From brimming garbage bins to diminishing space in landfills, the city’s waste is hauled in large trucks and compactors. The current centralized waste management system not only proves to be ecologically unsustainable, but uneconomical and inefficient. The link to the story map below will take you through the journey waste traverses after it leaves our homes.
Imagine opening one of your drawers on a typical office day and discovering to your horror a used sanitary napkin lying there. This is a scene in a promotional video created for a better sanitary waste management system in Pune. Its message is clear: it would be unpleasant for you to discover a blood-soaked sanitary pad in your workplace so why force waste pickers to undergo this?
There is much to learn from the working of previously constructed community managed toilets. When it comes to public sanitation, it is the provision of facilities for the poorest that is often neglected. According to a 2011 census, only 46.9% of India’s homes have a toilet.[1] Open defecation is prominent among those who do not have access to private sanitation facilities and posses many health and safety risks. These could be the urban poor who live in slums and informal settlements and also commuters.