There is No Waste in Nature.

Since I have arrived in Nepal there has been an ongoing theme, garbage! Garbage is everywhere and there are no solutions except to stop creating it! One thing that has become clear is that garbage is human creation. There is no garbage in Nature; there is no waste. Waste in nature simply becomes something else. For instance, when the leaves fall of the trees, they simply decompose and become the earth. It is a cycle that supports itself. While in humanity, we turn materials in substances that cannot change its form, materials that damage nature, in other words humans create trash. 

            As mentioned in an earlier post, it has become clear to me that while living in the developed world it is easy to ignore the issue of garbage because there is an established infrastructure that deals with it for us. And by “deals with it”, I mean takes it out of sight which creates the illusion that it is gone. However here in the small village of Dahu this infrastructure does not exist. Therefore the only existing solution that has been established is to either throw it on the ground or to burn it.  Since being here I have done a lot of research on garbage and have learned that burning it is also just another illusion. That while the people believe they are getting rid of the garbage polluting their land, they are in fact creating a different kind of garbage which is polluting their air. In fact this is a very dangerous pollution that can cause serious harm.   

            Since coming to the village I have been trying to come up with creative ways to use Garbage. The first thing I learned how to do was to crochet with plastic.  I used this new skill to get to know many of the youth in the community and try and pass on a new skill. However this didn’t feel like enough. It has become clear to me that there is no sustainable and permanent way to deal with the garbage without an institution being put in place, however what I could do is provide examples of ways to use garbage in a creative way.

           

The compost hole we dug with the students of Dahu School

In collaboration with the education team we decided to do a village wide garbage campaign  We began our campaign in the schools. The first thing we did was establish a garbage station at the school. We organized the youth to dig a hole for the compost and then did a school wide clean up of all the plastic. The following week we began the education portion of the campaign. We met with each grade before school and provided basic information about garbage. This information included a timetable of decomposition, the effects of garbage on the earth, and then at the end we showed some examples of ways to reuse this garbage. We then announced that these examples would then be taught in this weeks youth group meetings.  For one of the sessions I taught them how to make wallets out of cookie wrappers. These are wrappers that are found all over the village and can simply be picked up off the side of the road and turned into something awesome!

          

Stuffing the garbage into the tires

 

The completed Benches

            All of this led to our big project, building a garbage bench! If you are wondering what this is, it is exactly what it sounds like, a bench made from garbage. We used old busted up tires, which were then stuffed with garbage and covered in cement. It turned out to be a really cool event! The kids got really involved and were able to clean up the garbage from the entire school. My hope is to make small benches all over the village.

While these small projects have proved to be successful, it is not sustainable. While the current garbage has been taken care of there will be new garbage tomorrow. The best I can hope for is that the youth can begin to see the garbage differently. This can mean that instead of seeing a plastic bag they see the potential for an art project, or they learn to not take the plastic bag at all and put whatever they just bought in their backpack.

Small changes can make a big difference.