The Kachrewaale Project
The name Kachrewaale originates from the Hindi language. It means, people of waste/ trash/ garbage, or those who work with waste/ trash/ garbage. Historically in the Indian subcontinent, any work related to garbage has been considered demeaning (photo). Even though mindsets are changing due to new policies at the national and international level, a large part of India’s population still considers it dirty work. The reason behind choosing this name was twofold, to reduce the stigma and taboo around waste management, and for any layperson to immediately understand what the project is about. The name Kachrewaale Project was used to dub the first initiative in Andaman & Nicobar Islands (ANI) intended to find solutions to the increasing problem of garbage accumulation, dumping, burning and the consequent impact on islands’ fragile ecology and economy. TKP was founded by Garima Poonia, who first came to the ANI as a tourist in 2017.
When Garima first visited the ANI, she was awed by beauty such as she had never seen before. It was unbelievable that crystal clear waters and bedazzling shades of blue she had only ever seen in pictures of other countries or on nature documentaries actually existed in India. As part of the Advanced Open Water Scuba Diving Course that she undertook, she went diving 25 meters under the ocean, or as she remembers it, she went diving into magic; thousands of fish, the most intricate and delicate of corals, and the feeling of flying under the ocean. (photo) When not swimming, she took time to gaze at the trees, majestic 10-20 meters tall sentinels of the islands (photo). However, despite such beauty in the islands, Garima couldn’t help but notice the piles of garbage in public places including beaches, and still smoking heaps of plastic and other trash that had been burnt. When she spoke to the locals, her doubts were confirmed, there was zero waste management on the top most tourist destination in the ANI; Havelock and Neil. All trash was simply, dumped or burnt.
Garima came back to the mainland after her visit but she had several questions in her mind about the impact of trash, especially plastic, on the ocean, marine life and jungles in the ANI. In 2018, she returned to gather more data and conducted several visits, including to the central dumpsite of Port Blair, at Brookshabad. She designed a project aimed at both collecting data and to set up some basic systems of waste management such as source segregation on the islands of Havelock and Neil. By August 2018, it was clear that no one on the islands was interested in funding a project on waste management. She then bumped into someone who shared her vision for the islands, and helped her find two jobs to sustain herself on the islands. In October 2018, she moved to Neil Island, and thus began The Kachrewaale Project.
Neil is a tiny island where the longest road is a little over 7 kms. Approximately 4000 people live here and approximately 1000-1500 labourers also stay on the island. The island has only one gram panchayat, but hosts more than 60 hotels, and still counting. According to information gathered from local bodies and community, the estimated number of tourists on Neil ranges from 50,000 to 1,00,000. The bulk of waste on the island is produced by tourism/ tourists, and thus it was decided that one of TKP’s prime focus would be the hotel industry. In its first six months, TKP was able to do the following.
1. Understanding local perceptions on waste
Approximately 20% of HHs at Neil were surveyed as part of the study, and it was found that contrary to popular opinion, most of the households were really hoping to get a waste collection service, and were more than willing to segregate their waste for the same.
2. Conservation workshop with students
For most people, the idea of a dumpsite is alien, far, and not my problem. A two-day residential workshop was held for about 30 students at Emerald Gecko Resort at Neil, to get acquainted with the problem of garbage, and its impact on wildlife. As part of the workshop the students were taken to the central dumpsite at Neil Island and asked to list the items they saw. None of them had ever seen a dumpsite before and they were all shocked and appalled. As they made their lists they realized that what they threw in their dustbins at home eventually landed up in places like this.
The students were taken for intertidal walks, the zone where tides come and go, thereby creating pools of water where marine life can be found. This is also the zone where significant amounts of marine litter is found. It was now that they could truly understand how marine litter, especially plastic, destroys the habitat of marine life.
A training cum orientation session was held for the students wherein they learnt how to make mats from coconut leaves and planters from plastic bottles. The session was led by a local person with knowledge of how to work with wood and leaves.
The final part of the workshop was a beach clean at Sitapur Beach. Over 100 kgs of waste was collected from the beach, but the best part was that none of it was dumped at the central dumpsite at Neil, the usual practice for managing beach clean up waste. With support of the Directorate of Shipping Services (DSS), all the waste was carried by the students to Port Blair in government passenger ferries, making it the first time for waste to be taken from Neil to Port Blair. This also laid the foundation stone for transportation of waste within the ANI.
3. Pilot for source segregation to recycling
While waste management workshops were conducted with stakeholders from almost all hotels of Neil, six of the largest were selected for the pilot. The District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) ANI, took interest in the project; the District Judge, the Chief Judicial Magistrate, and the Additional District Judge all came down to Neil to talk to stakeholders from hotels in a workshop conducted by TKP in collaboration with DLSA. Soon enough, source segregation was initiated in these hotels, and further support was provided by the Defence Wives Welfare Association (DWWA), who had already executed one of the best waste management projects in the country. TKP’s segregation protocol for hotels took inspiration from DWWA, who also helped in the transportation of waste to mainland for recycling. Soon, an erstwhile scrap dealer also took interest in transportation of waste to the mainland. And then, the ANI government also took the responsibility of collecting waste brought to Port Blair from Neil. TKP had demonstrated, successfully and despite lack of funds, that waste management was possible in the ANI.
4. Underwater clean up
More recently, TKP organized one of the first under water clean ups in the ANI. This was a collaboration with Paperman Foundation along with support from brands such as Dabur and Parle.. About 12 kgs of trash was picked by scuba divers from about 10 meters under the ocean surface, at a coral reef site locally called the Lighthouse, close to the Bharatpur Jetty at Neil Island. The trash consisted of plastic bottles, polybags, fishing net, cement bags, electronic waste etc. Some of these items were heavily intertwined with the corals and had to be taken out very carefully. All four divers who conduced the clean up were locals from the ANI.