The Tradition of garbage assortment in Indian villages

My grandfather always carried a two mouthed bag. Eradbaayi cheela. The packing materials were gunny bags or paper, back in the days. First, plastic to show up probably was the fertilizer bags, in villages. The village needs a separate treatment because it is a matter of culture. The culture of recycling and segregation of waste was built into farming families much before it was common here in the west. My house and others as well like us had 3 garbages. 

1. One coming from kitchen edible for cows. 

2. Non-edible for compost - would become fertilizer 

3. Third hard but yet degradable junk which would be burnt or thrown in the form. 

There was no garbage to dump. 

This segregation of waste was economical. The new 4th nondegradable presented a cultural problem. What to do with it? No one really addressed it. Because the technology to recycle the new material is not there or out of reach. It requires a new process which needs to be invented (at the village level). There was no culture of this recycle in cities. So plastic presents a cultural issue for the village. Because the actual process of segregation is done by habit there is no awareness of why it is done. It is great that a virtue is a habit but now we realize that is not enough because lack of awareness of reasons hinders finding a solution to new but related problems. I have seen while walking to school that the Harijana Keri was the one cleaner - cleaned with cow dung. How will they accept garbage lying around? Before the culture changes to accept filth and mismanagement of plastic and its brothers, it is important to cut the problem at its root. 

The collection is a reactionary western approach. Cause problem ... don't deal with it.... screw things ... and then fix it and blame everyone else following you! Is the western model. We should not allow the use of non-recyclable items for packing etc. That is radical... but it can be done eventually like petrol cars will now be gone after 2030.