THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 30 September 2019 (Ramakrishna Mission’s move to make residents take ownership of their waste is sociologically transformative (The Hindu))

Ramakrishna Mission’s move to make residents take ownership of their waste is sociologically transformative (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3 : Environment
Prelims level : Mangaluru
Mains level : waste management and pollution control

Context

• The Ramakrishna Mission in Mangaluru may have invented the most ingenious method to address an attitudinal problem embedded in the collective Indian psyche.
• During a cleanliness drive that the Mission organised, the volunteers identified individuals who dumped their household trash at 300 different locations in Mangaluru.
• The volunteers followed garbage-throwers and returned the waste at their doorstep. People threw their house trash despite the Mangaluru City Corporation’s door-to-door waste collection policy.
• But when the volunteers started returning their trash, 90 per cent people stopped throwing it in the open.

Way ahead

• The everyday reality is that disposal of waste or cleaning is a menial, “dirty” task performed by someone other than the one who generates it.
• This is an all-pervasive psychology which prevents an individual from taking responsibility for the waste he and his household generate on an everyday basis.
• The challenge of disposing around 62 million tonnes of municipal solid waste per annum in 7,935 towns and cities is at the institutional as well as individual level.
• While municipal authorities have to step up their solid waste disposal mechanisms, individuals have to ensure proper segregation of waste at source and its recycling.

Conclusion

• By forcing people to take responsibility for their household waste, the Mission has performed a sociologically transformative service.
• Besides equipping municipalities and provincial administration with enhanced technical and financial support, such efforts need to be replicated if Swachh Bharat has to translate from slogan to reality.

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Prelims Questions:

Q.1) Which of the following is/are source(s) of omega 3 fats?
1. Walnut
2. Flax Seeds
3. Spinach
4. Mustard Seeds

Select the correct answer using code given below:
A. 1 and 2 only
B. 2 and 3 only
C. 1, 2 and 3 only
D. 1, 2, 3 and 4

Answer: D
Mains Questions:
Q.1) How caste stratification has stigmatised manual labour in general and work related to waste disposal?