NCERT Solutions for Class 5th The World Around Us Chapter 4 Waste and the people who handle it — Discuss

If we do not separate it, everything becomes useless at once — and dangerous for the people who have to handle it.

1. The dry waste is spoilt. A newspaper that has sat in wet peels is soggy and smelly. It cannot be recycled. So paper that could have become new paper goes to the dump instead.
2. The wet waste is spoilt. Compost cannot be made from a heap with plastic and glass in it. So peels that could have become garden soil are wasted too.
3. Sanitation workers get hurt. They sort mixed waste with their hands. Broken glass, a blade, a needle or a battery hidden in a bag of wet waste can cut or poison them.
4. It smells and brings disease. Mixed waste rots in the open, attracts flies, rats and stray dogs, and breeds mosquitoes in the wet parts.
5. The landfill grows. Everything ends up in one huge heap outside the town. Those heaps catch fire, and the smoke is harmful. Rain washes dirty water out of them into the ground and the streams.
6. It costs more. Someone has to be paid to separate later what we could have separated in one second at the bin.

The short answer: hand over waste the way we would want to receive it. Everything else follows from that.

Ten things we can actually do

1. Separate wet and dry before the waste leaves our hands.
2. Wrap sharp things. Broken glass, a blade, a broken bulb — roll it in thick newspaper and write “GLASS” on it.
3. Keep batteries, medicines and e-waste out of both bins. They are poisonous. Keep them in a separate marked box.
4. Do not throw wet waste loose on the floor or from a window.
5. Keep the bin lid on so nothing spills and no animal drags it out.
6. Do not overfill the bin. A bin that will not close has to be emptied by hand.
7. Do not litter in the first place. Every wrapper on the ground is a bend of somebody's back.
8. Keep the toilets clean after using them. Flush, and do not throw wrappers into the pan.
9. Greet them and learn their names. Say good morning. Say thank you. This is not a small thing.
10. Ask whether they have gloves, boots and a mask — and tell a teacher if they do not.

Questions to ask the guest who visits your class

• What time does your work start, and how much area do you cover?
• Which part of the work is hardest?
• What do you find in the waste that should never have been there?
• Have you ever been hurt while working?
• What is the one thing you would like every student in this school to do?

Sample answer — what our class learnt: “Sunita didi told us she starts at six in the morning and sweeps the whole ground before we arrive, and that most of what she picks up is chocolate wrappers from the playground. She said the hardest part is not the sweeping — it is the mixed bins, because she has to pull the wet and dry apart with her hands. She once cut her finger on a broken glass bangle that someone had thrown into the wet bin. When we asked her what she wanted from us, she said: ‘Only two things. Put it in the bin, and put it in the right bin.’ Then our class did two things — we asked the office for a bin at the playground edge, and we made a rule that our class picks up its own wrappers after lunch. And we learnt her name, which none of us had known before.”