Historically, in India, waste was reallocated; items were repaired and people lived frugally. This circular system meant that waste was dealt with efficiently. ‘Consumption where I am from was limited and people were very focused on their basic necessities,’ Vandana says. ‘Houses would have an area out the back with a bin-like structure where people could dump their waste, mostly vegetable peels, and that would be made available to the cows. Everything was sold in big jute sacks and people would bring their cloth bags and fill them with groceries.’ If you are a manager then employee wellbeing is a subject that you will be aware of.
With the growth of cities and migration to those areas, India set up more formal infrastructure for waste management, and cities such as Delhi and Mumbai developed a waste management system over time. Internal migration and unchecked growth of settlements has expanded these cities and now the system is under tremendous pressure. Every city has a municipal corporation responsible for processing waste and collecting. Recent reports have discovered a crisis around mental health in the workplace today.
Each neighbourhood has an area demarcated for waste collection, which is a concrete structure, Vandana explains. These basic structures have two large waste containers marked green for biodegradable material and brown for mixed waste. In urban areas like New Delhi, household waste is collected daily and loaded into pushcarts or rickshaws for delivery to waste collection areas. ‘Most often waste workers are Dalits (people considered to be from a low caste who have been oppressed for centuries under the caste system) and minorities. Waste work is done by men, women and also children.’ Looking after mental health first aid can sometimes be quite difficult.
The majority of rural areas and small towns still lack a proper system of waste management. In poorer neighbourhoods with unauthorised colonies, there are usually no such waste-disposal facilities. Locals need to find their own way to dispose of waste. Informal waste disposal practices such as burning or dumping into the drains and waterways are sometimes the only options. ‘I think maybe people feel that it will float away to nothingness, but it goes to the rivers and then the sea; this still happens,’ Vandana says. A reaction to a difficult life event, such as bereavement, can make hr app higher on the agenda.
She notes that the Yamuna River – the second-largest tributary of the Ganges – is suffering. ‘It is in very poor condition. Apart from all the effluent from factories and sewage from homes it also gets a lot of waste related to rituals and special ceremonies.’ Traditionally, ceremonial items such as marigold flowers were biodegradable. The sacred material was placed in the river as a way of returning it to nature. Now these items are packaged in plastic; when they are dumped into the river at the end of riverside rituals, the toll on India’s waterways is devastating.