LITTERBUG – A Social Desease

During my last vacation to my home town in Odisha, on a fine morning I boarded to a bus connecting Jajpur to Cuttack. I was sitting on a seat next to the window in the 4^th row. The eagerness of the bus driver and conductor to make more profit resulted in more passengers than the seats of the bus. As a result the tiniest free space of the bus between the two columns of seats was used to lay the footings of the standing passengers. Two college students were standing next to my seat. The bus was running across Jajpur to collect more passengers. In the mean time one of the two boys bent over me and threw a banana peel out of the window. The peel fell on the footpath next to the road in the mid of the town. I looked at him and told him “Don’t you know about the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan?? If you being a college student would show such type of ignorance, then what can we expect from the illiterate people” (From then on I term these people as educated-illiterate). He looked at me for half a minute then took the banana peel from his friend’s hand and threw it in the same manner as he did before one minute. I understood “his ego came into picture 😕 “.

On a different occasion I had a similar experience. I was sharing my room with one of my friend who was working in a multinational company. He has visited several countries on corporate trips. So, he had nice ideas on the culture of different countries. He always told me “I will fly to America or any European country to settle down there“. I used to ask him “Why? What’s wrong in India?“. He replied me “India is a country where there are no traffic rules and no cleanliness“. Even, he never went to the nearby daily market, where he could have got cheap and fresh vegetables but he used to do his shopping from the malls. One day while returning from a shopping mall with him, I observed he threw the chocolate wrapper on the road. I told him “The main reason why you are planning to go out of India is that you feel our country is not clean. Then why are you throwing the wrapper on the road? Don’t you feel that you are also responsible for the current situation of the country? And you are running away from the dirt rather than cleaning your own country?” He replied “Show me one dustbin in 500 meter radius of this place. If it is, then I would take the wrapper and put it into the dustbin“. I understood his act was neither intentional nor carelessly but due to lack of proper public disposal facilities.

Now if we analyze the above two paragraphs closely; then actually there are two reasons why someone acts like a LITTERBUG…

1st Reason (from 1^st paragraph)

Litter-bugging has become a habit and reflects in the behaviour and attitude of the person. This has dipped so deep to blood that the victim never hesitate to rephrase “TOILET” to “TO LET” printed on the wall 😮 . Even he/she feels proud saying “Rules are made to be broken”.

Only Prevention

“No to Litterbug” attitude should be built from the home only. Parents should teach their kids and themselves behave accordingly. Each room of the home should have dustbin so that it would be a practice for the kids to use dustbin. Make it a habit. Because prevention is better than cure!!!

2nd Reason (from 2^nd paragraph)

The circumstances force someone to be a Litterbug. And the “someone” becomes an unintentional Litterbug.

Prevention – Government Responsibilities

1. Install Dustbin and build Toilets in every 500 meter distance.

2. Municipality should take corrective actions on the dumped garbage in public places.

3. Provide proper facilities to collect the daily home garbage.

4. Government should try to have proper waste management systems for degradable and non-degradable wastes.

5. Regular awareness drives just like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and The Great Indian Litterbug
   
   
   

Now the Responsibility of the government for those Litterbugs who are neither a kid nor an unintentional one…

1. Heavy Penalty rules should be imposed on the violators

2. Ban on Pan Gutkha. It will result in better public health and also a relief from colored walls and corners due to spit.

This post is dedicated to an initiative The Great Indian Litterbug by The Times of India in association with Indiblogger, an Indian blogging site.

After all, the responsibility to keep our country clean is on the shoulders of all the citizen of India. Read one of my earlier post “If she has taken the responsibility then why not we” and two more social awareness posts “Healthy Child, Healthy Home, Healthy India” and “No Toilet, No Bride!!” promoted by Indiblogger with a vision of making a better India. Hope these posts will help in someway in the revolution of bringing a clean and healthy Bharat.