Sustainability and India

So we are just about to leave India and fly to Bangkok, so I thought I would reflect on some the issues that happen in the huge and varied country.

Although I have only covered a small part - the most striking thing about India (in terms of design issues) is litter. People take no care in disposing of it in any way possible. There are hardly any public bins, and shopkeepers often throw litter in front of their shops and burn it.

Waste is disposed of in ad-hoc ways all over the country. Passing a slate mine, we were horrified to see piles of slag spread in small piles all over the surrounding countryside. Outside a toilet factory, there were fields of broken ceramic, waiting to naturally degrade into the soil, over a period of millions of years.

It seems that the country is pre-occupied with catching up to the rest of the worlds, and their is little care, and a lack of re-education, for anything else.

But who can blame India? It has seen the spoils of the west, and s eager to take its share in its own industrial revolution. In a country of over 1 Billion, 40% are still without clean, running water and flushing toilets. If you were so poor that your main priority was finding where your next meal came from, would you care about the piece of plastic, or pot, or wood, or nylon rope that you just threw on the floor?

It seems that for India to move forward in ecologically responsible ways will take a long time. Corruption in India is rife from the Police force to major forces in government. Blind eyes can be turned for the right price when a massive hotel chain wants to build on greenbelt land, and money is exchanged for deals to go through to the right companies and the right people. This coupled with the huge poverty in India means that priorities here are different, and for understandable reasons. But in a country with such a weighting on the global stage, there does need to be a paradigm shift in the attitude of Indians of influence, and in very class and caste, about the ecological Karma of this wonderful nation.