Capital of India under garbage

2001/02/22 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Ingurumena

The capital of India, New Delhi, is heading for an ecological disaster due to the accumulation of trash in places that were formerly green areas. The city landfills are saturated and plastic, the piece of metal, the corpse of dead cattle and other impurities cover the surrounding terrain in a wide area.

New Delhi, one of the dirtiest cities in the world, generates 8,000 tons of waste a day, but this city of about 13 million inhabitants does not have an efficient waste treatment system. Urban services only collect 4,884 tons a day and everything else is taken abroad, although the New Delhi Supreme Court has ordered the city to be cleaned.

According to a study by the Central Pollution Control Commission, if the population grows at the current rate and does not change their lifestyle, the difference between waste generated and treated will reach 64% by 2021 (the current difference is 40%).

Garbage piles are the breeding ground for diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera and malaria, where rats and snakes do not lack food. As a result of the bites of these animals diseases are spreading. In addition, every day thousands of children look for pieces of metal, plastics and paper in the trash.

Although people living near garbage collection areas and receiving 15% of New Delhi's garbage are at higher risk for disease, all inhabitants are at risk. In fact, the waste accumulated in the soil has contaminated the water and has discovered that it carries such poisonous substances as pesticides and arsenic.

The solution, in addition to implementing waste collection and the treatment system, would be to change the lifestyle, but for this we should change habits and that is very difficult.