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G O B A R S P E A K |
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Dear Panditji,
I’m studying in Class VII, Springdales School. Kindly give me some information on how
we can do waste management in schools.
Gaurav Patil
New Delhi
Dear Gauravji,
It is heartening to hear about your interest in doing something for your school on waste
management. We produce a whole lot of garbage everyday. Managing it shouldn’t be seen
as a problem. It should instead be seen as a resource. But to reuse it as a resource, one
should find ways for preventing waste by recycling and reusing it. Schools are the best
places to learn and implement such ideas.
If you are seriously thinking of managing waste in your school, you could form a team
of students and teachers. Also take some help from the administrative staff. First, find
out the amount of waste generated in your school. You may go on to find out how waste is
collected in your school, whether it is segregated into biodegradable and
non-biodegradable waste. Does your school recycle waste in any form? You could try out the
vermicomposting method that can decompose solid waste like newspaper and cardboard.
It will be interesting for you to go through the Green Schools Manual
brought out by CSE. It will actually guide you on principles that can be applied in
managing the use of natural resources in your school. There is an entire chapter on waste
management, which will give you a stepwise process of how you could collect, segregate,
reduce, recycle and reuse waste in a school environment. Turn to the inner back cover of Gobar
Times and contact us for getting a copy of the book.
Dear Panditji,
I am studying in Class VII. I want to know about the state of pollution in India in the
industrial, domestic and automobile sector, compared to what it was five years ago. Can
you also tell me which segment has improved?
K I Roshini
Saint Mary's School
Pondicherry
Dear Roshniji,
On an average, there has been a decline in pollution in all the three sectors that you
have mentioned, in the last 5 years. But this has to be seen with changes that have
taken place in other respects. For instance, vehicular pollution has decreased when you
compare it with the constant increase in the number of vehicles. But, the number of
vehicles has increased exponentially and not constantly, as we imagined. So, one
doesn’t actually get to see the change in air quality. But there are examples to show
how air quality has improved.
 Among all cities, Delhi has taken
maximum effort to tackle urban air pollution. Closure and relocation of more than 1300
polluting industries, in addition to reduction of sulphur content in fuel oil in
1996-1997, has shown a drop in air pollution by 2002. But the particulate matter in air
increased due to the flyover construction between 1998 and 2003. In the transport sector,
the conversion from diesel to CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) in 2000-2002 has brought down
air pollution to a large extent. Similarly, in the domestic sector in Delhi, supply of
piped natural gas to over 4000 homes and 37-40 small and large establishments has gone a
long way in cleaning the air, by replacing choolahs.
The parametres taken for controlling air pollution in the three sectors that you
mentioned, have been the similar in all the metropolitans and some other cities like
Hyderabad and Bangalore. |
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