We all are very familiar with the proverb- ‘Health is Wealth’. To achieve wealth, you need to keep your health safe and sound. Cleanliness is the key to maintain well health. Cleanliness is one of the most important factors in order to have good health. It is a duty of every human being to be healthy and strong. It is just not enough to keep our own houses clean and clear, but we should also keep an eye on surroundings so that it does not remain dirty. It is of utmost importance to maintain cleanliness for better living of every creature on this planet. This is a reason why everyone says-‘Cleanliness is near to Godliness’. It might not be easy to keep the society clean, but it isn’t impossible. Keeping the society clean is not an individual task. This will work out only when everyone in the living comes out and lends hands to take care of the society. Even there are numerous campaigns organized by self-help groups and political parties. Some of them were awareness campaign; some of them were demonstrative. But they all aim to keep the society clean and green.
Necessity of Cleanliness:
Cleanliness is not only a quality but a habit that every human being needs to possess in order to maintain proper physical as well as mental health. A happy life is highly dependent on success in profession and achievement. You can only give your best when you have a good physical as well as mental health. Non-cleanliness leads to the spreading of germs and diseases among people. One of the major benefits a person can acquire from being clean is huge levels of self-confidence and also gain self-respect. A person who is both mentally balanced and physically fit, are confident. These people earn respect from others in the society and make the society proud for them.
Dirtiness leads to irrevocable circumstances:
Cleanliness is one of the important factors of healthy lifestyle. Unawareness to it leads to serious affects on human health. The One and only convenient way to keep diseases at bay is to be clean yourself as well as to keep your surroundings clean. There are certain diseases that are infectious and spread through variety of hosts. The hosts are mainly insects like mosquito, flies etc. If we keep the surroundings clean by not scattering the garbage, there will be no infectious insects at all. So, along with being clean by yourself, it is our responsibility to keep our society clear as well. The very common disease that are solely caused by unhygienic routines and lifestyles are as follows-
- Malaria
- Dengue
- Food poisoning
- Diarrhea
- Trachoma
- Skin infections
- Gastroenteritis
- Pneumonia
The grand cleanliness campaign- Swachh Bharat Abhiyan:
In order to make a healthy India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has taken a step forward. To make the Incredible India incredibly hygienic, the Swachh Bharat Campaign has been launched. The motif of the campaign is to make people aware about the advantages of cleanliness and encourage them to keep themselves as well as the surroundings clean. Cleanliness starts from home, but does not end there. Once we keep our houses clean and greens, we should turn our focus to the environment as well. Apart from house, the surroundings include road, parks, footpath etc. All the communities have turned up to make this mission successful. The activities they have taken the initiative to start are cleaning the roads, painting the walls, maintaining the community’s gardens, managing the dustbins on the roads and etc. The seven steps that were proposed in this campaign for making India clean are as follows-
- Proper Segregation of Wastes:
One of the most important things in maintaining a cleaner society is to manage the wastes in the most effective way. It is a fact that we can’t avoid wastes, but what is important is how to dispose it without harming the environment. Now there are two kinds of waste- Biodegradable and non-biodegradable wastes. It is important to keep the two different wastes separate from one another. It means this can be possible only by segregating waste material which is not useful such as plastic covers, bottles along with biodegradables. As plastic is a very harmful pollutant of nature, the campaign also promotes to replace plastic bags with that of paper bags.
- Awareness of cleanliness:
It is important to make people aware that gaining cleanliness in society is possible. But this is effective only when we all together work towards it. This includes campaigning, spreading awareness among the public, conducting useful nature restoration programs especially in rural areas. School is one place which can imbibe these importance and essence of cleanliness in the budding time of life- the childhood. So, this campaign also emphasizes the schools to take an active part in it.
- Railway tracks are no place for latrine:
One of the major problems seen in most areas of India is that people use railway tracks for excretory activities instead of toilets. So, it is necessary to take some strict actions and legal codes by the railway authorities to avoid such situation. It can also be possible to reduce and end this problem by building huge number of public toilets at every place.
- Dustbins to be placed everywhere:
To keep the streets, roads and surroundings clean, it is important to keep dustbins to stack the garbage at places. Keeping the dustbins in from of the eyes will make people think twice before they throw the garbage here and there. The campaign has planned to keep dustbins at every bus stop, railway track, in every street end and start, gardens, parks, shopping malls and any other public places where their requirement is needed.
- Do not Throw wastes out of place:
Throwing wastes here and there makes the environment dirty. If your living place is not hygienic, there is nothing that can prevent you from having infections and diseases. So, it is best to keep the wastes at its proper places and keep the environment clean.
- Installation of numerous bio gas plants:
This is one very effective idea of recycling wastes. Bio-gas plants burn the household and bio-degradable wastes to produce bio-gas. This bio-gas is a very hygienic fuel that produces less CO2 and reduces air pollution.
- Use of bio degradable packaging:
Using papers for packaging instead of plastic is another noble way of keeping the surroundings clean and pollution-free. As plastic bottles and bags are non bio-degradable wastes, they need to be replaced with natural wastes. Papers are possible to mix with which plastic cannot.
All the above are some of the points that can help in maintaining a cleaner community. But the very first thing to keep in mind is our duty towards our society and surroundings. If we want to bring the change, we ourselves need to be change first. Just as charity begins at home, similarly cleanliness also starts from home only.
Author Bio:- Tanushree Kundu, Winner of essay competition held in November-2018.Won a Trophy, $30 Gift Coupon and e-Certificate.
