------------------------------------------------------------------------ * G * O * A * N * E * T **** C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out
Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Garbage Chronicles by V. M. de Malar (O Heraldo, Sept 26) E. F. Schumacher spent most of his career working with mainstream economists, including icons like Keynes and Galbraith. But he's not remembered for the straightforward work at institutions like the U.K'sNational Coal Board. Rather, it's a series of luminous essays that remain treasured and essential, all of them clumped under the title 'Small is Beautiful.' In these, Schumacher talked about the novel idea of "decentralization – the core thesis of "Small is Beautiful" is that macro objectives are better achieved if micro objectives are focused upon, that larger goals are only ever properly achieved if focus is given to each tiny, seemingly inconsequential goal that marks the way. These concepts are profound in economics; they paved the way for the pursuit of sustainable development. Why this digression into economics theory? Because it's important to note that baby steps lead to Olympic marathons – you can't get the gold medals without first learning to crawl. And, to finally come to the point of this column, you can't solve the grave, increasing waste management issues of Goa if you do not understand what happens in each household of the state, in each ward and village, in each taluka as a whole, and especially in each city and town. That's why we find ourselves looking at the year 2003, and one stubborn, idealistic young man, elbow-deep in his own household's garbage, relentlessly sorting his way towards eco-friendly practices on the smallest scale possible. Talk about small, Clinton Vaz of Benaulim was only interested in his own house. Inspired by a Scandinavian sorting scheme he heard about, the unusually focused and dedicated twentysomething engineer set about understanding patterns in his own household, and started to work on cutting down on wastage. He adapted complicated sorting lists to Goan circumstances – organic waste assigned for composting, glass and paper sold as scrap, etc. Within a few weeks, the household was surprised to find 85 per cent reduction in garbage – from one bagful per day to one bagful every couple of weeks. And 300 rupees in initial investment for a simple composting unit was paid off in just three months. More importantly, Vaz had proved to himself that it could be done, that simple and appropriate techniques could greatly reduce the garbage problems of one typical household, with profound long-term benefits to the environment. Then, serendipity. Clinton Vaz decided to get a few more houses in Benaulim onto his plan, and gave a couple of public talks about what he'd managed to achieve. This was about a year ago, when our newspapers were headlining the garbage issue, and the alert Patricia Pinto saw that there might be value in Clinton's one-house technique for the whole city of Panjim. There are times when our official set-up does the right thing, and works the right way, and this was one of those times. Then-Commissioner of the CCP, Sanjith Rodrigues immediately, laudably, hired Vaz to implement a citywide solution on the lines he had painstakingly developed for his own house. And so Clinton Vaz has been walking, talking, thinking and dreaming garbage for the past year. And so we have finally begun to understand how much garbage is produced by Panjim, what it consists of, and how we might tackle the elements of this problem in coming years. It hasn't been easy – politics intrude, and so do pressures of numerous special interest groups that benefited from the status quo that left us reeling under mounds of trash last year. But there are several concrete accomplishments –detailed surveys of the city (including never-drawn-before maps) and waste patterns, a whopping one-third reduction in household wastes in just one year, 65 composting stations (Panjim needs 100 more). Our capital city has become the first in India to have 100 per cent door-to-door garbage collection, and it has achieved the highest quality of garbage segregation in the country. More dramatic accomplishments are sure to follow, as the new ideas continue to percolate in the system. Best of all, just as Schumacher liked it, these truly important achievements have been developed from the ground up, low-cost but highly effective. Small and beautiful, just like our precious Panjim itself. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/attachments/20060927/9cc7917f/attachment.html _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org