For my personal research project in India, I want to research the waste management system and the relationship between waste and water pollution. To narrow this topic down this topic further, I plan to research the influence of nongovernmental organizations and international organizations on the current system. I will also focus on the informal sector, waste pickers specifically, and study how their role contributes to the waste management system. In combination with this, I plan to investigate what role waste has had on the bodies of water in India.
This topic is not geographically specific, trash in the streets and in the rivers is a problem all over India. I will explore the different organizations that target these issues in Delhi, McLeod Ganj, Chennai, and Varanasi. I am curious what type of role the informal sector plays in each of these locations as well. Additionally, I wonder how much the failed waste management system has contributed to the pollution of the Yamuna, the Ganges, and the Bay of Bengal.
In each location, I would like to interview people who are a part of NGOs or IOs that target these issues. I would also like to get the perspective of a few local people and seek to understand their perceptions of the waste problem today. Ideally I would also get to interview some people who work in the informal sector (waste pickers), though this might be difficult if they do not speak English. For field research I plan to spend time at these different bodies of water and observe how they are treated. I also plan to visit environmental organizations that deal with waste or water quality. I am interested in the different campaigns that have been launched to clean up bodies of water and public spaces. I will gather information from materials like posters, photos, billboards, articles, murals and brochures. Basically I would like to soak in any information about waste and water pollution that I can!