Comments on: The Human Scale of Recycling in India

By: Let’s freecycle India « Contemplation

Let’s freecycle India « Contemplation — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:26:34 +0000

[...] little daily which causes almost a million people in India to live a very low standard of life. The occupational hazard of working in this profession is also a serious issue. With the technological progress, India also has a growing electronic waste [...]

By: Let’s Freecycle India

Let’s Freecycle India — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:18:03 +0000

By: Rohit Prasad

Rohit Prasad — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:48:01 +0000

Great Blog………….
It really grab my all attention…………..need to think about it………..this seriously……………..

By: Meena

Meena — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:32:53 +0000

I also read an article about a man who saved his trash for one entire year. Watch the video here. http://www.greenwala.com/greenwala/blog/all/644-Trash-of-the-Year?f=true

By: Meena

Meena — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:32:14 +0000

One thing I noticed while in Delhi a few years ago, is the fact that in the houses we visited there was little to no waste. The vegetables, milk and breads are delivered fresh to the door with no packaging. Milk is poured from their steel container to the homeowners. Veggies are carried in huge baskets and given straight to the consumer. Within the household there is little to no waste and veggie food scraps are left in a pile for the wandering animals to consume. My family felt that this was such an eye opening experience that we want to strive to live with that sort of zero waste system.

By: K-Fai Steele

K-Fai Steele — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:54:17 +0000

Justin, you’re right, the word “recycling” to Americans carries a certain selfless connotation. If Trash-picking existed in the United States the way that it does in India, people would call it a “job”. What the Kabari do, at the same time, isn’t quite a “job” in the sense that Americans– Artblog readers included– could easily grasp.

A friend of mine teaches English in China. One day she brought up a discussion about littering. The class was mostly of the opinion that littering provided jobs- if you didn’t litter, people couldn’t collect the waste, then they couldn’t support their families. Likewise in India with Kabari, Argentina with the Cartoneros, and Singapore with the Karung guni, etc.

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:55:35 +0000

The term recycling is almost irrelevant in the case of India and the scavenging of materials for a livelihood. There is the world’s largest steel scavenging operation on the shores in Madras where nations send their ships to die and many are killed and maimed every year in this thoroughly unregulated operation. The mercury from the CRT monitors contains more than some risk and again, American “recycling” businesses have been brought on charges because the materials are simply too dangerous to disperse internationally. For these people, large scale employment for what they already do may bring a benefit of regulation, but to label what they do as recycling seems to conjure a favor that they are doing for the rest of us.

By: Mayank Rungta

Mayank Rungta — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:47:12 +0000

We are hoping to exploit the fact that this whole process can employ a lot of people as has been done in Vellore -

http://ngopost.org/story.php?title=Zero_Waste_Management_-_replicating_Vellore__Bangalore

This article has been very informative in this regard.