Goats and the Garbage Problem

Sanitation is a problem here and, as I understand it, in most of India. Note that here in Karaikal, where the population is only about 75,000 people, the problem is not to the scale that you may have noted in the popular movie Slumdog Millionaire when the orphans were picking through mountains of trash.

Side note: I have to say that if someone could find a way to profit from picking up trash and repurposing it somehow, the business potential here is enormous. Everywhere you turn there are heaps of garbage: on the sides of the roads, outside the windows of homes and buildings, everywhere. And to remedy all of this the solution is goats. Lots and lots of goats.

Like cows, but not holy, goats roam freely and enjoy fresh rubbish at every turn. Near as I can tell they are not eaten as food, but their milk is taken and consumed. The traffic seems to respect the goats much like the cows, perhaps because they are solving a problem by eating evidence of human consumption all day long. As we discovered (and photographed by a team member), this sanitation model is sustainable – goats mate and create more goats in a perpetual cycle. So just as there is no end to the garbage, its consumers seem to be arriving on pace.

On the drive to and from the hospital, we have discovered there is an abandoned field (where a gas station once existed) where the goats seem to congregate. Literally dozens of them come in the morning and hang out. Some just lay there and shoot the bull. Others wander around, while still others play a little by butting heads with each other. But it’s only goats in there.

As I’m tired and a little crazy has set in, I’ve started to imagine scenarios by which an entitled cow wanders into the exclusive goat club. Gang signs are thrown and the angry goats taken the unsuspecting cow down Godfather-style. It amuses me to think about it. But so far I haven’t seen a cow in that field so I think the boundaries must be clear. The goats are in control of this area. And the garbage.

In my exhausted state, I’ve discovered that I’m fitting in here. Amid the chaos of charts coming and going, I’ve created my own little India – a pile of trash on the floor  behind my desk representing old schedules and notes that are no longer needed as well as evidence of some snacking. I’m even a little casual about it, tossing paper over my shoulder without thinking. Fortunately, about every 30 minutes my conscience can’t take it and I pick up mess and toss it in the waste bin 10 feet away.

Anyway, it would be great if this trash problem could be figured out. There’s a lot of it and it’s nobody’s and everybody’s problem all at the same time. Even an incinerator would be better than nothing as the trash is near water supplies, where people work and live and children play. The other thing is that it blows around and eventually toward and into the Sea of Bengal, which connects to other bodies of water that connect the continents. So eventually India’s garbage problem is/will be ours. I keep thinking that if we could burn all of the garbage in incinerators it would be a step in the right direction. I know environmentalists would complain that the plastics and other things in the garbage would be bad for the environment if incinerated. But isn’t all that trash already a danger to the environment and public health? Which is the lesser of the two evils?

Taken from a moving vehicle, but you get the idea. These heaps are everywhere.

Half of the goat club -- where

The dirty little secret behind my desk where I've been throwing my garbage.
This is not habit forming for me, I promise.