Protection of environment is a major concern of many individuals, organizations and Governments. Most of them speak and write about it, mostly blaming the government and local administrations. Governments on the other hand bring about Legislative acts, allocate budgetary provisions and support seminars and symposia. Laws, Rules and punitive actions have created some awareness among the public. Maintaining mini jungles and water bodies in the name of religious beliefs used to help in yesteryears; but on the face of growing “scientific” thinking, secularism and escalating land prices, keeping jungle abodes for snakes in the backyard(famously known as Sarpa-kavu in Malayalam) in the name of tradition is no more feasible. Scientific thinking is purported to be the basis of our decisions, which is often superseded by political reasoning. Occasional attacks of Chikungunya and swine fever keep everyone on the alert at least on personal cleanliness, although we are back to Square One once the epidemic recedes. Many Panchayats and local bodies have started installing biogas plants that achieve the goals of waste disposal and power generation besides producing some organic fertilizer. We can be happy that we are into it though somewhat late.
Uppsala is a small town eighty kilometers North of Stockholm in Sweden. It has a beautiful canal running through the length of the city, passing under several bridges connecting the two parallel roads on its banks. The canal has a small drop before entering the park. There are avenue trees on either side of the canal with seats, benches and small waste bins where all kinds of people, tourists and locals, young and old, boys and girls spend their leisure and happy times. The trees drop a lot of flowers in the canal in Spring, and leaves in Autumn. As the slow water carries them downstream the canal would look dirty and polluted. The City administration is aware of this persistent problem. I was amazed by the simplicity of the solution they adopted in this era of high technology. (See picture).
A rope carrying thin reapers is tied across the canal at forty five degrees. All surface wastes such as flowers, paper cups and plastic bottles collect to the corner which the cleaners sweep away every morning and evening, leaving the water downstream always clean. There are many simple solutions to complex problems around us. Why don’t we think of them?
Uppsala is a small town eighty kilometers North of Stockholm in Sweden. It has a beautiful canal running through the length of the city, passing under several bridges connecting the two parallel roads on its banks. The canal has a small drop before entering the park. There are avenue trees on either side of the canal with seats, benches and small waste bins where all kinds of people, tourists and locals, young and old, boys and girls spend their leisure and happy times. The trees drop a lot of flowers in the canal in Spring, and leaves in Autumn. As the slow water carries them downstream the canal would look dirty and polluted. The City administration is aware of this persistent problem. I was amazed by the simplicity of the solution they adopted in this era of high technology. (See picture).
A rope carrying thin reapers is tied across the canal at forty five degrees. All surface wastes such as flowers, paper cups and plastic bottles collect to the corner which the cleaners sweep away every morning and evening, leaving the water downstream always clean. There are many simple solutions to complex problems around us. Why don’t we think of them?
A seat on the canal’s left bank
5 comments:
Dear MPC,
Remarkable observation. But, the clumsy contraption seems to be the invention of a few lazy municipal workers ! joking !! The subject of stream leads me to think of the man-made beauty “Cheonggyecheon” stream, running across the heart of Seoul. This is restoration of something that existed long back. The stream takes several curvaceous twists and turns between the narrow confines of two busy city streets at a higher level . The builders have also implemented several step-stones, that people may use to cross from one side of the shallow stream to the other. Kids love to mimic accidentally slipping into the water. We have walked along the stream for a couple of kilometers. One thing I observed, was the flow field created by the twists and turns - no standing vortex nor a dead spot. The placement of the step stones creates a local reduction of the effective width and increases velocity. Some objects dropped by careless children gets easily carried past by the stream velocity, thanks to Bernoulli ! The Korean engineers have applied their passion for details in designing this stream. But, the decorative plants and wild grass have overgrown, creating their own obstructions and also shedding their own debris into the water. Early in the morning, one can see a team of Korean workers walking the stream, meticulously cleaning out every debris, leaving this lovely feature to be the site for a few thousands of teen age couples to hold hands and whisper into each other’s ears ! May be some day the workers will find out the Swedish technology !
Dear Sir,
Interestingly, the tendency is always to look for complex solutions to simple problems.So we do research on Hybrid cars and forget byicycling.
Do we have to throw away so much garbage daily?My mother never created so much garbage because we never got Curd rice and Pizzas wrapped in plastic trays.Why cannot we fight for a simple law that prohibits any packing that is not compostable?
Why do we not build multilayer parking domes?
Why we cannot have science classes in every temple/mosque premises?
Why not build every new house with a solar panel on top?
We know what to do? Problem as always, is the knowing doing gap.
A.P.Jayanthram
Well I wanted to say this to you for a very long time... and cant find a place to post this. So let it be here... on simple solutions.
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:) It's not the lack of ideas or innovative thinking that ails India sir,it's but the will & motivation to execute & obtain results.
As Rama Bijapurkar said 'We are like this only'
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