I remember one of my first attempts to “bring change home.” It was 2019, and I had just started my current job as a researcher in solid waste management issues. Full of enthusiasm, I rushed into my mother’s humid kitchen where she was peeling vegetables. I asked her to separate waste into three bins: red, blue, and green. She looked at me, confused, and asked, “What?” For many people in North Chennai back then, segregation was an unfamiliar idea. Her second question was even sharper: “Why?” That moment stuck with me. It wasn’t just ignorance; it was real confusion.
Waste segregation was not part of her daily routine. For her, peeling vegetables and tossing scraps into one bin was second nature. My ambitious instructions felt like a burden. Not long after, I tried to convince my father to throw his shaving razors into a separate “red” bin. He dismissed the idea, saying it wasn’t practical. “I’ve been doing this for years,” he argued. His resistance came from habit, convenience, and a belief that change was unnecessary. This raised uncomfortable questions for me. Was waste segregation seen as a “woman’s job” in the household? Was my father’s dismissal a reflection of old habits? And was my own preaching just another passing interest clashing with their established routines?
The Underlying Problem
The more I thought about it, the more I realised that waste management in India isn’t just about bins and rules. It’s about culture, habits, and perceptions. For many families, segregation feels like an extra burden rather than a shared task. Gender roles complicate things, mothers are expected to manage kitchen waste, while fathers stick to their old habits. Children absorb these patterns without questioning them. Even when I worked on projects in places like Ward 100 in Anna Nagar in 2019, I saw the same responses. People hesitated when asked to segregate waste. Confusion, resistance, and sometimes outright refusal were common. People asked “Why?” not because they didn’t care, but because the system hadn’t made sense to them yet. They hadn’t heard about the issues at the dump yards, and they didn’t understand the impact on the city and their children’s future. The stigma of “my waste is someone else’s problem” was widespread across Chennai.
We can talk endlessly about segregation, recycling, and sustainability. We can create colourful bins and run awareness campaigns. But unless these ideas travel from the listener’s ears to their heads and to their hearts; and become a part of and change their world view itself; and along with that change their kitchen, bathroom and shaving routine, these ideas remain only abstract - worse still, floating sound waves that are forgotten as soon as they are heard. Change needs more than information, it requires empathy, patience, and a willingness to challenge deeply ingrained habits - both on the part of the speaker and the listener. And for something like segregation to become a routine that everyone adopts and practices every day, advocates need relentless energy to teach and challenge at every level, consistently, for a long period of time. Change can take years - even decades.
A Shared Struggle
I’m still trying to convince my parents, and perhaps myself, to practice what I preach. Let me be honest - after researching waste for years, working with communities around Chennai’s dump yards, meeting passionate activists, and even talking to students about the importance of segregation, I too sometimes fail to segregate my waste. I still buy cheap plastics. And sometimes I forget to carry my own bags and water bottles. The irony is hard to miss. And in this lies the paradox of waste advocacy.
But maybe that’s the point: waste management is not just a one-time rule; it’s a long process of changing habits. My confession is not just personal guilt; it’s a reminder that the path to sustainable living is long and arduous. And importantly, it is made of small, persistent steps. So the next time you throw something in the bin, pause. Ask yourself: Is it really waste, or is it a resource waiting to be handled differently? If I can acknowledge my contradictions, perhaps we can all start reflecting on our own.
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