Holiday Waste

By Holiday Waste, I mean the waste generated after the holidays. When this waste-line increases the results can be disastrous!

Journeying through India in the past few years has been a very pleasant experience. The monuments, architectural marvels and scenic delights are all preserved and taken care of so well. But then I did come across some eyesores too... particularly the water bodies. They are misused and left uncared, the result is waste getting accumulated in them.


Edible fish have ceased to exist in these water bodies due to continued bouts of hypoxia. Most of them I am sure are mosquito nurseries of these scenic sights. It was a shock for me to see the locals washing clothes at Agastyatirtha Tank at Badami in North Karnataka. I did try to talk to the locals; they seemed to be very casual about this pollution.



At other places like in Daulatabad in Maharashtra, the locals blamed the tourists. Much of the waste, the plastic bags and bottles are left behind by the holidayers they said. The problem needs immediate attention of the tourism industry.


How do you handle Holiday Waste?

After every festival or holiday we create a lot of waste stuff; left over food, dead batteries, wrapping paper, packaging, bottles, cans and more. Those that can be reused must be reused, if further reuse is not possible recycle them and then the final step, dispose properly. If only the tourists followed this meticulously, these sight seeing places can leave sweeter memories.

Look at this bird struggling to find a neat corner to sip water from. When will we learn?


Read more: Facts on Holiday Waste.
How to Reduce Holiday Waste

Back to bicycles

Bike rentals, a fashion in Paris. His suggestion is to try out in Bangalore what is fashionable in Paris. It is easy to imagine the benefits if more people take to bikes instead of automated transport - exercise, cheaper transport, easing traffic congestion, saving fuel and above all, reduction of pollution. I hope that the business community and the citizens would give this a serious thought.

Once upon a time Bangalore was a town of bicycles. With the increase in the number of cars and buses and the eagerness of people to reduce transit time, the humble pedal vehicles were pushed to the background. But now we have come a full circle and often the bicycles can get you to your destination faster than an automobile.

Bicycle rentals were quite common in Bangalore fifty years or so back. In the early 1950s we had one next to St. Joseph’s College Hostel. An Anglo-Indian couple owned it. I forget their name now. The bikes were available any time on nominal rent. It was a great facility for the hostel boys because very few of them owned vehicles.

During a class on the importance of punctuation, the English professor at St. Joseph’s asked us a question. The owner of a bicycle rental had a new name board made for his shop. It included the caption ’Bicycles for gentlemen and ladies for hire’.

The painter put a comma at the wrong place on the board and that changed the entire meaning. I am sure that you can guess after which word the comma was inserted.

That was a lesson well learned.

Coming back to bicycles, I remember that in Kerala too, bike rentals were quite common in villages and small towns. At least in our area this service is making a comeback. Why wait for a bus or auto rickshaw? Take a two-wheeler and pedal away.

Ends.

Also see: Bangalore memories

Cross posted from

Song of the waves - Parayil A. Tharakan Blog