India is a complex place. With more than 1.2 billion people here, it’s impossible to say that Indians have a single way of doing anything.
The same applies to environmental issues. We’ve witnessed many contrasts and contradictions in the past week. The developed world could learn from India’s smart use of resources in some areas. Yet in other ways, India has far to go.
Let’s take trash as an example. As any foreign visitor knows, Indians traditionally don’t use toilet paper. (A trip to the ladies’ room means bringing your own TP. If you forget, let’s just say you’ll understand why Indians use only the right hand for eating food, as the left hand is reserved for dirty work.)
While most Westerners would consider toilet paper a necessity, it’s an absolute waste from an environmental perspective. Paper flushed into the sewer system must be strained out and processed at the sewage treatment plant. Yes, paper is biodegradable, but why throw something in the sewer just to remove it a few miles downstream?
Indians have learned to live without toilet paper, or paper hand towels, or paper cups. Public restrooms are equipped with water sprays to clean the needful area. Want to dry your hands? The air will take care of that. Filtered water stations contain communal metal cups. The user lifts the cup in the air and pours a bit into his mouth, so as not to contaminate it with his germs.
By necessity, India is efficient in this way. However, the country has a severe problem with street trash.
Streets are piled high with plastic bottles, food wrappers, and so on. Stray dogs and sacred cows wander city lanes nibbling on the discards. When visitors question the mess, Indians might answer that trash cans get stolen, or city services are inefficient.
Our Indian tour guide, Sundhya, said said Indians lack a “civic sense,” and so they feel free to throw trash on common ground. She cited another reason as well: the growth in plastic packaging.
In the past, biodegradable materials were used to pack everything. Restaurants packed food in banana leaves. Picnic plates were made of leaves stitched into sturdy discs.
Today, of course, all these materials commonly are made from plastic. And so goes the cycle of economic development and resource consumption.
Sundhya predicts that children will lead the way to a new environmental consciousness. I saw a picture in a local magazine of a child holding a homemade sign. It read, “cleanliness is next to godliness.”
Amen to that.