Green color dustbin

“Hey! Get ready soon. We have to catch them early to make this report ready for tomorrow. Our editor needs a personal interview from them.”

“Yes coming, coming! This girl will eat my brain.”, Aadhi murmured by taking his camera and searching for the bike key.

“Pooja, Poojaaa!! I’m ready, now you are making it late” Aadhi shouted.

The bike started and they rushed to the spot to take the interview.

“Hey Pooja, what happened to our editor? Why is he asking us to take interviews from these people as if they are celebrities?”

“Aadhi! Mind your language, don’t be this much biased.”.

They reached the spot. Four people were there one driver and three helpers. Orange and green color over coats, a pair of gloves, head cap and a face mask. Taking two sack bags, they all started walking with a mini truck coming in the center of the road. Pooja and Aadhi approached them for the interview.

“Interview??, no time dear, if you want to take interview, come along with us, we will answer you while doing our duty. Is it okay for you?”. A lady from the group asked them and they agreed.

“Phwwwwwweeeee, Phwwweeeee”, she whistled and started walking with the sack bags. They followed her. She continues, narrating her way of life without expecting any questions from them. In between, Aadhi started taking snaps of the lady, the area, the truck and so and so.

Our work will start very early in the morning with a photograph which ensures our presence for the day. We will go street by street in a particular area to collect all the garbage from home to home, apartment to apartment and it goes on until our mini truck gets overloaded, we will continue all our day by walking and standing.

I’m Vanaja, garbage collector. Somehow, I have been in this job for surviving. Our day starts with a cup of tea. We can’t have breakfast that early and once we start our work, we won’t find time to have our breakfast. Even if we have some time, we couldn’t eat because of the odour and our hands being like the garbage itself. It’s been years we had breakfast and nowadays we are having our lunch directly by 2 pm or even worse at 3 pm somedays.

Ever you cleaned your home’s dustbin without any disgust? It’s you who made it that nasty and not us. But you all will feel very bad while cleaning it and we have to segregate the waste with our hands. You know one thing; we are instructed to collect and segregate the waste at the source. But no one respects us, everyone dumps everything in one dustbin and throws it to us.

“Phwwwwwwweeeee Phwwwwwwe”, again another lady whistled and called them to come near her. She showed the waste thrown by a resident. It was a complete mess of all, food waste, vegetable peels, sanitary napkins, empty plastic bottles, coconut shell with that fluid kitchen waste which smelled very bad. Aadhi is clicking it and in front of them she digs it and took the plastic waste separately with her hands. They both felt very bad looking at each other. She continued.

We can only separate the plastic waste to the max. we can’t separate the rest. Many wastes which can be recycled is just going to the landfill and gets dumped. You know how many times we told these residents to separate the wastes, but no one hears us. Daily they’ll do the same, we have to dig it and we are doing this for thousands and thousands of homes.

Are you able to hear the song that’s played by our garbage truck? You know what it tells? It is just not the signal to intimate garbage truck’s arrival but also instructing the residents to take responsibility over the wastes they throw. It instructs to follow two bins compulsorily for bio-degradable and recyclable ones. I am an illiterate but I know the meaning of this song, but how come these literates don’t know? I wondered a lot. This lady just slapped Aadhi and Pooja by her question.

“Your name please?” Pooja asked. She smiled and replied “Shanthi”. “kkkr.. chick..” Aadhi captured her.

The truck slowly came to the end of the street and the lady who was standing and sitting on the dump got down from the truck. She showed her hands and legs to them that how much infected it was. “She is Malliga”, Shanthi introduced her. “How it happened? Tell all to them”, Shanthi insisted Malliga to continue.

All this is because of hazardous waste like expired medicines, batteries, glasses, old tube lights and so on. These wastes are supposed to be handled to us separately, but no one will follow this. They don’t think what will happen to us, all they need is their dustbins should be emptied daily and that’s it. We know you people are busy, all we need is your ‘one second’. Just have two bins and before throwing the waste have a one second thought of where to throw. Your one second will reduce half of our workload and we too can lead a little bit healthy life. After all we are also humans. Throwing the wastes in dustbins is not enough to achieve “Clean India”. Disposing it in a proper way is also important and moreover we all should try to reduce our daily garbage.

The truck was almost full. Playing the song with the lyrics “Let’s take this as our oath My garbage, my responsibility.” Aadhi took a group photo of them along with the truck. They all smiled. “Sharing our feel to you gives us some relief. God bless dear”, Malliga blessed them. The truck started, along with it they all started walking to the next street. “Phwwwweeee Phwwwweeee”, The whistle sound of them made a thunder in Pooja’s heart and even Aadhi felt very pity for their life.

“Maa!” Shanthi called Pooja loudly as they walked little far from them. Pooja turned back.

“Are you really going to write about us? And will you give a copy of our photo?” Shanthi asked.

“Photo?” with a smile Pooja replied little loudly “Next week we will come with a magazine and cover photo of that, will be yours”.

“Phwwwweee Phwwwee”, whistled with a smile and waved her hand as a signature of bye and left.

By waving back Pooja and Aadhi turned to their bike, with a big sigh and heavy heart they moved. Aadhi stopped the bike in a store. They smiled at each other and bought a new green color dustbin.