Litter means rubbish carelessly dropped or left about anywhere, especially in public places. Sadly, people are found littering the road or any other public place with impunity. Quite often, we see even educated persons travelling in an expensive car roll down their car’s window to dump trash on the road. They do not think twice about throwing half-eaten sandwiches or throwing empty soda can which hit the car coming from behind us with its driver trying to avoid it in a dangerous way. A truck loaded on the highway goes spreading trash due to its broken container. Who cares?
Many people have an unfortunate habit of just dumping waste products at an inappropriate location. We callously drop objects such as aluminium cans, cardboard boxes or plastic bottles at a public place and leave them there indefinitely. Household waste and even hazardous items of rubbish such as tyres, electrical appliances, electronics, batteries and large industrial containers are dumped on public land. This way, we expect others to dispose them of as opposed to ourselves disposing of them properly.
Spitting anywhere and throwing garbage
anywhere is an unfortunate tendency. People often spit on the stairs of an office building, on the over bridge and platform of the railway station. Pan, gutkha and tobacco eaters generally find it hard to resist the tendency of spitting.
THE PROBLEM AND CAUSES OF LITTERING
India is the most sluggish in terms of cleanliness among most countries of the world. There are many reasons for the sad mentality of people towards hygiene in India.
A widespread social phenomena
Often poor sections are considered to be responsible for creating a pile of garbage, filth or garbage in public places. But what about the dirt spread by the pee and poo of dogs of rich classes in parks, streets and roads? There is a charge against the slum dwellers that they spread pollution, but the truth is that there is a woeful dearth of proper waste management in multi-storey buildings, chemical industries and other factories which are responsible for spreading more garbage in the residential areas. So, the filth in the cities is not limited to poor people’s actions, but every section of the society is guilty of spreading the mess at its own level.
Inability to share responsibility
Many people tend to believe that they have to maintain the standards of sanitation within the four walls of their houses. The filthy water, garbage, or the dirt of the dog, is removed from the house and thrown into the street, road or park. People believe that garbage-disposal is the responsibility of the government and the administration. It is neither their responsibility to keep the environment, road, park or the street clean nor they are accountable for the garbage or filth, which is thrown out of the house.
Lack of spirit for maintaining cleanliness
In this densely populated country, most of us still spread dirt on the streets despite dustbins being kept along the roads. We just mean to clean up the place where we live and worship.
We do not do this because we like to spread dirt on the road, but we do this because we are a slave to our habit of littering.
Despite the much-talked about Swachh Bharat campaign, our country is quite dirty compared to other countries. There is no cleanliness campaign in other countries of the world. Despite this, they are cleaner than most Indian villages and towns. Unlike Indian roads, no one is seen sweeping a broom in other countries, similarly, important celebrities there do not flaunt themselves spreading campaign for hygiene with a broom in hand. Still, what is the hidden secret behind their cleanliness?
The answer lies in the spirit of maintaining cleanliness that lies in the character of citizens of those countries from a very young age. In many public places in India, the board of ‘Do not litter’ can be seen. Even then, that place is filled with dirt. People consider it their rights to defile public places, and cleaning is considered to be the job of sanitation workers.
Increase in types of waste
In olden times, garbage was generally organic waste which would assimilate into the ground, but with modern development, the proportion of chemicals in the waste is increasing. It is extremely harmful to health. Earlier, in countries like India, materials used as bags were not harmful. Pottery was used for curd, and jute bag was used to carry other stuffs. The use of plastic has changed the situation and a problem has also arisen with it because the plastic never melts. There is no proper system to deposit or dump it. Now efforts are being made to deal with the problem by banning the use of plastic.
WHAT LITTERING CAN DO TO THE ENVIRONMENT?
Littering has a negative impact on the environment. In fact, it has become a serious environmental issue how to counter the ill-effects of littering. We all like to keep our houses clean, but after cleaning it many of us throw the garbage around due to which there is contamination of the entire environment. We never bother to understand that it’s our responsibility for not polluting the atmosphere, and spreading diseases by littering.
Before throwing the garbage out of houses and shops in the drains made in the roadside, nobody thinks that if the same garbage gets stuck, then due to excessive flooding in the rainy season, dirty water will be seen flowing out of their own houses.
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