Disposable Culture Article and photos by Brett Evans Brett Evans is a senior Religious Studies major from Purcellville, Virginia. As part of his research for the Elon College Fellows and Lumen Scholars programs, Brett studied abroad twice in India for a total of seven months. He has held leadership roles in Elon’s Sierra Club and Theta Alpha Kappa. In his spare time, he enjoys gardening, cooking, and hiking.
One of the first things most foreigners notice on arriving in India, whether they admit it or not, is the ubiquitous trash. The beauty of so much teeming life, the vibrancy of colors in all directions, the rich and intricate cultures, these boons are also among common initial impressions. However, the trash is immediate and pervasive. Compared to more developed countries, much less of India’s trash problem is out-of-sight or out-of-mind. It hits all of the human senses. We see the piles of refuse, smell the plastic burning, taste it as it passes through our mouth on the way to our lungs. We hear the crackle of the trash fires, feel the itch of irritating chemicals in the air.
When confronted by trash-culture shock, the unthinking, seemingly automatic responses from many foreigners focus on disposal. “Why aren’t there more trash cans?” Or, “Why don’t they have dumps?” Maybe, if they are feeling particularly superior or indignant, foreigners might say, “How do Indians live like this?” The assumptions underlying these questions are that there are solutions to the trash problem and Indians need to adopt the ways that more developed countries have used to deal with it. Rarely is there a different, radical appraisal of the situation — one which attempts to address its roots rather than its results.
VISIONS
To a more neutral observer, it might seem that, in regards to trash, the primary difference between India and more developed countries is that India does not currently have the means to hide the problem. After all, the use of wasteful plastic packaging on all sorts of consumer and food products is not an India-specific behavior, nor is the habit of ordering food from restaurants delivered in single-use parcels. In fact, these trends have existed to a greater degree and for much longer in more developed countries. Moreover, they seem to be thought of as indications of the degree to which a country is developed. According to this line of reasoning, the greater quantity and access to disposable products, the more progress a country has made and the higher quality of life its citizens will enjoy. Yet, perhaps, what makes many foreigners so uncomfortable about the trash is that it exposes the ridiculousness of belief in this correlation. Might it, instead, show the earliest and most grotesque sign of a country “developing” disposable cultures? In India, this disgusting and absurd element of modern thinking, the notion of disposability, is laid bare for all to see and for none to ignore. There is not yet a hideyhole in which to place the problem where public awareness and consciousness can politely forget it.
It is precisely for this reason that I believe many foreigners so quickly become upset about the trash and the apparent lack of efforts to curtail “the problem.” It is always easier to critique another than to examine one’s own issues. So often, we feel the need to point out what is wrong and identify the solution. Yet, so often, we do not want to accept the fact that the problem we have seen so clearly in the other is also embedded within our own cultures, only possibly deeper and hidden by practices and customs which are blindingly familiar to us.