By Pratik Shetty:
Two years ago, when Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched, we all were really excited, and there were several events to clean up our cities. However, the yawning gap between the enthusiasm to clean up the city and not knowing how to go about it has led us back to square one.
It is the government’s responsibility to maintain public dustbins. However, it is easier to find a Pokémon than to find a public dustbin. You can’t blame the government too. When the government tried maintaining public dustbins, people started stealing the dustbins and selling it at scrap shops.
To tackle the issue of non-availability of dustbins, we (team of ‘Keep India Clean’) had a very simple idea:
“What if, every local café and every local restaurant in India maintains just one dustbin? Wouldn’t India have enough dustbins then?
There is a shop / restaurant in almost every corner in India and it is not a big cost for a shop to maintain one dustbin outside their place. The ‘Keep India Clean’ movement was started by this very idea in Bengaluru and was officially launched in April 2016. Within 4 months of its launch, it has spread across 25 cities in India. We have also partnered with chains such as McDonald’s which have agreed to maintain a dustbin outside all their outlets in India.
The secret to the success of this movement are the volunteers. Anybody can become a volunteer if they are able to convince 5 restaurants in there area to maintain oe dustbin outside their premises and post these pictures on Facebook as a matter of proof. (Head here for more information.)
If everyone in able to convince the restaurants in their area to maintain 1 dustbin outside, India will truly be swachh!