It's Not So Simple

In Austin we put our recyclables in a big blue container, our trash in a big grey container, and garden waste in anything we can. The three end up at three different places. Mostly mechanized means are used to separate the recyclables from each other and based on the price of commodities, some or all of it actually gets recycled.

In Hyderabad, we put our trash out by the front door of the apartment. Someone comes in the morning and picks it up for a small fee, only to drop it off in a dumpster down the street. The dumpsters quickly fill up with trash. Then other people come by and empty all the trash on the street next to the dumpsters. They go through it all by hand, opening up all the trash bags. Paper, metal, plastic, glass, and other useful parts are carefully separated out, compacted by hand into neat piles, and filled in large sacks. Yet others come by and take these sacks away in three-wheeled trucks. Sometimes the useless portions are put back in the dumpsters. Periodically municipal trucks come and pick up the dumpsters. They take them to landfills and bring empty dumpsters back. 

Here are some pictures of the rag pickers in operation. Due to a reflection off the windshield it's hard to see much. But you get a sense of what of the amount of trash on the street. Jo said that there was a story on NPR about the rag pickers. I describe their work as economically incented grass-roots organic recycling. And just like in so many other ways in India, people figure out a market-driven solution that works around the lack of public infrastructure.

On a different but related issue, Vivian was appalled at the amount to trash laying around. She wanted to go around town a stick signs that tell people to not litter. It's not uncommon for us to see children at the park eat candy and drop the wrappers right there. The parents don't seem to mind. Car windows open and people dump stuff on the streets. And then sweepers hand sweep the streets every morning and collect up all that trash.