I have heard stories from Singapore, Australia
and USA, from the people who’ve visited these countries.
For the first time visitors, they were
surprised to have meted out with unusual, un-Bhutanesely encounter; in
Singapore, people are not allowed to carry edibles while traveling by bus. It’s
simply unbelievable.
In Australia, friends and relatives who had
been there say that if you wear your white T-shirt for a week, it would be
still with any dust on it. It’s same with the car, you need not wash for weeks.
It’s simply amazing.
In USA, every single person takes care of
litter, if one is seen littering, another person who has seen you littering
would reprimand you, it’s not the concerned authority who is doing that. If
they see fights or beating children or women, the case would be reported in a
wink and police would zoom in from nowhere. Everyone takes responsibility of
the society. It’s just wonderful.
I feel the story would be the same of many
countries.
Talk about our country, it’s just the other way;
we can take anything we like in public transports provided the space is
available. Everyone litters care-freely. You buy a chocolate and wrapper goes
on the ground. You drink a bottle of coke, it crumbles on the ground. The litters
cannot reach its designated place despite numerous Green Bins put up by the municipality
in towns, and Bins put up by schools as social contributions. Unfortunately, people
who advocate proper use of bins end up littering outside freely.
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| Source: Google |
There are myriad reasons for Bhutanese to
gather and aftermath is the chunk of litters. In any gatherings, be celebrations,
Tshechus, watching movies in a hall, going for picnics, queuing up to receive
blessings, the by-products are litters, the trash from edibles and drinks.
Unlike, everyone taking responsibility in the
mentioned countries, none of us take responsibility to care our own trash. It’s
a story of SOMEBODY, NOBODY, ANYBODY and EVERYBODY, where responsibility gets
shifted between the four to have none taken responsibility at the end of the
day.
We’ve had enough awareness and policies being
framed. But none has proved successful: one time, we’d defaulters fined but it
didn’t work. Another time, we’d rigorous awareness campaigns to see that
aftermath of those campaigns itself were garbage. It didn’t work either. What
next?
I feel we have gone wrong at the root. Children
were never taught to litter properly for our parents as children weren’t taught
by their parents either. The repercussions of this flaw seem almost
irreversible. We’re moving ahead without a way to turn back and rectify the
foul steps that we’ve trodden.
Until date, no think-tanks could successfully think
through to put a brake to this perennial issue we’ve been going with. We know
there is a national call waiting for an answer. That answer everyone must
ponder. All that we’ve ticked are incorrect answers. We bear hopes that we
could tick a right answer one day sooner.
If we could replicate of Singaporian,
Australian and American on ourselves, Bhutan would be an epitome of green
environment. I could see a lot of elements worth emulating and importing from
these countries. But at this pace of
litters we produce, Memelakha(a site identified for dumping trashes) would be
everywhere across the country in no longer.
Everyone: you & I, parents, teachers and
the government need to brainstorm over this perpetual issue of litters. What
could be hit-the-nail answer to the call waiting in line?
