Waste warriors in Dehradoon is trying to clear the mess and show what it takes to keep India clean

Being a foreigner does get her more attention, she says unabashedly, “It helps to open doors and people pay attention because you’re from another country.” But being white, she says,has its drawbacks, too. “People think you have loads of cash and will eventually go back to your own country. I can guarantee that won’t happen, I am committed to a cleaner India; it’s my life’s mission.” she says in a breath.

Jodie Underhill has declared herself a warrior and she is willing to fight anything that comes in the way – perceptions or garbage. Last year when the floods ravaged Uttarakhand, it was not easy to miss the busy girl. For Underhill was busy organising mass cleanliness drives at Jolly Grant Airport in Delhradoon as well as various helidromes, which had been turned into garbage dumps once the rescued pilgrims and their kin left for home. That her NGO, Waste Warriors (WW) was only a year-old was not something that stopped her or her team.

Recognition soon came her way when Union Minister of State for Tourism Dr K Chiranjeevi announced Rs 5 lakh in his personal capacity forWaste Warriors. Ask her what it meant and she says,” He’s a really nice down-to-earth gentleman. It was a humbling experience to know that a word of our work had reached Dr Chiranjeevi.” She says his donation kept them going for about six months and the organisation achieved a lot, thanks to his support.

But of course, resting on their laurels is not something her team of warriors wants to do,and that is something this Brit is clear about. For the challenge of waste management in a country such as India is no mean task and everyday comes with a fight. Funding the work, confides Underhill, is the biggest challenge. Everyone says “Good job, well done”, but people rarely put their hands in their pockets and donate. “The stigma attached to waste is another big challenge, as is changing people’s habits and mindsets, working with the government and dealing with negative people.”

But then challenges are something that the young woman who now lives in Dehradoon, thrives on. What else can explain a tourist-turnedcrusader’s mission to make India clean? Ask Underhill what got her to India and she has a smile light up her face. It was 2009 and she had just landed in Mumbai as a tourist. “The first thing that struck me was the smell and the garbage everywhere. I hoped it was just because I was in a city but I soon realised the garbage menace was everywhere.”

She was put off, of course, but it wasn’t just the “gather mysticism and go back” philosophy that struck this young woman. Instead, she found herself swearing that she would do something about the mess – clean it up, for instance.

What had probably come to fore was her upbringing. Born in Great Yarmouth, England (a tourist destination on the coast of Norfolk) her parents divorced when she was nine and she moved up to Yorkshire.What she remembers distinctly about her childhood is her mother and her love for cleanliness. “My Mum was always pretty strict about keeping things clean and tidy and I guess that’s always stayed with me. I have never dropped a piece of litter in my life and that’s something I am grateful to her for. If you teach kids when they are young, it becomes as natural as breathing.” says Underhill.

Ask her if she knew what she wanted to be when she grew up and she chuckles, “I was never sure what I wanted to be growing up but when I left school, I went to the British Racing School in Newmarket so I could work with racehorses. I always loved animals, had a vivid imagination and loved the outdoors.”

Its little surprise then that after her usual touristy things, she found herself in the Tibetan Children’s Village in Dharamsala as a volunteer. The garbage situation was something that bothered her every single day and in April 2009, she decided to do something about it. Underhill’s first mass clean up in McLeodganj, the home of HH the Dalai Lama, was attended by over 100 people and it proved to her that she wasn’t the only person who wanted a cleaner India. “I still remember thinking,wow, I’m quite good at this and I really enjoy it, maybe this is the thing I have been searching for,” she shares.

Soon she formed a voluntary organisation by the name of Mountain Cleaners and started a weekly waste collection from Triund, a remote but garbage-stricken mountain camp, a fourhour hike from McLeodganj. Volunteers came in plenty to not only segregate and sort waste from chai shops and guest houses but also to clean the hiking trail and clear the backlog that had been thrown over the side of the mountain. It would be interesting to know that Triund is now known as one of the cleanest hiking destinations in India.

That success is addictive is no cliché’. In April 2011, the model was rolled out to the sacred Gaddi Temple Guna Mata, a three-hour hike from McLeodganj and in November that year extended to Bhagsunag Waterfall, a popular tourist hotspot.

All this only gave a definitive direction to Underhill’s dream. Ten dustbins for the local community were purchased and in April 2011,the group recruitedits first employee Lok Man to empty them. Over time, more dustbins were installed, which meant that people in the surrounding areas no longer needed to burn or dump their waste.

Thanks to the ongoing support of volunteers, they cleaned and started maintaining children’s playgrounds, which until then had been used as dumpsites by local hotels. To stop the waste being dumped there again,Underhill set up a door-to-door waste collection service from businesses and households, taking on more staff to deal with the extra workload.

Over 60 children attended the first educational Children’s Day held in October 2011 and pledged to join them for monthly events.

Underhill’s passion for cleanliness was soon met by Tashi Pareek,who joined the team in December 2011,giving the team a chance to spread its wings further. The dream was now extending beyond the hills. Underhill has conducted beach clean-ups in Goa and helped manage the waste at Sunburn Music Festival. This wasjust before she moved to Dehradun in May 2012 to start her first urban project, thanks to start-up funding from the Max India Foundation.With a dream of reaching out to all of India, Waste Warriors was registered in September2012.

This month, the organisation will turn two and the dream is set to grow bigger. Today Waste Warriors employs 26 staffers across three projects (Dehradoon, Dharamsala and Corbett). But the numbers are supplemented by volunteers and interns, who are a significant part of the team.

Among the many things that the organisation has managed are Airtel Hyderabad and Wipro Chennai Marathons last year and is helping to plan a project in Mumbai by the Mahindra Group.

Every day, confesses Underhill, is a challenge: “There is growing office work, three projects, lots of field work, presentations, event waste management, educational programs and so on. My life is action packed!” But then working in dirt and filth isn’t easy, is it?

“I have no issues with the garbage side of things. In fact, I love getting stuck in and seeing the transformation take place. I am driven by my belief that change is possible and the desire to see a clean India evolving for the next generation.”

The bigger vision says Underhill, is to eventually have projects in every state and also create an online system so that they can help people become Waste Warriors wherever they are in the country. The aim is to ensure the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules are enforced so that every citizen can safely dispose of her waste and help municipalities in creating those systems. “We want to give every school child a sense of civic pride and give waste workers the respect and pay that they deserve for the work that they do. We want a clean Ganga and are prepared to work hard to make sure all of the above actually happens,” she signs off.