Corbett's own swachh abhiyaan

An intrepid ex-hotelier has been helping villagers at Jim Corbett National Park clean up their act, one bin at a time

It is estimated that India generates about 60 million tonnes of trash every year, trash that is being thrown into already overflowing, unsanitary landfills. These mountains of waste contaminate ground water, leach into the soil and cause numerous diseases. However, the issue of waste management takes on an even more serious dimension when it is in eco-sensitive zones such as mountains and forests. "Many of us see the problem but believe that there's nothing we can do individually to solve it," says Meenakshi Pandey. "But if we try, we can make a difference." She ought to know. Since the last year and some, this intrepid ex- hotelier has been waging a war against the growing problem of waste in the Jim Corbett National Park. Through her outfit, Waste Warriors Corbett, Pandey and her growing team of committed locals has been helping villagers on the periphery of the forest to clean-up their act, one bin at a time.

"It all began when I realised how people along the Kosi river and on the fringes of the forest were dumping their waste there. Leachates from this waste were causing problems for the birds and animals, even as rubbish heaps in the jungle were growing steadily," says Pandey, who used to run a wildlife lodge, Camp Forktail Creek, in Bhakrakot. At first, Pandey started alone, organising clean-ups in Bhakrakot and trying to convince villagers to clean up their dump site. "Friends would come for a few hours to help," she recounts. To her consternation, she found that within 15 days, the dump site was filthy again. "I realised that the problem was the lack of waste management options. Until there was a viable option to throwing waste in a nearby dumpsite, we couldn't solve this problem." That is how she devised the ambitious plan of providing each household in the 120-odd villages near the reserve with a complete waste management solution.

In its first year of inception, Waste Warriors is working in 17 villages, 15 schools and seven hotels in the area. Team members visit each household once a week or fortnight to collect the segregated trash. "We also show villagers how to segregate their waste, compost all that is compostable and put the remainder (a surprisingly small amount, by the way) in the landfill near Ramnagar," explains Pandey. Other than hotels, whom they charge at the rate of Rs 150-180 per room, the Warriors don't charge villagers for this service. "It is all thanks to Club Mahindra, which is supporting our operations for the first year, that we have been able to do this and expand so rapidly," says Pandey. The results are palpable.

As I walk through Bhakrakot, neat bags of segregated waste, emblazoned with the Waste Warriors logo, hang outside people's homes. The village is spotless, in sharp contrast to the mounds of rubbish in nearby villages where the Warriors don't have a presence yet. "It's not the villagers' fault," says Pandey. "It's a planning problem, for the government should designate landfill zones for every village." The other issue, she says, is of education. Consequently much of their work is about creating awareness. She says: "When we first go to a village, we tell people how much of their waste is compostable, but most don't believe us. They don't have a clue where their waste goes, or how easy it is to convert it into useful compost." The Warriors compost over 70 per cent of village waste, says Pandey.

Pandey's journey has had its ups and downs. "Seven days after I started the Corbett chapter of Waste Warriors, some people burnt my effigy," she recounts. "It was intense, but also a blessing in disguise, for suddenly everyone knew about the crazy woman who liked cleaning up other peoples' rubbish dumps." She's also faced opposition from the landfill lobby, for there's money to be made in landfills. Herders pay to bring their pigs, cattle and donkeys to graze in them, ragpickers pay to sort through them for things to sell.

With over 100 villages in Corbett still left to work with, the Waste Warriors have their work cut out. "I want to reach at least 40 villages and 2,000 households by year end," says Pandey. How this initiative pans out over the next few years remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure. Corbett has a all new green warrior.

To know more, check out wastewarriors.org/corbett-projects/ or their page on Facebook Next up, the story of a group of people that is striving to fight for the basic human right of the elderly - their pension