed world like university campuses; that also on a limited scale. In order to make an entire society socially responsible regarding a day to day management of domestic litter, enforcement is essential, as in Singapore; or centuries of acculturation, as in Iran. If we in Pakistan wish to revive Harappan traditions, a two pronged attack can work. On one side we need to reduce the non-biodegradable and non-recyclable waste to a minimum, develop protocols for incentives and enforcement to maintain use of recyclable materials, and find communal connections which naturally use waste as a recyclable input elsewhere. On the other side we need an acculturation drive through education and enforcement to revive abandoned traditional values.
Ever since General Zia-ul-Haq set the high standards of indolence in government servants and corruption in the exercise of official business by giving a carte blanch to anyone who could rock the boat of his government, mismanagement of urban waste has also achieved phenomenal proportions. The general failure of governance led to a free for all in which every citizen is free to arrange a personal dispensation with officials. Cleanup operations of encroachments look like a scene from Keystone Cops. Officials, remove encroaching carts in front of them only to have them fall back into place as soon as the drive is ended; earlier, if the lower staff has arranged an eyewash for an over-conscientious boss.
On the other side, residents of some localities have from time to time launched initiatives to solve problems for which local activists could mobilize their community. While some such initiatives have been duplicated by neighboring communities, others have remained exceptions to the rule. A virtually universal ‘apathy’ pervades Pakistani society when it comes to collective protest against inefficiency of government. Sporadic protests against recent price hikes lacked ability to sustain pressure and retain communal organization and our elite, educated in western socio-political usage, generally responds with cynicism and disgust to the ‘lack of a sense of community and civic responsibility’ in our society.
The appalling condition of urban waste is a hazard to national health and environmental conditions. Canals and drains are choked with plastic bags, non-biodegradable synthetic packing materials and other solid waste. Liquid waste itself, also a black obnoxious fluid, manages to defy nature’s purification process for many a mile. In contrast there are some communal efforts to beautify localities by plantation and cordoning off unoccupied land near homes and shops to keep it clean. Communal-municipal cooperation if revived can bring back the Harappan culture of social cleanliness. Unfortunately the efforts to create a clean urban environment by engaging communities in municipal or provincial initiatives have failed. The efforts of many bureaucrats and politicians have proved unsustainable in the long run due to two reasons: first, the autocratic official who believes that communal norms may be changed by an office order; second, a lack of understanding of communal behavior and cultural norms of tolerance and intolerance. When a plan of action is to be formulated, a community should be taken into confidence at the planning stage to assess what option is closest to its culture, and how it may be induced to assist in enforcement.
An administrator should facilitate the population to minimize the offenders and maximize the sympathizers with administrative measures. In the short term administrators have only two options: Either they may embed their policies in popular culture or enforce them very aggressively, a practice that may have a backlash in the form of local resistance. Nature has several methods of purifying substances which are known to modern science through ideas such as the nitrogen and oxygen cycle, biodegradable matter, the animal food chain and organic processing of substances. Flow of water, aeration, sunlight, insects, bacteria, even the variety of smells, are nature’s purifying agents. The sense of smell, in particular is an amazing gift of nature which not only indicates the existence of pollution but also helps identify the kind of process that will lead to purification. Nature lovers romanticize rural life and the skills and knowledge of the ancients due to their ability to identify and utilize natural agents of purification for processing of pollution to facilitate humans.
Because the Harappans and all their successors till the time of the British did not have the advanced chemical knowledge for ‘treating’ waste and pollution, they relied on managing waste, through nature, based on observation. Thus they were able to develop protocols for the purification of water by flow, aeration, sunlight or a combination of several processes. Similarly knowledge of converting excreta to manure, distinction between the varieties of grass which are fit for human and animal consumption and several other such ‘observed’ purifying procedures were absorbed in culture and social practices.
The irresponsible use of solid urban waste has reached the grassroots in Pakistan because the common Pakistani is used to treating litter as biodegradable. Drains are clogged with plastic bags and materials which can’t be treated, or recycled, or die a natural death. If we wish to find a solution to our problems and join the race of modernization, we will need to find solutions that are culturally sensitive to the life of the commons.
Earlier I mentioned the office order type of executive measures of waste management. A recent example is the effort by the military store [called CSD] to discourage use of plastic bags. Loss of sales was so swift that the store withdrew its policy. Naturally it is difficult to break a social habit. The government at all levels; especially the central government should prepare itself for a year of inducement and at least one year of enforcement before we can expect use of plastic bags to decline. The most difficult and most vital component is to convince consumers whose daily life is now incomplete without them. The milkman delivers milk and yogurt; curry or tea is supplied in these [cheapest possible disposable containers] to the laboring class. Double packing is demanded for fragile items like eggs, hot items like tea and difficult to carry items like heavy tins of ghee.
Even when the issue is neither economic nor logistic, the common mindset is so used to this ‘culture’ or way of life that it will need a concerted and consistent effort to change it. First, incentives must be provided to compliant industries and commercial concerns; and through them, to the consumer. Government measures like tax incentives may be given to corporate institutions that encourage customers to avoid use of non-biodegradable stuff. Simultaneously, more affluent communities should be approached to set the trend of not using substances that are damaging for the ecology. In the second stage subsidies may be provided for industries that suffer loss due to enforcement of the policies. The livelihood of producers of plastic bags will be threatened; the government should invest in purchase of their equipment and capital in such a way in which they may be ensured a compatible income without an enforced change in their lifestyle or social status.
Unless consumers and end users like the shopkeepers and vendors of milk and curry are provided a viable solution for the inexpensive supply of these substances, we cannot hope to lure them to the mindset of civic consciousness for the health of our future generations. Effective inducement will depend on a well thought out plan of item by item replacement of non-biodegradable non-recyclable products with economically viable biodegradable or recyclable items, on a locality by locality and community by community basis. This does not, however, mean that the implementation cannot be on a provincial or national scale.
In the third stage government can enforce its policies against non-compliant industries or commercial establishments and even consumer communities through fines or punishment accompanied with tax holiday schemes for those who help to minimize government costs on sanitation and reduction of environmental degradation. A good administrator is able to find a solution that that can be enforced but excellent administrators find administrative procedures that avoid potential problems. Winning communal support and isolating the offenders should be the primary objective. Even the first stage of enforcement may lead to public sympathy for producers and consumers of plastic bags and non-biodegradable products if enforcement is mishandled. Thus a soft policy towards those who continue to produce or use such materials is essential. Thus, while the production of such materials would not be tolerated, producer, when identified, would be given reasonable assistance in finding an acceptable substitute for their capital and skills of livelihood.
In case of consumers, an aggressive government sponsored campaign should be launched to educate people about the nature of the problem and the solutions that the government is able and willing to sponsor to resolve it. The first step should be at the municipal level, where local government representatives should go to every locality that may be treated as a community. A small unit of space which can be managed through local initiative should be chosen so as to negotiate terms of partnership. The citizens would be required to take some responsibilities; particularly issues of maintenance, while the administration would undertake to provide the facilities for creating a clean and healthy environment/locality.
Today Pakistan is kept clean by an enormous community of scavengers who recycle solid waste. Communities may harvest this waste merely by segregating types of waste. This is a lesson which the West has learnt from our scavengers. Local government needn’t try to make large profits from scavenging contracts but should be satisfied with creating a clean environment. A community which is only required to provide maintenance of segregating containers of solid waste should consider itself a beneficiary. If the local government can donate the first set of segregating containers and the scavenging contractor maintains it in good repair, the community may appoint its own monitors for ensuring proper utilization.
At present when some municipal cleaning staff is assigned to a locality, it often develops a kind of understanding with local scavengers. The official staff as well as the scavenger is able to reap a profit from sale of recyclable waste. If a community is convinced that by segregating waste they too can reap a profit, managing urban solid waste should become easier. It is still possible to find hawkers who buy waste paper, glass and tin containers in the inner city sometimes they too wander into a posh locality. Scrap metal, plastic bottles, cardboard and other similar items also have a robust market. Even broken pieces of road which are excavated to make a new road are utilized by communities for paving the place where the common taxi drivers washes vehicles. Pakistan’s genius for recycling material is still active; it will not be difficult to establish a soft government interface with it.
Additional encouragement can be provided to communities through relief from municipal taxes if they support segregated waste management. In this case a municipality my claim the profits on the segregated waste. An item by item listing of ‘waste’ and their potential for recycling or utilization in industry, agriculture or commerce should be developed by a centralized authority to assess their value as pollution that has been avoided and as inputs that have been reutilized. This is perhaps the easy part of engagement with a community; the difficult part is selecting the place of the waste containers in a locality.
A waste disposal site should be close enough for a householder to access it without much effort and movement away from home; yet it must be far enough that it is not a visual or odorous discomfort. In practical terms, biodegradable items must be removed by sanitary staff or scavengers frequently since waste disposal containers do not allow natural cycles to work. This is where municipal management must maintain a high level of efficiency.