Ours is a beautiful country. Why don't we preserve this beauty by keeping it clean? Littering should be fined

Our burgeoning population is making haste in turning this country into a rubbish heap. And they don't even realise it. Rubbish is something which the majority of them don't realise exists. Dustbins are often ignored and dustbins are created wherever they feel the fancy. And this is what I have seen in the various States I travelled through. This is something in which we Indians are united, the creation of rubbish heaps.

At Gulmarg and Pahalgam in Kashmir, what pained me was the state of these beautiful places. The mountains and the valleys are beautiful, but the tourists have marred the beauty of these places. Everywhere you could find the ubiquitous plastic bottles and bags. Educated people, in well-paying jobs, callously throw these plastic wastes into these lovely places. What lessons are they giving their children?

Children will naturally copy what their parents do. I asked the children in my travel group, ‘Have you not learnt in school about the harm that plastic does to the environment and about not littering places?' They said they had been taught such things but somehow due to non-availability of dustbins in the tourist places they did what others or what their parents did — throw the waste.

I asked them, ‘Will a sweeper come in the morning to sweep these mountains and forests? Isn't it the responsibility of the tourists to keep such places clean?' The children quickly learnt the lesson and took it upon themselves to collect the waste generated by our group in a bag which we took back to our hotel for disposal.

It was a similar experience for me during my trip to Udhagamandalam (Ooty). Once a picturesque hill station, it is now wallowing in rubbish. The tea gardens, the lakes and mountains are entrancing, but as you get closer, the inevitable litter of plastic bags, bottles and disposable plates jar you. We, Indians, have always learnt to throw rubbish outside once we generate it. The banana peel is thrown out after the fruit is eaten, so is the fruit seed or the occasional paper wrap or bag. But now the disposables have become dangerous. Plastic, which wraps our snacks, water, soft drinks, cosmetics and utilities, is non-degradable. The disposable culture has set in a big way as it is very convenient. We have blindly aped the West in adopting the disposable culture, but why have we not aped their way of disposing of these things? For them, littering is punishable and dustbins are provided everywhere. They will keep the rubbish with them until they see a dustbin, whereas we dispose it of everywhere, making our country a huge dustbin.

Ours is a beautiful country. Why don't we preserve this beauty by keeping it clean? For that the children should be trained in schools. Schools should take it up as a mission. Children listen to what the teachers tell them and they, in turn, should teach their parents and elders. Dustbins should be provided at all public places and streetcorners. Littering should be fined. Imposition of fines will make our public realise that littering is an offence and they will refrain from it. In the beginning, the response will be slow, but it will pick up momentum with the active participation of one and all.

Advertisements like Aamir Khan's ‘Incredible India' convey the message to keep our country clean. I hope that this message is drilled into our public through cinemas, hoardings and TV advertisements. The most important point to be made is to educate the public on why littering should be stopped.

(The writer's email is: sindhuvathyath@gmail.com)