Sir,

According to The Central Pollution Control Board, 56 lakh ton plastics are thrown away everyday in India. A survey of 60 big cities concluded that 15342.6 ton plastic garbage is produced daily.

Of this, about 60 percent (9205 tons) plastic garbage is recycled, while 6137 tons  does not get deposited in recycle bins and keeps spreading in the open.

The tragedy with the spread out garbage is that the stray animals that forage  in the garbage dumps, swallow up the  plastic along with the discarded food  substance. This gives them diseases in their stomachs and intestines. Stray cows do the same. This poison reaches to their milk and later on the poisonous milk is sold by the careless owners and is  used by their customers.

Plastic cups and plates are in great demand in villages and towns. These are also thrown in the open after  use and later on add up to the pollution.

According to the Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation, about 1.3 lakh metric tons plastic garbage is produced everyday.

Of this, only 68 percent (0.91 lakh metric ton) garbage is  collected and deposited on the dumping ground. Another 32 percent (0.42 lakh metric ton) is spread on the roads.

Every Indian produces about 600 grams of garbage everyday, whereas in America about two kilo of garbage is produced by every individual per day but because of the good recycling system, the problem of garbage in not so ghastly.

However  India has a greater population than  America and assumptions are that India produces 108,000 tons garbage more than America every year.

We are talking about Swachch Bharat campaign but it is time to stop talking and to do something about cleaning our cities.

Yours truly

Seema Kumari, BMC 5th Semester, St. Xavier’s College of Management & Technology, Digha, Patna

  environment, letters