Ravish Mishra is currently working with Parul University as Marketing manager. He has worked with companies like MGL ( Mahanagar gas Limited ) with the aim to find out people's perception towards the use of CNG in Mumbai area and Suzlon India limited where he researched on solid waste management in Daman as a part of his CSR project. Let's talk with him to know about his findings-
Tell us about your research and contribution in the field of waste management.
Daman is
costal area and Gujarat is dry state, so daily huge number of people across
Gujarat visit Daman for drinks etc., this creates a huge amount of solid waste
which comprises of bottles and cans, even polybags in this area.
Moreover
Daman is only 15 Km from Vapi (A huge industrial belt) so huge amount of waste water
also creates major pollution problem for the environment.
Problem
even gets worse due to solid waste which many a times causes water drainage
problem in canal,s which gives open invitation to water borne problems.
As far as
our research is concerned our main aim was to educate people about the hazards
of waste. We worked out possible ways by which we can use this waste
profitably, or we can say the main aim of this study was how to convert waste
into profitable business.
We also
tried to make out waste management plan with the concern authorities but that
plan does not work for us “as being a union territory decisions are taken from
Delhi” this was what authority had stated to us.
What were
the key findings in your research and what plans did you propose against
harmful agents?
I can
conclude from my studies that waste is waste if we waste it, but if it's
management is done in proper manner it’s a huge business opportunity.
Other
finding from the research can be summed up as follows:
· People
really don’t know difference in organic and inorganic waste.
· Although
people were aware about ill effect of waste, no one wanted to take proper steps
for cleaning their surroundings.
· Visitors
and beer bottles were the major contributor in pollution.
· Government
although had proper equipment and adequate work force but they had the
"chalta-hai" attitude. They did collected waste but they did not know
what to do with that waste. They simply picked it from one site and dumped it
to another site.
We
had limitation of time still we tried to help out in some simple ways:
We
conducted awareness programs in schools, conducted small events as in
future students will be responsible to handle these. Prepared a profitable
waste management business and submitted it to Suzlon authorities, they were
pretty impressed by our plan but the last decision of its implementation is
upto them. We studied various waste management technique used by other
cities and suggested municipal commissioner to implement them
What,
according to you, is the biggest obstacle in the process of waste management?
Biggest
obstacle is but obvious people's attitude towards waste; if every one plans to
keep his/her surrounding clean, world would be better and cleaner place.
No, I
think both are interconnected. Without technology we can’t even dream of
management of waste, and if we cant manage waste then where can we deploy
our technology.
In simple
words, waste management is nothing but managing waste technically.
What do
you think can a layman contribute to enhance the efficiency of this process?
Just keep
your own house and surrounding clean, don’t put waste on roads and all, and do
not allow other to do so.
What do you think is the future of mankind in the context of
waste?
See as
the level of education and awareness will increase this problem will decrease.
Yes, social media has to play an important role in this context. We have recently seen
how there was decrease in 60% use of Chinese product this Diwali, although
Chinese product are much more cheaper, all thanks to social media campaign against
China.