By Prince Frederick

Copyright thehindu

You have not failed until you have capitulated to a sense of failure. Shefali Ganesh, resident of Dinesh Vihar, a gated community in Thalambur, has come within a hair’s breath of just that kind of capitulation, but held herself back with poise, and well, hope.

Her attempts to influence her neighbours to segregate waste, send different categories of it to their rightful places and not the dumping grounds, have met with resistance as impregnable as the walls of Gibraltar. It is a frustration of the stripe that can drive one to self-help paperbacks dispensing chicken soup for the soul persevering against all odds.

Shefali is still persevering: she was in attendance at the recent dry waste collection drive by Residents of Kasturbanagar Association (ROKA), as she has been in every other drive held by the group in preceding years. As usual, she carted her dry waste plus a few neighbours’ as well her parents’ dry waste (they live at Indira Nagar in Adyar) and dropped it at a venue in the Adyar area. One of those days when her car agrees to take on the duties of a garbage pick-up truck.

She calls herself a hopeful apprentice of ROKA methods, hoping there would be ROKA-like, pan-Chennai drives originating in OMR.

Here are Shefali’s peeves. Recyclers fight shy of coming to her neck of the woods. Nameplates at households change. Neighbours vacate, new neighbours move in — it is a revolving door that never stops, never goes out of order. Shefali finds herself having to start sensitisation training all over again.

Of the six towers in the community, she focuses on two with her “trash talk”, and that is challenging enough. Bringing the apartment committee on board to have a well-rounded waste management system underpinned by sustainability goals is another struggle. The association committee changes, so does the composition of the housekeeping staff.

If she notices the systemic problems inherent in the situation, Shefali would go easy on herself. Those problems are as clear as a football to someone like Bhuvana Raj, a Thalambur resident and co-founder of SIMPLE, which interestingly is not a simple acronym —it stands for Sustainability Improvement through Multiple Projects for a Lovelier Environment. But then, the obstacles green-conscious people in this region are up against are not simple either.

Bhuvana lists what makes the situation complicated.

One, the Chengalpattu district administration would want bulk waste generators (which would include the big gated communities) to manage their waste, which is fair enough, says Bhuvana. But there is the catch. “The administration does not offer a list of empanelled vendors with expertise in managing different kinds of waste. In the absence of this provision, these communities are driven to unauthorised aggregators without a track record for proper waste disposal.”

Two, lack of buy-in from residents associations for sustainable waste management. Bhuvana illustrates it with a familiar experience. SIMPLE was born in Casagrand Elan, a gated community in Thalambur, five years ago — but it still represents only a section of the community (close to 100 households) as only they are willing to be involved in efforts to treat household waste responsibly. “When the Association of a gated community is averse to giving the rallying cry for source segregation and related best practices, it does not inspire confidence in a recycler to enter the picture, as they would not have the volume to sustain the business,” she explains.

Where does the solution lie? What is the way forward for the Shefalis of the world to tread?

Bhuvana answers that: “After five years, SIMPLE is now working towards creating a ‘green coalition’ of like-minded people from various communities. We are about the work of creating a green team in each community to drive waste management there — it is all done pro bono. Every three months, we have a dry waste collection drive, essentially clothes and e-waste. These drives are not Elan-centric, touches other communities as well. We have there recyclers on board to conduct our quarterly drives as well as the weekend drives where the regular dry waste such as plastic waste is covered.”

Bhuvana goes on to offer a glimpse of what happens when “pockets of responsibility” from various communities come together.

“Our June 30th collection drive in Thalambur communities: Elan total — 1020 kg; Smart Town — 200kg; Jains Springs — 282 kg. KG Earth Homes also collected 921 kg on the same weekend. This was done in collaboration with an authorised aggregator.”

ROKA’s dry waste collection drive: the distance says it all

The effectiveness of ROKA’s 11th dry waste collection drive should be gauged by two parameters — weight and distance with greater emphasis on the latter. At the end of the day, two days actually, 10.6 metric tonnes of dry waste was in the net and sent for processing. But the more encouraging indicator of success was the fact that ROKA managed to organise the drive from 10 centres, bringing the city as well as its outlying areas under the purview of the exercise.

“Close to 900 people from across Chennai dropped off their materials at ten different locations. We had student volunteers from Kumararani Meena Muthiah college, Stella maris, St. Peters, SPIHER (Avadi), SRM university and Loyola supporting us with their energy and enthusiasm on both days of the drive,” observes Janani Venkitesh of ROKA.

She believes what these students did for the drive and what the drive did for them are of equal weightage, neither tipping the other on the scales.

“It was a whole new experience for them about waste and how conscious consumption is the need of the hour,” says Janani. The repair workshops and thrift store grabbed a lot of attention this time. We thank our aggregators Wasted 360 and KRMM college.”

The watch repair section was reportedly a big hit with participants — Lekha, a resident of Kasturba Nagar in Adyar, returned home to bring her non-functional watches.

A communication from ROKA, featuring testimonies of student participants, reads this:

Suhita from Stella Maris College: “ ‘Turning Waste into Useful Resource’, where we collected a lot of waste including clothes and plastic, provided a different volunteering experience for me. I enjoyed helping ROKA’s collection drive.”

Najima from SRM University, Kattankulathur: “ ‘Turning Waste into Hope’ where we collected reusable items to support underprivileged communities, emphasised sustainability and gave a second life to items while making a positive social impact. It was heartening to witness the generosity of donors and the impact collective action can have. The experience not only gave me a sense of purpose but also reinforced the importance of giving back.”