INDIA DROWNING IN ITS OWN GARBAGE

The Government launched Clean India Mission, a $9 bn cleanliness drive, urging Indians to stop spitting and defecating on streets, to stop littering, and keep their localities clean.

It takes some gumption to assess the enormity of India’s real garbage challenge.

429mn urban Indians produce 62mn tonnes of garbage making it the world’s 3rd largest garbage generator. However, it’s not the amount of waste generated that’s as much of an issue as the fact that more than 45 million tonnes, or 3 million trucks worth, of garbage is untreated and disposed of by municipal authorities everyday in an unhygienic manner.

THE EASY WAY TO WASTE DISPOSAL

Waste disposal in India simply involves rounding up the waste from different parts of the city, and dumping everything in a landfill. Once a landfill is completely occupied, a new landfill is discovered in a different part of the city. The waste in landfills causes land and air pollution, and groundwater contamination. With small budgets, municipalities are ill-equipped to handle the issue.

THE CLOCK IS TICKING

By 2031, an estimated 600mn urban citizens will produce 165 mn tonnes of garbage, presenting a frightening prospect of what lies ahead.

Everyday women sweep the dirt off their houses and simply dump it outside the home. The tobacco chewing man on the street simply stops and spits wherever he wants. While we place a high premium on the cleanliness of our homes, there’s precious little pride we take in our city’s cleanliness.

In a Government survey on sanitation of 434 cities, 69 of the bottom 100 were cities where our newspaper, Dainik Jagran was circulated.

Citizens felt ashamed at the low ranking of their city. But, simply telling people to adopt responsible waste management practices was not going to work. Also, just sweeping the streets does not address the enormity of our garbage challenge. We had to tell people that waste management is as much their responsibility as much as it is of the civic authorities.

Our campaign said “Let’s re-imagine an India where every village and every city is clean”.

- REACHING OUT : Through Print, OOH, Human Chains, Street Theatre, Pledges, Paintings, Signature campaigns, Door-to-door connect.

- CO-OPTING ADMINISTRATION AND CIVIC AGENCIES : A platform for city’s administrators to collaborate with citizens.

- CREATING A RALLYING POINT : Local politicians, Mayors, Chief Ministers and Deputy Chief Minsters associated to convey seriousness of intent

- NEWSPAPER AS THE CAMPAIGN PIVOT: Editorial spotlight on waste management. A Cleanliness Meter on the front page tracked the mission’s daily progress. Space equivalent to 356 full pages in the newspaper devoted to the campaign.

- DEMONSTRATE BY ACTION : Armed with gloves, masks, volunteers and civic authorities, our teams along with the local residents cleared the garbage.

- CELEBRATING CLEANLINESS : Post cleanup, the area was painted by local artists, and a party organized to celebrate the victory of cleanliness.

WINNING THE BATTLE FOR THE COUNTRY

1. 34682 tonnes of waste cleared through community participation in 386 locations across 25 cities

2. 1,31,948 people participated generating 50,000 mandays of labour valued at INR 20mn

3. Economic Impact – Even with a 10% habit change, the campaign impacts 8,00,000 tonnes of waste/year, needing about INR 1.6 bn to clear.

Impact on Brand

• READERSHIP RANKING: Dainik Jagran was ranked the No.1 newspaper in India with a Total Readership of over 70 mn*

• BRAND AWARENESS : Dainik Jagran recorded the highest :

o Top of Mind Awareness,

o Brand Health Score

o Brand Likeability

o Brand Preference

• IMPROVING BRAND PERCEPTION : Score improvement over comparable period last year:

o “This newspaper is the market leader”:+ 6%

o “This newspaper is serious” : +3%

o “This newspaper makes me a better citizen”: +5%

Source : Brand Study, Dec 2017, *IRS 2017

With rapid urbanization and industrialization, solid waste management is a key challenge for sustainable urban environments. The $9 bn Clean India Mission was created to tackle issues related to waste management, cleanliness and sanitation.

We had to turn the system of garbage management on its head. Only then will we really clean our cities—not just sweep the dirt under the carpet. If people are the source generators of garbage, then people could also be made collectively responsible for its management.

Our strategy was to leverage the power of community and demonstrate real intent. This was a crowdsourcing campaign that didn’t ask people for money, but to come and work in their personal capacity and help clean their city. We made a clarion call to citizens across 25 cities through our campaign Mission 1000 – a campaign to rid each city of 1000 tonnes of garbage.

Dainik Jagran exists to shift the collective consciousness of people and transform lives to create a better world and a better future….because an awakened individual is one who goes beyond the barriers of his own mind and lives life in a larger context.

Living this vision of our brand, we draw from the very core of our newspaper’s editorial philosophy which has 7 Principles as its foundation – Women Empowerment, Environment Protection, Population Management, Poverty Eradication, Health, Education, and Water Conservation. Everyday, we necessarily carry stories of change, of challenges, of hope and of crusaders across any of these domains.

Environment and Health, therefore are amongst the core priorities of the brand.

The SDG targets reducing the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, by paying attention to waste management. Over the past 2 decades, India has seen a rapid urbanization boom that has exerted pressure on sewage, waste management and public health. With dangerously irresponsible waste management practices, the sustainability of urban communities is under threat. We took on the challenge to:

- Create a model of community participation in waste management

- Mainstream the issue, and galvanize people to initiate behavior change towards waste management