Subir Roy: Old men, bags and clean-ups

Among the silhouette of trees that formed the early morning outline of Kolkata’s mist-laden Dhakuria Lakes, one looked like a longish half-bent sapling all wrapped up. This one moved about, albeit slowly and with deliberation, like an old man mindful of his bad back. It was an old man, near destitute. He was picking up bits of plastic and putting them into a biggish plastic bag. He would later hawk his day’s catch, litter left behind by the day before’s visitors, to the front men of recyclers for a miserable few rupees.

I gave him a little something, wished him better health (I couldn’t say good health as that had passed him by) in the new year, and hoped he would continue to do the good work of collecting garbage. He was pleased but almost philosophical in the mildness of his response. In his twilight days, he was past broad smiles.

 

It takes only beginner’s economics to measure the impact of our transaction. I was just a little worse off — but the old man was hugely better off; it meant a lot to him. So, ceteris paribus (other things remaining equal), society’s welfare level had gone up.

There is more. Clearing garbage in a public space makes people want to go there more often. Even if the old man and I decided, selfishly, to keep others out of our little transaction, we wouldn’t be able to. If you clean up the air or public spaces, the resultant good feeling is shared by many. The act, my giving, has positive externalities. My little bit of money could go a long way.

Now take this idea forward. Some Latin American cities have devised a low-cost solution to the problem of garbage collection in poor areas. Large numbers of conservancy workers cost a lot; so the cities paid a small sum to whoever brought to their collection points a bag of garbage. Collection dramatically improved, depressed areas looked up and the municipality managed the act with very little outgo.

Apply this idea to the Lakes. Announce that for every bag of garbage anyone brings in, they get a little something. Then go a step further. Install dustbins all over the grounds. Put some of these garbage collectors in charge of filling them, give them some pushcarts to empty them through the day and take the garbage to collections points. This will be far cheaper than getting regular government employees to do the job, or even giving the work to a contractor.

In the latter case, the employees will soon demand that they be regularised and given all benefits. Old people, on the edge of destitution, will be happy to simply have something to take away at the end of the day. And, oh yes, a cleaner stretch of public space will make all who come there so much happier.

Once this works, people can get quite excited and think of the next step. A lot of benches can be installed, making it easier for people to relax after a walk. There are few benches in the Lakes and some of them are made of concrete, writing in stone the lack of aesthetics of the “PWD style” of architecture. So a competition can be announced to design public benches that will be robust, simple, good-looking and not so costly.

With the benches in place, the excitement over the rejuvenation can rise further. Then can come the next major step: putting loos at decent intervals over the entire 200-acre area. The other day I spotted a policeman doing you-know-what. He could hardly be blamed for being human. Now designing loos for a public park is far more challenging than designing benches. Build the usual brick-and-mortar stuff and you will eventually get what already exists — mostly derelict, almost unusable and a big question mark over where the waste from them eventually goes.

Portable loos are routinely installed during public events from which the waste is not allowed to trickle out. But there is still the issue of taking away waste that gets partially treated in chambers that go with prefabricated loos permanently in place. If partially biodegraded waste from each loo is collected in its closed detachable tank, which is regularly taken away and replaced, that would be a great gain. Working models of portable loos incorporating some of these features are already in use. The challenge is to take things further by innovating more — again incentivised through a public competition.

If something like this works, there will be another externality. The design can be passed on to the rest of the country and the loos can be mass-produced, reducing the cost per unit. And the Lakes will be transformed. An official programme was launched a few weeks ago to restore the area. But what has just been visualised will cost a fraction of a conventionally designed clean-up and rejuvenation.

Eventually, a sculptor can design a statue of an old man, carry-bag in hand, looking philosophical after a good round of picking up discarded plastic, and it could be installed at one corner of the Lakes with due ceremony.

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subirkroy@gmail.com