Solving India’s Trash Mountains Shouldn’t Really Be a Problem, Right? So What’s Going On?

Ever heard of the Himalayas? Well, you may have. For sure, right? The context of spirituality and mesmerizing beauty kept aside- even as the virtues and their beholder cannot be distanced even for a second- it can be said that the Himalayas are really the answer of nature’s love for mankind.

Isn’t it? You don’t go to the Himalayas thinking you’d only visit them once. You go to the Himalayas wanting to visit them as often you can. Isn’t it? Climbing these mega mountains seems to some a way or purpose of life. But what about India’s trash mountains?

Ever heard of the phrase eye-soar? Well, not that if you revel in the beauty of the Himalayas that you’d have to know this one, too? But to put it simply, India’s trash mountains are pretty much everything which the Himalayas are not. They put an end to a vague idea that everything in this holy land of cows, snake-charmers, color, and festivities is beautiful.

India’s trash mountains are, obviously not a relic of the kinds that one finds in the truly spectacular Ajanta and Ellora caves. They are, at the end of the day, a pile of hubris that one’s failed to get rid off with about the same convenience that one uses to ignore corruption or to put it succinctly, turn a blind eye to cast-related crimes.

Dramatic that it may sound, if you happen to visit the eastern-belt of the capital city of New Delhi, then it may shock you to note that in the Ghazipur dump- a massy pile of garbage and trash- there’s quite literally a hill that can compel visitors from the overseas to click one or two high-definition images for the sheer ridiculousness of the site.

Among the most revered media in the world, CNN, happened to elaborate on the above spectacle and shared the following in yet another compelling piece of reportage:

In the east of New Delhi, the Ghazipur trash dump is reportedly just months away from rising higher than the Taj Mahal, an immense, 73-meter-tall (240 feet) white, marble mausoleum.In India, about 70% of the plastic the country consumes is simply discarded. Large amounts end up in the water by way of the River Ganges, which comes second only to China’s Yangtze in the amount of plastic it contributed to the world’s oceans, according to a 2017 study. But the Ghazipur dump is not a one-off — it is just New Delhi’s biggest example. In the north of the city, the Bhalswa landfill greets drivers entering New Delhi from the north.

That said, what is staggering is the simple, straightforward statistic that nearly 70 percent of India’s plastic consumption ends up being a waste, with nearly all of it- often unfailingly- becoming a contributor to the increased altitude of landfills such as the one in Bhalswa.

What’s funnier is that at a time where the overall length of the Himalayas is shrinking, thanks to the gory phenomenon called Global Warming, the height of India’s trash mountains is only increasing. How stupid is that for a country where many are working wholeheartedly toward the Clean India Campaign?