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Public waste Private Enterprise
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 ‘Dirty fellows’ – men, women and children – rummaging in dustbins and garbage heaps. A common sight in most Indian cities. Cleaning up our trash and recycling things of value.
They don’t do this work because they want to, or because they are ‘eco-heroes’. They do it because they are poor and have been excluded from society. They have little choice. So they survive on others’ refuse.
Astud in his ear. A shirt that hangs on him. Tight black pants. A serious picture of self-dignity — even with his ‘solution’ in hand. Meet 12-year old Ramu, ragpicker. As you wake up, get ready and rush off to school, college or office, he has already completed his day’s first round of work. Today he travelled only 5 km as yet. On some days, it can be 10. He moves on to a whole lot of other small jobs during the day, including begging.
Washing cars, selling lottery tickets and newspapers, working as coolies and helpers in railway stations, automobile repair shops, construction sites, tea stalls and hotels. There are more than 7,00,000 Ramus in India. Late in the afternoon he goes on his second round of collection.
Followed by sorting and selling the ‘loot’. Most ragpickers are between 10 to 18 years of age. A happy and boisterous group, they spend their nights together on the streets, parks or graveyards. Ghosts do not bother them. Humans do. Some give them drugs. Some threaten them for sexual purposes. Still others arrest them for crimes not committed by them and beat them till they are barely alive.
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Throwaway World
Want to be a leader? Live like the Americans. Citizens in the US, world leader in trashing, waste a million pounds (450 kilograms) in weight per person per year. Their annual garbage list: 1.6 billion kilos of carpet sent to landfills, 11 billion kilos of food, 136 billion kilos of organic and inorganic chemicals used in manufacturing and processing, and 320 billion kilos of hazardous waste generated by chemical production.
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The sociology of trash is simple: the rich make it, the poor deal with it. The rich who make it are generally considered ‘clean’; the poor who deal with it are considered ‘dirty’.
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The British meanwhile dump 2.5 billion nappies/ diapers a year. The Japanese use 30 million ‘disposable’ single-roll cameras annually. North Americans annually discard 183 million razors, 2.7 billion batteries, 140 million cubic metres of Styrofoam packing, 350 million pressurised spray-paint cans, plus enough paper and plastic
ware to feed the world a picnic every month.
More than half of the world's municipal waste is generated in developed countries. In the United States, for example, the US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the average American produces well over 0.75 tonnes of trash each year.
Rich countries and people are better at making waste than making products. For every 100 kilograms of products manufactured in the United States, 3,200 kilograms of waste is created. Explaining the ‘sociology of trash’ Vanessa Baird writes in New Internationalist (In the Heap). “It is simple, the rich produce it, the poor deal with it. The rich who make it are considered ‘clean’; the poor who deal with it are considered ‘dirty’.”
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Consider this too. Mr Johnson and Johnson produces shampoo bottles (or cola bottles, or milk packets, or batteries). Rukmini Devi uses them and throws them away with her vegetable peels, leftover rags, dust, soiled cotton, and the rotten papaya lying in her fridge for ages. This lot (half a kilo daily) reaches the local bins and finally the landfill. Everyday, 85000 tonnes of similar unsegregated waste packets are thrown out of Indian houses. Ramu digs through this huge mountain for their daily rotis. On his way back, he passes Ms Rukmini Devi, who screws up her nose.
“Dirty Fellow! Hold on to your purse, he might just grab it away.” Mr Johnson and Johnson, poor thing, does not even know Ramu exists. He’s on his way to discuss the latest shampoo bottle ad to entice Ms Rukmini. In the capital city of India, the ratio of sweepers to population is 1:40, far less than 1:28 all-India ratio requisite. Half the trucks, loaders and tippers are inoperable at all given times. Ragpickers, the last in the human chain dealing with waste, do more than 20 per cent of the waste reduction job.
While Ramu gets Rs 50, the lower middleman, who buys the waste pickings from him, makes Rs 4,500 to Rs 13,300 a month. Wholesalers, the last in the chain, deal with at least Rs 100,000 worth of goods before these reach the factories. The ragpickers in cities are badly exploited by the recycling agents, the so called ‘middle men’. Ramu gets loans from the agents, with a high interest rate, which he has to pay back in the form of plastic and paper wastes at the end of the day. If he is not able to collect that amount everyday, he is in debt. While going through waste, he gets nicks and cuts. Burning garbage
xposes him to dioxins. But Ramu has no complaints. Ragpicking is his job. He has free access to garbage dumps. But he still is a illegal citizen in a legal city, rummaging through waste in landfills that ‘belong’ to the government, and open garbage dumps which belong to no-one. With private waste companies coming in, will he become a tresspasser? Will a more organised group of Ramu and his friends fetch him a better deal, which means he gets dry waste from homes directly and a little more money? What does Ramu want?
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 “Don’t take my picture because newspapers travel and might reach my village. Then they will know what I do and my parents will be shamed.”
Searching for a Living
Gobar Times tracked down some ragpickers on the streets of Delhi to get a glimpse into their lives
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Where does your food come from?
Some people are fond of doing charity. A Jain seth gives biscuits everyday and another gives roti and subzi at CP. Chola bhatura shopwalla gives food too. Sometimes I go to Bangla Saheb Gurudwara or Hanuman Mandir, but can’t go everyday. Will be thrown out. Often buy food.
What do you do with your money?
Food, drink and Hindi movies. If one says let’s eat, we go and eat. The person who has the money pays and finishes all the money.
What do you drink?
You wouldn’t know. Solution – this is the white stuff you people use to erase pen marks. None of us used to drink and then a bhaiya came from Bombay and got us all addicted to solution. Now it is solution, bidi, cigarette and daru (alcohol). (They pointed out to a boy walking past.) “Do you see that boy? He is a kabadi as you can tell from his bag. He was like all of us, a part of us. Now he takes smack.”
Joginder 13 years old.
Address: Hanuman Mandir, CP, New Delhi, originally from village Dhobahan, Gorakhpur.
His story: Ran away from home at age nine. Father alcoholic. Reached Banaras. Next Lucknow. Caught by the police in Pratapgarh and taken to a child camp. Escaped. Worked in a dhaba in Mumbai for a year. Was not paid. Came to Delhi as a kabadi. Fifteen days back left the job of a ragpicker to make garlands. Gets 30 rupees everyday and 40 – 50 rupees on Tuesdays and Sundays.
Earned 50 to 60 rupees as a kabadi but found the job dirty and not dignified. “I never bathed because I had to handle kabad. People looked down at me because I was dirty. Police beating was a regular thing.” Joginder takes solution, bidi, cigarette and daru if he can afford it.
As a ragpicker he sometimes got half-finished solution or alcohol bottles. On asking him if that was an incentive, besides the fact that they earned more money, for ragpickers sticking to the profession he said, “the number of times it happens is too less to make a difference”. “I would be happy if I could earn 1000 to 1200 rupees a month.”
Deepak 17 years old.
Address: Gole Park, Palika Bazar, Gate no 2, originally from Ludhiana, Punjab
His Story: Left home at age 10. Came to Delhi. Did “finance work”. Took people who wanted loans to ‘boss’. 1000 rupees a month. Next worked for a goldsmith. 1200 rupees a month.
Occasionally worked as a waiter. 80 to 100 rupees a day. Worked in marriage bands, carrying the light in wedding procession. 100 rupees for one night of work but the back hurts later. “When people stop and keep dancing, it is very painful”. No strength for it now because he is a solution addict.
When ragpicking, finds half-finished bottles of alcohol. Once even a foreign brand and “it was amazing”. “When I have money I can have alcohol but now it is mostly solution.” “Don’t write all this or take my picture because newspapers travel and might reach my village. Then they will know what I do and my parents will be shamed.”
 A Ragpicker’s Treasures
Paua – a quarter bottle of alcohol sells for 50 paisa
Adha – half bottle of alcohol Rs. 1
Full size bottle – Rs. 1.50
Beer bottle – Rs. 1.50 to 1.75
Cardboard – Rs.2.5 per kg
Kadak, a type of plastic - Rs. 10 per kg
Tamba, copper wires – Rs. 90 per kg
Iron – Rs 5 per kg
Iron sheets – Rs. 25 per kg
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 Clean Up!
So what is the problem?
1. Bananas and Batteries don't mix
Basic segregation has to be done at home, at least into dry and wet waste. We don’t have any system to do that - either at home or by the municipality.
2. Hi-tech is Expensive
Private companies with hi-tech machines, obviously need larger quantities of waste. They would then look for a centralised system – increasing pollution and transport costs.
3. Rich Waste, Poor Waste
Richer a country or household, more inorganic is the waste. Incinerate and you produce deadly dioxins as pollutants. In India and most other poor countries, over 55 per cent of waste is wet organic. So incinerators would need to mix coal to burn it efficiently, adding to costs. You would also need sufficient amounts.
4. Polluter Must Pay
Your Sunsilk Shampoo bottles need to be taken back by Hindustan Lever instead of you wondering what to do with it, and the ragpicker hunting through muck piles to get at it.
5. Rights Over Garbage
Waste is now more or less a common property resource for ragpickers, even though their rummaging in government landfills is illegal. With technology and privatisation, waste soon turns into private property for waste management companies. There are over 7,00,000 ragpickers in India today, Will even half of these get jobs?
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Bin maange more...
Innovative solutions to clean up Indian cities
 Bangalore: An estimated 25,000 ragpickers operate, recovering 15 per cent of the total waste. Most come from neighbouring states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. NGO programs, of doorstep collection of waste, employ ragpickers on regular salaries.
REDS (Ragpickers Education & Development Scheme) has a store where children can sell waste paper directly to recyclers at a fair price. They have two shelters, housing 35 boys each. The centre also runs classes on academic subjects to teach the boys how to read and write.
Source: Anjana Iyer, Bangalore
Delhi: Spurred by the NGO Chintan, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) decided to organise the rag pickers to not only do their work more effectively but also to improve their quality of life. Efforts are on to help ragpickers access health facilities, practice saving and micro-credit schemes, and learn of their rights in case of arrests. Establishments in CP pay Rs 100 for hiring their services. Money generated goes toward the salaries of the ragpickers and the leftovers are kept in a kitty for maintainance and equipment expenses. Restaurants pay extra.
Ragpickers get organised
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Mussoorie: Vipin Kumar, a senior school teacher has been running the Self Help Environment Programme (SHEP) for the past several years. Fifty ragpickers work as a team under the SHEP. Almost all of them are ‘ecological refugees’ from Bihar, belonging to the Kewat community of fishermen who could not afford to pay the revenue for fishing once all the rivers in the state were opened for fishing.
Pune: Any one living in Pune can now just call the Kagad-Kach-Patra-Kashtakari Panchayat, the association of ragpickers in Pune, who will send a registered rag picker to your doorstep every morning between 7 and 10 am. For a monthly fee of Rs 20 per home. Present estimates at the association suggest that 300 ragpickers are kept busy with 100 households each. However, considering that there are as many as 4,600 registered ragpickers in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, there is still a long way to go.
Chennai: Narikkuravas is a nomadic tribe of Tamil Nadu. Most of these are ragpickers, and shunned by society. Civic Exnora International, an NGO, was involved with street beautification and the sheds of the narikkuravas came under their jurisdiction. They joined in by collecting garbage from every street and began earning a monthly salary of around Rs 1,000.
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Outside the heap: What you can do
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SRECYCLE: Ideal for paper, aluminium, tin and other non-hazardous metals; and glass. There is no such thing as recycling plastic though, because each time you melt plastic to make something out of it, you lose out on quality and finally end up with poly-bags that no one wants.
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RE-USE: Great for plastics. Instead of throwing away your plastic bag or bottle, have you tried reusing it? If not as a bottle, try making a flower pot out of it or a pencil stand. Don’t throw it out!
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NOT USE: If you try surely you can use less of things that are meant to be thrown away after use? Instead of buying small icecream cups seven times a week, why not buy a paper carton of icecream to last you a week? Plus, some things are luxury. Can we try cutting down on them?
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DOWN-SHIFT: This means moving away from money and shopping to value of nature, time and quality.
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 SHARE: Start a sharing club where things like leftover paints can be exchanged, tools and other equipment can be shared. Car pool is also sharing.
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HIRE: Companies like Xerox hire out photocopiers that they then maintain. Air conditioners, cars, mobile phones, everything can be hired. This is a form of sharing by paying.
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GREEN AND SMART SHOPPING: Go in for environment friendly goods and packaging. You might need to pay a little more but that helps you. Beware of false claims to eco-friendliness though. Use your head. Buy material which lasts long and can be easily repaired.
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COMPOST: Don’t throw out your wet waste. Compost it and use it for your garden.
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