Emptying the bin? There's treasure in your trash

As the rhetoric around waste reaches fever pitch, thanks to the Swachch Bharat campaign, there are others for whom waste means business. In fact, they have been effectively managing waste for years, much before overflowing landfills and CO2 emission began to threaten the environment. Meet these agents who operate under the radar: the rag pickers, scrap dealers and wholesalers. They perform crucial functions in channelling waste, from collecting and segregating to ensuring they reach the right recyclers through a long but reliable chain.

Siddharth Hande, who started Kabadiwala Connect, a social enterprise that is involved in mapping scrap dealers, says that they are currently scouting for kabadiwalas and asking them basic questions about their trade, the nature of waste they collect. Once they understand how this network functions, they hope to connect more households with scrap dealers, in a bid to send less solid waste to landfills.

Recording their observations during research, Kavya Balaraman, a team member, writes, “Scrap-dealers specialising in practically every category of dry waste – from white paper and plastic to scrap metal, newspaper and carton – operate in the ward (Bellandur) and have back-end tie-ups with processors. They pay competitive prices for the waste.”

This developed system already embedded in the urban fabric gets overlooked in favour of more expensive methods for addressing waste. Hande says, “This is an ecosystem (network) that nobody talks about in traditional planning. The Corporation of Chennai thinks about how to handle waste, they don’t think about the ecosystem.” Integrating this network with state/city bodies responsible for solid waste management could fill existing gaps in the system.

Nikhil Mantha, a Mumbaikar feels the Government can extend formal recognition to this group, “A few schemes that could provide them with inexpensive facilitators, such as cycle rickshaws could go a long way. Municipal bodies can collaborate with them, too.” The dealers’ knowledge of who requires what waste and what sells where is invaluable. The benefits of collaboration are many; the responsibility is distributed, small businesses are encouraged and there are logistical advantages as well.

Neighbourhoods and individuals play a determining role in this ecosystem. While earlier, there was a direct relationship between households and kabadiwalas, these links are being severed. Little priority is given to segregating waste; all the waste is cumulatively dumped. Some high-security apartments, sceptical about letting in aggregators, increase the risk of this mixed waste reaching dumping grounds. Minhaj Ameen, who co-founded amrutDhara, a social enterprise to reduce plastic waste, feels, “We need to go back to our traditional values; values such as respect for matter, rivers, and other living beings. The kabadiwalas, the mochiwalas are serving to conserve resources. We should show them respect for they are the real practitioners of sustainable living.”

The role of social enterprises is also about bringing a culture of mindfulness among people, as both amrutDhara and Kabadiwala show. And through simple solutions, urge them to adopt small changes. Minhaj says that amrutDhara’s, for example, revolves around convenience, social conformity and financial cost. “By offering non-packaged water (through dispensers stationed at strategic points) which is convenient and affordable, and through increasing awareness, we hope it will be socially interesting and cool over time,” he says.

COMMENT NOW