No lessons learnt
As we celebrated Eid-ul-Adha, the festival of sacrifices, we again missed out on several important issues that we are made aware of before the beginning of the festival and yet we tend to repeat the mistakes every year.
Every year on the eve of Eid-ul-Adha health and environmental experts raise serious concerns over the improper disposal of animal waste, stressing the urgent need for scientific waste management to protect public health and the environment during the festival of sacrifice.
Not only environmental experts but religious heads and bodies also try their level best to aware the people over the unscientific disposal of animal waste and hides.
Importantly, Eid-ul-Adha should remain a day of spiritual reflection and sacrifice, not a cause for environmental degradation or public health emergencies. But on the contrary, the appeals and requests to maintain cleanliness and hygiene and avoid hurting the environmental, the people resort to same old tactics of disposing of animal waste in open rather that availing the services that are meant to provide them a solution to this issue.
During the celebrations of the festival this year hundreds of videos were put on various social media platforms where religious heads, senior members of the society and even youth were highlighting the brazen violations resorted to by the people across Kashmir Valley.
People not only disposed the animal wastes and hides in the open but also polluted the water bodies alike and put the people’s health at risk.
The sacrifices which are offered during the three days of festivities must be performed hygienically and all by-products like blood, offal and hides must be disposed of in a clean, scientific manner—especially keeping in view the summer season and the risk of disease outbreaks.
Experts had issued warning ahead of the festival requesting the people not to scatter animal waste which can otherwise serve as breeding grounds for water-borne, food-borne and vector-borne diseases.
Notably, owing to the hot weather conditions here in Kashmir these days, the uattended waste attracts flies, mosquitoes, and scavengers, and when dumped in water bodies or open drains, it contaminates both surface and groundwater, posing a serious health hazard.
Though various civic bodies including the Srinagar Municipal Corporation had offered various collection points where the animal waste could have been dumped so that it could have been disposed off scientifically, but all such facilities were availed by a limited lot of people.
Ironically, the World Environment Day, observed just two days ahead of the festival could not as well generate the spirit of protecting our environment and taking a pledge that no unscientific means will be resorted to.
However, it seems that this year too we failed in maintaining the pledge to safeguard our environment as we could not build on creating a collective responsibility on this vital and pressing issue.
