Kerala had a shocking incident in which a group of women sanitation workers of Haritha Karma Sena was rescued when they found a live python hidden in a plastic bag when they went to the waste segregation center that was doing their routine job of sorting recyclable material.
The snake was clearly tied in the plastic bag, the workers said, and the women immediately notified local authorities and forest officials. Fortunately, no one was injured, but it has raised serious concerns about the safety and working conditions of sanitation workers who are placed under pressure to handle waste all the time and do not know what dangerous objects may be in the bag.
The Haritha Karma Sena alleged the act was intentional and called for an investigation of who dumped the snake in the bag and how. It was a frightening and unprecedented situation for sanitation workers to find a python in a plastic bag and how to get it out of there, they said.
Forest department personnel later rescued the snake and transported it to a safe place after checking it. The snake was also supposed to have been illegally captured and abandoned. Wildlife experts have said that pythons are still protected animals under Indian wildlife laws, which would make a potential illegal capture, confinement, or disposal of them a criminal offense.
Environmental activists also took the issue as a danger to the health of wildlife. This is also a serious issue because the irresponsible disposal of wildlife not only threatens sanitation workers but also violates animal protection regulations and disrupts biodiversity for the people of Kerala. This has also given rise to a new debate about how to make waste management practices and the safety of sanitation workers better for Kerala’s people.
Workers have asked for better protective equipment, training for workers in safety, emergency response, and stronger enforcement to prevent the disposal of harmful substances in the household waste of those who throw dangerous materials into the trash.
The Haritha Karma Sena has been instrumental in Kerala’s decentralized waste management system, and thousands of women are working tirelessly to collect, segregate, and recycle waste and help in environmental conservation and clean up communities.
As workers are recovering, these workplace hazards are something they are not aware of, and so it’s an issue that is still very much hidden from them. Residents should take care of waste, and anybody who is responsible for causing harm to sanitation workers would face legal consequences. It’s so much more than cleanliness of the city and the village; it’s cleanliness for the safety of the people.
