Trashy
“Watch out” Lekha yells as my idiotic paddling leads me to bang into a mangrove. This particular tree is covered in tree crabs. I can’t even see the colour of the bark of the tree. This ‘I’m an outdoorsy girl’ persona I’ve been trying to lean into feels like a mirage. There are tree crabs on my kayak, crawling up my leg. I let out a shriek and disturb the meditating birds. Egrets, Comorants Brahminy kites begin to fly off. Sofia and Lekha cackle at how silly I’m being, while our guide is trying to tell me to not move my butt as I try to brush off crabs, because I may topple over.
The crabs which are smaller than the size of my palm sneakily begin to drop out of my kayak. If I could guess professions in the crustacean kingdom, tree crabs would definitely be the wannabe spies. With an A+ for effort. They move in a manner that displays stealth. Slowly inching away. Like they are trying to exit places without being noticed. I finally reverse out of the tree I got stuck in and they start climbing up again. When I inch closer to another tree, they all free dive. As if no one would be able to hear the distinctive sound of them dropping into the water.
It takes me 20 minutes to learn how to maneuver my kayak without destroying and banging into every shrub and tree. I finally begin to take in my surroundings beyond the microscopic focus on the tree crabs. As I paddle closer to where Lekha, Sofia and the guide all are, my anticipated joy quickly turns to disgust. Nature has been adulterated. There is plastic waste strewn everywhere. Not a lone bottle but a pool of plastic trash. Milk packets. Beer cans. Plastic bottles. Lays packets.
When I first moved to Goa, the problem I wanted to tackle was plastic waste. The per capita plastic waste generated in the state is the highest in the country. The problem from what I’ve come to understand is utterly complex. There is a lack of infrastructure to properly dispose and process the amount of waste the state actually generates. Garbage collection systems are found wanting which lead many locals to dump their trash to the nearby river or forest. They don’t want the trash in the house and since they have nowhere to dispose it, what can individual houses do? They certainly don’t want a South Delhi implant telling them they should perhaps hold their local representatives more accountable, recycle and compost the bio-degradable waste.
Single use plastics have been banned in India for years now. The ban is about as effective as our drinking age limit set at 25, which we all of course followed to the T. People are generating alternatives to single use plastic in the form of upcycled cloth bags, decomposable bags ( possibly less damaging to the environment) and just having grocery systems that don’t use any packaging. In a humid place like Goa where everything is susceptible to fungus, packaging that doesn’t have any plastic is near impossible even for the humans who attempt living a plastic free life.
Ownership and pride also has a role to play in where the trash ends up. More often than not, I have seen local boys sit at the edge of the creek near my house to drink and snack. The setting is idyllic and it is their right ( albeit illegal) to enjoy a sunset drink with their friends. But at the bare minimum, they can leave a place as they found it. That sensibility seems to be missing in residents and tourists who visit the greens of the forests, the creeks, rivers and beaches. The tourists have less stake since they don’t live here, but those who live here do.
My training takes over. Are we going to be able to recycle the amount of trash that’s already been generated? Landfills cannot be the solution. We need low emission incinerators. How do we get people to stop doing this? How do you get the government to care? I’m literally spiraling in frustration in the mangroves because I’ve forgotten the basic instructions on how to paddle yet again.
I see my friends spin into action. Without words exchanged, we all begin to start pulling the trash into our kayaks. And soon we’ve cleared most of what is visible. It smells terrible and probably contains all kinds of spiders and crabs, but at this point, I am no longer squirming.
When we get to the shore, between the three of us we’ve collected two large cement bags worth of trash. Bereft of the trash; the mangroves are stunning. Tear inducing on a clear blue sky day. We decide to come back the following weekend to pull out what we haven’t been able to collect with a couple of other friends. It won’t solve the root problem, but perhaps like the Mahim Beach clean-up which was a citizen led volunteer effort, it is up to us to lead by example and pick up the trash.
If you have examples of successful collective local action – will you point me in that direction ?
Very good to know that you made the most of a kayaking for pleasure and became a clean the waters movement and did not let the muck get you down. Citizens of the world have to be more responsible in not littering. The Delhi Metro is a prime example of how public spaces can remain spick and span in an otherwise polluted and dirty city (except Lutyens Delhi where the mighty live) .. what works there ? a sense of pride and belonging? some punitive measures .. CCTVs ? Dont know but of that works in an aggressive city like Delhi .. it should work in milder Goa or so I would imagine..... one tends to plog in beaches .. but then there is only some much a minority of environmentally educated people can do... how many seas and rivers must a man walk past and pretend that he is not responsible for the plastic floating there.. the answer my friend is not blowing in the wind or elsewhere .. apologies to peter paul and mary besides others
Loved the description of the stealthy tree crabs, Smriti :) So much resonance with both the wonder and horror that you describe.
I spent my early childhood in the Andamans and when I revisited the islands 2 decades later, was appalled to see surplus waste from ships that is dumped into the sea washed up on Cinque Island - uninhabited but for brand new sneakers, kindle chocolate and plastic strewn across the beach. It's sadly so commonplace now. Whether it is in the mountains at McLeodGanj or as you describe, along the backwaters in Goa.
Thank you for writing this (and pardon the long response) but the kind of tourism and callous treatment of other species and habitats is a subject close to my heart.