Alright, who is wrong here? You are dumping the garbage in your neighbor’s house or your neighbors who allows you to dump the garbage because they get paid for it.
If you ask me, both are equally at fault. But what about those innocents who are not aware of the consequences of staying with these dumps? They are the people who face the music for this idiotic act of some one else.
We all, at least most of them who cared, know about the French flag ship Clemenceau which was supposed to come into Alang ship breaking yard in Gujarat, to be dismantled. It was decommissioned from service many years ago This ship was full of asbestos (around 40-50 tonnes), PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), TBT (tributyltin), lead, mercury and other toxic chemicals, which France and no other European country was willing to or able to scrap due to expensive environmental costs.
Then why do the Government of France sends it off to India to be broken in a scrap yard where impoverished workers are injured and die every day due to various occupational health hazards?
I will tell you why? Strange it might sound but, few Indain’s sold their soul along with the lives of innocent thousands for some quick money. Now, can you believe that the government which on one hand talks about Global Warming, Environment and all b*** s*** sold their people for colored papers with some thick head printed on it. The Indian company had bought it and the union government supported it.
The workers who dismantle these very hazardous materials do it without any kind of protective clothing’s and very soon one out of the three land up with a cancer or die due to mishaps during the process. In addition to this, the worst part is that they aren’t covered under any labor benefits. I mean we understand that the workers are knowledgeable enough to know these things, yet they do it because surviving for just one more day is their only criteria. But isn’t it the duty of the government and these companies to stop preying on these people’s weakness?
The irony in fact is that, it was the Greenpeace and other three anti-asbestos groups which raised their voices against this movement and Indians were kept in dark until supreme court intervened.
On Saturday, as usual I was having a quick scan of the news paper when my eyes caught hold of this headlines, “Urban waste ‘imported’ from U.S. to be shipped back”
Three containers carrying URBAN waste arrived at the Kochi Port from the United States in the first week of October. Exactly what is this urban waste ? It means, 40 % of the 60 tones of the consignment contains plastic, glass, metal, cartridges of photocopying machines, food waste and gloves.
Now, it’s a shame that these developed nation’s brag about being technically advanced and superior but cannot fix their own waste. Instead they outsource it to the third world countries because it works out cheap. In other worlds what they mean is that, “The value of life in Developing and under developed nations is doesn’t weigh much compared to the life of their own people.” A real shame.
I will tell what’s even more painful. The consignments are had been brought to Kochi by selling the lives of our people for $130 a tonne. Our own traders are importing these materials for money. If I was given a choice then, I would have brought out a rule to have at least one of the close loved relative’s of these trader’s to work with those workers who survive only to die tomorrow. Then and only then, they would realize the value of life.
The developed nations who always boast about their superiority should realize that instead of dumping their waste on the lives of the million poor, they should find out the way to manage it at the source itself where it is manufactured. Every product manufactured, instead of filing for patent to copyright should also have a solid method to dispose their products safely after the life time of their products. This holds good to our nation as well.
We as a rapidly developing nations would not remain the same for long and before we start dumping our waste on someone else, lets set an example by designing a very effective, efficient and safe waste disposable system.
One of my friend commented, "Its really hard to imagine or face the grime realities of life. I hope we as collective force can do something about this. Like sign an online petition, arrange road rokos, spread awareness or file an RTI demanding an explanation for these acts from the Government. "
I agree that we could make a difference by raising our concern but the only problem that I see is that, the magnitude and the frequency of issues is so much that our life time will be spent on only in fighting these causes.
For example the Jessica Lal case received so much publicity but on the other hand there are millions who are still suffering judicial betrayal. I mean it would be almost be impossible to give the same amount of publicity to all.
Now, currently we have become intelligent enough to realize this and hence we create a general body which for example the Green Peace Activists who have an agenda and a common cause. One of its committee fights against all these instances and the other is responsible for creating the general awareness among people about what they do. Now both of these are equally important but I guess we need to fight the root cause, you know.
These waste materials that was being dumped since many years in Kerala was creating all kind of environmental issues. Though late, the Kerala govt. did well to stop it. However, all said and done, they fail to execute it because some how, some where, some one would know how to beat the system.
“Lets respect the value of the everyone’s LIFE. It’s price less.”
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