Solutions

Simple, practical and efficient solutions requiring only a will and a very nominal budget to implement them. Support from Indian Railways authorities needed given government ownership of the infrastrtucture and the national scale of the problem.

 

Public Private Partnership

A public-private partnership to address this expeditiously with an "Adopt-A-Railway" or "Adopt-A-Station" scheme for all stations across India. Private entities clean up a segement and in return get to advertise their pre-approved offerings at stations.

Station Masters

Empower Station Masters at all stations across India to rally local residents to help clear plastics within a 2 to 5mile range of the station on either direction. Remuneration can be in the form of a free train ride vouchers for families or monetary rewards from recycling entities or other viable schemes. Collected plastics can be loaded on to a coach of a train to be transported to regional recycling centers.

Technology

A viable technology centric solution can be to attach an industrial strength vaccum cleaner hose on wheels on either side of an already existing "track, line and signal maintenance vehicle" that periodically run on local railway segments and have it suck in plastics within couple of meter distance of railroad tracks. If a shredder can be incorporated the waste volume can be reduced to have it bagged within the maintenance coach. This is much like exsiting and proven mechanised cleaning vehicles used to clear roadside trash.

Sensible Government Regulations

Government of India and local State Governments can and should insititute sensible regulations to incentivise large multi national corporations to move away from single use plastics to bio-degradable packaging for the myriad snacks and drinks such as potato chips and soft drinks sold by countless vendors across India including at stations.

Manufacturing

The Integral Coach Factory in Chennai that manufactures trains for India should consider engineering and incorporating an efficient and simple track side vaccuum cleaning feature on to the wheel frames of select coaches of a train. Cleaning features can be incorporated in to long distance cargo or goods trains as another possible option.

Elected Officials

Elected officials such as MLA's, MPs, District Collectors, Tahsildars, Panchayath Presidents and Village Officers can play a significant role in promoting, supporting and facilitating such initiatives in their local constituencies to revive a national spirit of Swachh Bharath at the grass roots level.

Behavioral Change

A longer term solution will be to drive behavioral changes in train traveling population to have self pride in a clean railway network by choosing to only buy bio-degradable packages from station or train vendors and refrain from throwing used empty plastic packages or bottles out the window of a running train and instead store it within the compartment for disposal at the next station. Put up billboards to drive home the value of rejecting plastic packages in favor of bio-degradable paper packages or reusuable containers where practical.

Grassroots Volunteerng

Organize local volunteering cleanup drives in coordination with local railway authorities such as station masters or mainatenance crew to safely cleanup plastic waste along neighborhood tracks.

Leverage Existing Track Maintenance Trolleys

Battery powered dual person maintenance trolley costing USD 3000 can carry a vaccuum shredder and cleanup plastics along tracks

Leverage Existing Track Maintenance Coaches

Augment with vaccuum cleaning and shredding attachments