Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | NXg | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest |

The dump effect

The first step Must be from home

Fill it! Shut it! Forget it! That’s what most of us do with our garbage bins at home. But how many of us ever think about what happens to the rubbish we throw away each day? Most of us don’t. But Chandrashekar Reddy does.

Not just that, the documentary filmmaker has also studied the repercussion garbage dumps have on the environment. That’s when he decided to make a documentary ‘Don’t Rubbish It,’ one of four shorts on environment protection and conservation, to be telecast on Discovery Channel on June 25, 8 p.m.

The special films have been produced by the winners of the U.K. Environment Film Fellowships 2009. These Fellowships are awarded every year by the British Council in partnership with the British High Commission.

Reddy’s film takes a closer look at this urban phenomenon vis-À-vis how to reduce, reuse and recycle waste. “This is a subject that has been working on my mind for a long time. As a filmmaker, it was challenging, and yet I felt it needed to be addressed in a serious manner. It was an outlet to express my growing concern about the effects of garbage dumps on climate change and global warming. It was also an opportunity to study the changing consumer patterns, the supermarket culture and man’s attitude towards natural resources.”

Making the film proved to be an eye-opener for Reddy. “Do you know a metropolis such as Mumbai generates nearly 8,000 tonnes of garbage every day? And nearly 42 million tonnes of waste is generated in the country in a year? This means the garbage generated across the country can fill a football field and reach up to a height of one km!” exclaims Reddy.

“My film looks at what happens to the waste after it leaves our homes. It gets dumped at open sites outside city limits and left to decay. This not only pollutes the atmosphere but also the soil and groundwater. What’s more, huge quantities of methane are generated (20 times more potent than carbon dioxide), which is the second biggest man-made contributor to global warming (carbon dioxide being the first).”

Shot in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Matheran, Reddy’s camera moves from a dustbin to a dump site, even as he talks about how we can help save our environment, if each one of us makes an effort.

“The solutions are multi-tiered,” says Reddy. “The first step is the simplest… it has to be taken inside our homes. Make it a point to separate dry and wet waste, recyclable and non-recyclable. That goes a long way in helping the municipality segregate the waste before sending them to dump sites.”

He continues: “Avoid plastic bags as far as possible. Like our grandparents, take cloth or jute bags with you when you go shopping at supermarkets. Ask for paper bags wherever you can.”

On a larger level, several policies have to be put in place. Today, technology is available to convert waste into energy. All it needs is an initiative to get the process moving.

He ends on a lighter note: “A friend of mine commented that city tours must add these dump sites on their routes.”

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail