Garbage Menace

Introduction:
Managing garbage seems to be a ubiquitous problem. Our ad hoc ways of managing ways and inadequate knowledge of the problems that creep because of this are causing irreparable damage to the environment. As tomorrow’s citizens, children have to be made aware of this huge problem so that they become responsible citizens. This article tells the teacher ways in which she can introduce this problem to her students and get them to think about it.

Objective:
1. Students will know how better to manage the waste they produce.
2. Students will learn to empathize with people who strive to keep our roads and cities clean.
3. Students will be more conscious about littering the environment.
4. Students will learn the dangers of an unhealthy environment.

Activity Steps:
Can your students imagine a situation where the municipal workers have decided to go on an indefinite strike protesting against their working conditions? Create a situation that can help them imagine this. It could be a rainy day. The rains have hit the city badly and sewerage system has collapsed. Dirty water is flowing everywhere – on the roads, in the gutters, into the shops and houses. The waste bins are overflowing, and a bad stench engulfs the atmosphere. To worsen the situation, all the municipal workers have declared an indefinite strike. What would the consequence be on our daily lives? The students could write a report/letter to a newspaper, an essay, or even click a picture depicting the situation.

Through this activity, draw the attention of the students to the fact that most often we limit our concern to keeping our immediate surroundings clean. In the process we unload our garbage either on the streets or waste bins located outside our territories. While some of the garbage may be non bio-degradable, a large part could be used as manure. It is a low-cost process which would reduce both the accumulation of garbage in public bins and the unpleasant burden on the municipal worker. Being a municipal worker is a tough job, which entails sweeping roads, collecting garbage, clearing the gutters, sewers, removing the carcasses of dead animals, to name a few. Some of the most common diseases a sweeper is susceptible to are breathing problems, lung diseases, tuberculosis, scabies, and other skin infections, cuts and scratches, bites from insects and rodents, muscular aches and fungus infections. You could begin the discussion by asking them what they think are the difficulties and dangers of being a garbage collector or road sweeper.

What do they think the remedies are? How can the job be made easier? For instance, the broomsticks are so structured that the sweepers have to work in a bent position for hours together. They are never provided with gloves to protect their hands from rotten garbage or pesticides. Face masks are totally unheard of.

What can we do to reduce the misery of these workers?

Devise sustainable ways of using daily waste, especially that which is bio-degradable. The students could be encouraged to make their own compost heap, keep two separate bins in schools, one saying bio-degradable and the other, non-biodegradable. The bio-degradable bin could include paper, bits of cloth, food stuff, fruits and any other object that can be easily decomposed. Initially, the students would require help to prepare the compost beds.
As an additional task, ask the students to find out how the waste gets decomposed to form a natural fertilizer. Though this entire exercise, the students should realize that composting their own waste at home and at school, however little it may be, would make a world of difference for their immediate environment.

Make your own compost heap

• Take a box measuring 2 X 2 feet, and 4 feet high. Such a box would be easily available in any grocery shop.
• Fill the bed with a few pebbles and sticks. Add a layer of sand on the pebbles.
• Fill in the gathered waste up to nine inches and pour some water into it, sprinkle some powdered lime and add a two inch layer of soil on the waste. Repeat to wet the heap regularly.
• After a period of six months, remove the heap from the box.
• Mix it well and put it into another box of similar proportion.
• Continue to wet it regularly for another two or three months.

Your fertilizer is ready. This natural fertilizer could be used as manure for the school garden and the excess could be marketed commercially. The students could even gift the fertilizer to any small farmer.