Let’s talk trash

Now dubbed ‘Let’s Talk Trash’, the initiative’s team members have cleaned the Crown, around Town Hall, and Industrial zone, but they have concentrated mostly on the Certitude to Pitchandikulam stretch for the simple fact that it is the most polluted and, as Dinesh puts it, “If we have 30 people coming, you want to pick up the most rubbish possible”. In one year they picked up an impressive 595 kilos of mixed waste (plastic, paper, waste clothes, metal cans, etc) and 700 kilos of glass bottles. 

Amongst the expected mix of alcohol, packets and other plastic bags, Rishi mentions finding “a car bonnet, mattresses, masks, condoms, sanitary waste as well as pharmaceutical items including a blood sample tubes. It’s awkward to handle and dangerous”. The litterers are mostly tourists but, depressingly, they have noticed some Aurovilians dropping garbage off rather than going to the Eco Service.

The organising team is predominantly Auroville youth, Transition and Future school alumni, who are working for the environment and finding ways to give back to Auroville. 

Their evident energy, creativity and fun percolate through the project. The paradoxical aim for Let’s Talk Trash is to become redundant. But it is a difficult goal to achieve. Their recent 50th excursion was “a milestone we didn’t want,” recounts Dinesh. Both Rishi Vengadesan and Madhan Murugan would rather spend their time making films. They joined the team to take photos (their skills contribute to a vibrant Facebook page with some stunning photos), but they continue the cleanup activities due to the need. The group also organises clean ups just for women. 

They have noticed that the government only provides for one rubbish bin in villages, with Rishi noting that “we have this big government but no proper help”. However, they wish to create positive messaging instead of top-down commands, so they put up three signboards on the tar road. The one near Acceptance depicts a tree saying ‘This is my house, not your trash bin.’ 

Let’s Talk Trash celebrated World Clean-up day this September and took part in recent collective waste events in Auroville. Surprisingly, the city of Madurai was the only other place in the South Zone of India that signed up for the global world clean up day event in 2019. “The awareness is still missing or networking has not been built,” says Induja, who is trying to work with the zonal group to further promote the message of cleaning up.

The work brings change to those cleaning up. “Three years ago I stopped buying chip packets,” says Induja, a newcomer in Auroville. She grew up in a village where there was “hardly any plastic packaging. If I shop in Pour Tous or HERS there is packaging; I don’t want to go back to that. The whole system has to change.” Rishi now studies in Pondicherry University and mentions how cleaning up “impacted me because I try not to litter as I used to. I spread the word in college and when friends buy a pack of chips I urge them not to throw it on the floor.” Madhan recalls his pride after a day of picking up twenty sacks of waste, and Dinesh also notices that “after every clean up I feel motivated and proud of cleaning a particular area because nature becomes much more beautiful. We are trying to set an example”.