“Volunteers doing the job of waste disposal management in Tangmarg areas are in fact playing the role of catalysts in translating the idea of zero waste into a reality.”
The concept of zero waste through trash segregation implemented in several parts of the country requires community intervention as is being fortunately witnessed in several parts of Tangmarg area in the vicinity of Kashmir tourist hotspot Gulmarg. The increasing spirit of clearing the waste from public places in and around Gulmarg areas if spread to other parts of Kashmir particularly the areas lying in the vicinity of other tourist hotspots like Pahalgam, Sonamarg , Aharbal, Mattan and Kokernag would change the concept of zero waste into a reality in a short time of few years. For changing the concept of zero waste into a reality in Kashmir the waste management practices need to be reinvented not only in urban parts of Kashmir and tourist hotspots but even in remotest of the remote rural areas in both Kashmir Valley and as well as Jammu division. Volunteers doing the job of waste disposal management in Tangmarg areas are in fact playing the role of catalysts in translating the idea of zero waste into a reality . Such volunteer interventions will obviously leave very little for the municipalities to do in enforcing the ideas of zero wastein cities and town across Jammu & Kashmir. So increasing the volunteery spirits about waste disposal management among the youth and do the routine job of trash collection and its disposal are the twin roles the civic bodies could play now in Kashmir Valley. The engagement and involvement of youth volunteers in the waste disposal management practices would also encourage investments in a decentralized and cost-effective systems that would ease the practices of trash collection and disposal even in the remote of the remote areas in both Kashmir Valley and as well as Jammu division.
“While engagement of volunteers makes trash disposal a daily routine practice for the both the rural and urban populations across Jammu & Kashmir, the role of civic bodies consequently reduces to the role of facilitators instead of service providers. Methods of community interventions play a much bigger role than the infrastructural interventions of the civic bodies in implementation of zero waste practices even in the top metropolitan cities of the country. In fact investment in zero waste programs greatly reduces pollution as it encourage business operators to adopt zero landfill goals more intensely in tourist areas than at other places.”
Volunteery efforts always reduce the interventions of Government in the delivery of public services and encouragement of volunteers in waste management and disposal practices could boost the agenda of transforming concept of zero waste into a reality cities and towns across Jammu & Kashmir. While engagement of volunteers makes trash disposal a daily routine practice for the both the rural and urban populations across Jammu & Kashmir, the role of civic bodies consequently reduces to the role of facilitators instead of service providers. Methods of community interventions play a much bigger role than the infrastructural interventions of the civic bodies in implementation of zero waste practices even in the top metropolitan cities of the country. In fact investment in zero waste programs greatly reduces pollution as it encourage business operators to adopt zero landfill goals more intensely in tourist areas than at other places.
