Ghats on the Ganga in Varanasi, India: A sustainable model for waste management

The ghats (steps and landings) leading to the holy River Ganga are used for worship, ritual bathing, cremation, and other life cycle rituals in the pilgrim city of Varanasi. Cultural practices celebrating the River Ganga as an archetypal symbol of purity, capable of cleansing moral and physical dirt, are contributing to local point source pollution on the ghats. Kevin Lynch’s insights on meanings of waste are useful in explaining the contradictory religious and modern secular views of the river’s ability to deal with waste. I propose a sustainable model for waste management on the ghats that would contribute to the health of the heavily polluted river and people engaged with it. Strategies based on cultural norms of wasting well and community efforts to recycle and reuse are recommended in this bottom-up approach.