In India traditionally, waste has been looked at in two distinct ways, one which you can sell to your local scrap dealer and the other which is kept at arm’s length to be dealt with by a certain class of individuals. As kids growing up, many, if not all of us have seen the familiar sight of our mothers carefully keeping aside newspapers, milk pouches and iron to be sold to the local scrap dealers for hard cash. As kids many of us probably have never taken our own waste out and handed it over to the waste collector, or emptied it at the local community dump. Forget that, but many probably have never even picked up their plate and emptied out the left overs in the bin and then rinsed the plate with water. The social and cultural stigma attached to this practice has been historically embedded in our brains since the time when our caste-system decided what we could or could not do. Though a lot has changed since then, the dogma associated with waste has continued to haunt us. As the young grow older and enter the work force, they bring with them a certain predisposed mindset concerning how waste should be managed and dealt with, which is one of the major reasons as to why I feel companies have the outlook they have when dealing with their waste. 

An organisation is the cumulative thought process of its entire work force, from the bottom to the top management. In order for us to progress towards implementing change in our organization, we must start with unlearning certain habits, change our perception of how we determine others value based on preconceived notions that we hold and consider to be so true. Relating this to how companies manage their waste, and the overall situation of waste management in the country, we have massive a transformation that needs to be undertaken, that is; the tough task of changing people’s mindsets & that of teaching the younger generation the value of doing household chores from a young age. 

Where and how do we start? Bringing any transformation, or change requires us to continuously keep asking the question why, till we just cannot answer the why any more. I have done this exercise and arrived at my why? From a young age majority of us have been exposed to a certain way of life and thinking. We learn things looking at how are parents act, friends at school act, what is taught to us in textbooks in school and colleges. It does not matter how old you are right now, who you are as a person has a lot to do with your childhood. Revisiting your childhood may bring joyous memories for many, but for some it may also bring pain. As adults we it’s important to look back at our childhood to question how & why it shaped who we are & what we value. This is an important learning tool for self-realisation and learning from mistakes that our parents may have made. 

This narrative needs to change, from what we teach our kids, the values we instil in them, to what they are taught in schools about individual responsibility and taking ownership. Our culture, with all the great things it has to offer and teach is also stuck in the dark ages in some practices that may have been relevant historically but have little or no relevance in the new world. Men in India are spoilt beyond belief, first by their mothers who cocoon them to the extent that they are hardly made to help out in daily household chores or clean up after themselves and then by their wives and so on. Mothers in India are so over protective that in many cases men grow up with little sense of communal or household responsibility. Then they expect the same from their wives, cleaning up after them, making their bed, washing their clothes, serving them food, then picking up after them.

A whole generation has grown up without learning about accountability or ownership and you can see it in people you know and meet every day. For the rich kids it is lack of personal & financial accountability to their parents and to the society at large, growing up with the false sense that somehow their parent’s success and accomplishments have been transferred to them simply by the fact that they are someone’s children. For the poor it is the constant thought of being poor, reinforced by our society by constantly referring to them as helpless and poor, giving them handouts for free and eventually making them so used to living on hands outs that they start thinking that it is their birth right to receive them.

Others may be responsible for a situation that you may find yourself in, but you are the only one responsible to ensure that you don’t remain there, and that’s where taking accountability comes into play. I concede that there are those who are desperate and require the help of society at large to uplift them out of extreme poverty, but beyond a point it becomes the responsibility of the individual to pull themselves out of a given situation by not focusing on what resources that they don’t have, but by being resourceful and using the resources that they do have. Kids growing up poor have a hard time, as they are not exposed to a variety of things, most critical of those being proper education, nutrition & healthcare. Some of them overcome this great disadvantage that life has thrown at them to be successful beyond belief, but most are caught up in the mindset of being poor or in making quick money by cutting corners. Then there is the great Indian middle class, sandwiched between the two, confused about whether they are rich or poor, Canadian, British, American or Indian. 

Coming from a middle-class upbringing myself, my father was fighter pilot in the Indian Airforce, my mother a school teacher. I grew up with a sense of having, yet lacking but always aspiring for more. There were some values instilled by my father (being a military man) that stay embedded in me. Folding your clothes & putting them away, making your own bed, polishing your shoes, taking your plate to the kitchen, emptying it out in the bin & rinsing it, cleaning your own car (occasionally) etc. I watched my father perform these tasks daily & I see him perform them daily till date. In today’s day an age, it becomes very easy for to rely on help. When kids at home see maids making their bed, people picking up after them, food being wasted, waste not being segregated, the garbage collector or house help being treated poorly, women in the house being treated a certain way, prioritising money over quality family time etc, it all has an impact on how children think & what they take accountability for. A lot of insecurities, habits, values can be traced back to our childhood, our social interaction with our parents and peers. 

What I derived looking at this confused state of mine while growing up and throughout high school was feeling of always comparing what I had to what my friends or neighbours had. I guess the biggest flaw in the middle-class way of thinking (if there is such a thing) is that of not appreciating what one has and to continually look at two opposite spectrums of society thinking we are better than one but worse off than the other. 

In all cases mentioned above what is the common thread? Mindset. Challenges faced by us as individuals, collectively as a society and as a nation can only be overcome if we start changing ourselves through behavioural interventions that force us to stop, think, evaluate and then act based on our learnings, experiences and beliefs, which are directly co-related to the early stages of our childhood and then reinforced throughout our lives either through positive reaffirmation which also include inaction in the form of ignoring an act or habit. 

This must be a continuous process, starting from how and what we teach our kids at home, what and how our educational institutes teach in school and colleges and finally how and what we are rewarded for at work. 

Early childhood education is not about making your child book smart, but it’s more about teaching them to take accountability for small things so that as adults they may take accountability to take on & overcome bigger problems. 

On Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin and various other social media platforms it is next to impossible to avoid articles and posts about how we are ruining our environment. Fast fashion, single-use plastic and now even eating red meat are all adding to the ever-growing noise about the effects of consumerism on the environment. Some individuals are quick to jump on the business opportunities this chaos of information and misinformation has caused. You need not look too far for proof of this! Check out all the Instagram pages selling eco products, propagating zero waste lifestyles and guilting individuals into living their lives a certain way.

 Eco anxiety! Yes, this is a condition that is spreading rapidly and being fuelled by mediums such as Instagram, Facebook and to a lesser extent Linkedin. The truth is that we are living in times where everyone has the capability to voice their opinion via the internet and various social networking sites. In this environment of constant information overload, it is hard to decipher true information from misinformation, marketing from sales, and propaganda from real concern.

 What is being said & by whom: It is imperative that we stop reading just the headlines and basing our decisions on it, due to it being shared by someone in authority, a celebrity or someone we look up too. Take for example the massive campaign to stop the use of single-use plastic undertaken by various NGO’s and corporates, shifting the onus onto the consumer to either stop buying these products completely or to ensure that the consumer plays their part in helping them recycle. On the face of it there seems nothing wrong with this, and in fact many might even say that it’s a step towards securing our future! But dive in deep and you will find that many of these NGO’s informing us about recycling and the adverse effects of consumerism are being funded by the same organisations who are responsible for manufacturing or distributing these products in the market at a mass scale.

 As for companies and their feel-good campaigns such as where they clean a neighbourhood, donate money to an environmental cause and pledge that they will do away with manufacturing, packaging and distribution of single use plastic, it is just a farce in most cases to change customer perception and shift responsibility onto the consumer. Most of you must be thinking, how the hell do I make time to research and find out the truth about every piece of information being put out there? You are correct it’s not possible, but what is possible is for us to stop regurgitating information that we have little knowledge about. As more and more people start sharing and spreading the same information across social platforms, it starts to alter mindsets and over a period of time it embeds itself in our automatic thinking system. For example, when you hear the word plastic what is the first thing that came to your mind? Pollution, recycling, waste, ocean etc! The international best-selling author Daniel Kahneman in his book “Thinking Fast and Slow” explains this concept called “Priming” beautifully!

 Priming: Extract from the book (Page 52: Thinking Fast & Slow: Daniel Kahneman)

 “What is the first word that comes to your mind when you hear the word DAY? The researchers tallied the frequency of responses such as “night” “day”, “sunny” or “long” In the 1980 psychologist discovered that exposure to a word causes immediate and measurable changes in the ease with which many related words can be evoked. If you have recently seen or heard the word Eat, you are temporarily more likely to complete the word fragment SO_P as soup than SOAP. The opposite would happen of course if you had just seen WASH. We call this a priming effect and say that the idea of EAT primes the idea of SOUP, and that WASH primes SOAP.”

 I could keep quoting from the book, but I would prefer that you read it instead as it is sure to make you question your deep beliefs and profoundly change the way you think. The question that we need to ask ourselves is why are companies not changing the way they manufacture products? Why is production not being looked at from a point of making it circular? And why is the narrative being shifted onto the consumer? There are no simple answers, from economic reasons such legacy investments made in infrastructure which will cost millions if not billions of dollars to change, to convenience, both in terms of pricing and packaging, from the consumers perspective to policy and willingness of governments to take tough decisions.

 In all of this, we the consumer, have tremendous power to make change happen by voting with our wallet and voicing our opinion (based on facts and proper understanding of the subject matter) to compel companies to change the way they manufacturer and design products. Yes, our rapid pace of consumption is to partly blame for the environmental mess that we find ourselves in, but I per se cannot stop living, stop eating meat because the UN decided that doing so is gravely harming the planet, or stop buying products because they are packaged in plastic, or feel guilty every time I buy bottled water! We globally have enough financial resources to rectify and make farming more effective and productive. We have the ability to reduce the use of water, chemical fertilisers and to feed our farm bred animals’ diets that reduce enteric fermentation (natural digestive process that occurs in animals) that accounts for 40% of the agriculture production emissions. The real question is why are we as consumers not asking the tough questions and why are we not putting in the effort to validate what is being said by doing a simple google search on the topic?

 I get numerous mails every day from teens, young adults & grownups, voicing their concern about how the environment is being destroyed, some even concerned about the fact that the world is about to end! Eco anxiety is becoming a massive global challenge caused by dooms day scenarios propagated across mediums. Being environmentally conscious and making informed decisions is not easy, it requires a complete change in lifestyle in some cases and cannot be done with the flick of a switch. Have you ever tried losing weight, giving up smoking, or promising yourself that you will read more, workout more often etc. How easy or difficult has that journey been? Choosing to make more informed and conscious decisions when it comes to individual impact on the environment is no different. But we must start somewhere, small baby steps, things that easy to do but hard to remember or driven by emotional impulse. Here are some examples:

 1.    Easy to carry a reusable shopping bag with you, cloth or plastic, but hard to remember it along. You can change this habit by putting a big notice on the door reminding you to do so if you are forgetful. Same goes with water bottles and coffee mugs.

 2.    Want to buy something new, that feel that you need, play the waiting game. If after two weeks you still feel real need for that new piece of clothing, shoe or whatever, then go ahead and buy it, but do ask yourself, do I really need this? Is it an emotional impulse to satisfy some insecurity that you may have?

 3.    Your closet says a lot about who you are! Are the clothes just thrown in there, is it stuffed with things that you don’t wear any more but hold onto for emotional reasons? Well time to clean out that closet and give those clothes to people who will wear them. You can also sell them on various online portals to make some money, who knows this may become a new venture for you, trading and selling old clothes! Plus, you could start an exchange program with your friends, just like books, send them clothes that don’t fit you any longer or that you just don’t wear and have them do the same. This one activity will give you an insight into yourself, and by cleaning out that closet you will also be cleaning out a lot of emotional baggage.

 4.    Going grocery shopping or ordering online? Make a list and stick to it! Also, don’t discriminate and buy produce (fruits & vegetables) based on the way it looks, I bet you have experienced such discrimination in your personal life, how did it feel? Most, if not all, deformed or “not so good-looking” produce is perfectly edible, in fact, eating some items such as bananas extra ripe is known to be even better for your health. Use the app “Super Cook” it helps you utilise the available ingredients at your home, to prepare delicious meals, while cutting down on your expenses and unnecessary purchases.

 5.    Don’t shun plastic, just stay away from certain types: There is something called LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) which measures the impact of a material from when its mined, drilled, grown, harvested, transported, manufactured, sold, used, disposed etc, you get the point. It basically measures the entire life cycle of a material. Some of you may be surprised to know, but plastic has one of the lowest LCA foot print of any material out there. Which basically means, its carbon foot print across its use is much better than glass, aluminium cotton and paper. But this is not true for every type of plastic and this does not mean that companies continue to produce virgin plastic at alarming rates and we the consumers keep gulping it up. We need to be informed, so that we stay away from certain types of plastic materials. Every item made of plastic has a code which represents the type of plastic used to manufacture the item. Look at the code, 1-6 are easily recyclable, 7 is problem. Some things to keep in mind with regard to plastic:

 a.    If you are buying plastic bottles for water at home, stay away from the coloured type and buy clear PET bottles, they are easily recycled in comparison to coloured bottles. I have been using these in my home to bottle filtered water for over 7 years now.

b.    Stay away from bio-degradable or compostable materials. They are not what they are advertised to be. Compostable & bio-degradable material requires industrial composting units to degrade them in presence of oxygen. Further, when disposed with general garbage or as plastic they contaminate the recycling waste stream as they can’t be conventionally recycled. So, in the end it all ends up in the landfill where it stays for hundreds of years. Try this at home if you have composting unit. Try composting these bags or take out containers in your bin, document the results. Chances are that material will not break down as claimed. further the part that has broken down would have broken down into micro or Nano plastic particles that are hard to see, so get the compost tested. The results will be your practical proof. The best thing to do for bin liners is to use clear LDPE bags that are easily recyclable and have a recovery value.

 c.    Stay away from MLP: Packets of chips, namkeen etc, these can’t be recycled. Better option is to take your own container to Haldiram and tell them to fill it up with your favourite namkeens. If it can’t be avoided, try first looking at other options of similar products that are packaged in materials that can be recycled. There are hundreds of options available in the market now, plus many shops do sell namkeen loose. It’s about making the effort and remembering to carrying your reusable container with you.

 d.    Cosmetics: I will not get into this in this post. But here is an app for all of you to use: Beat the Micro Bead. It tells you whether your cosmetics have micro plastic or not.

 As mentioned, everything that is plastic is not bad. The challenge is the over production of virgin material, poor material selection, and designing of packaging along with the severe lack of infrastructure to collect, recover and process the material and a flawed government policy that favours big business & big money. So, stay informed, look at the codes, buy if only needed, avoid products that have access packaging, remember to carry your reusable container/bag where ever possible and use the app mentioned above so that you also know what you are putting on your skin. Ask these questions from brands by writing to them, tweeting the question (this actually works), posting on LinkedIn and Facebook and tagging the brand.

 ·     Why are you using non-recyclable material in your packaging? Provide specific time of when you will start transitioning to packaging made from recycled content ?

·     How much packaging waste is generated due to your companies’ activities?

·     How much recycled content do you use in your packaging?

·     How do you ensure that your post-consumer packaging is collected & processed as per the government’s EPR norms? Provide details please.

·     What are your targets to stop using virgin plastic and switch completely to recycled content in your packaging?

·     Why do you use micro plastic in your cosmetics & not inform the consumer about it?

·     Why is labelling in regards to recyclability so hard to find on your packaging? In some cases, its completely missing! When you start providing information about recyclability of your products through prominent labelling that is clearly visible, hard to miss and in the front of your product?

 Ask the right questions, not just to get answers but to also force change through information received. As of now brands and producers don’t provide this information and what is being claimed in terms of sustainability steps taken by brands and producers is far from what is happening on the ground. Get a bunch of people together and have them all write to these brands asking them to answer these questions. There are so many ways to bring about positive change via the overly visible, far-reaching, free media platforms. So, pass your anxiety on to them and let them be concerned that future profits will depend on their action today.

 6.    Stop Buying Milk in Pouches: This makes no sense, when you can either have bottled cow milk delivered to your home or walk to the closest mother dairy with a closed steel container, plastic, or glass bottle and just fill it with milk through their dispensers.

 7.    Tetra Packs are Non-recyclables: Make fresh juice at home, bottle it, or buy juice in PET bottles as they are recyclables. Tetra packs are made of multiple layers that are stuck together and impossible to take apart using the conventional mechanical recycling methods available in the country as of now. This material requires a process called chemical recycling. Chemical recycling is in testing phase, with only a handful of companies doing pilot projects here in India and abroad.

 After giving you all that to think about, I am going to tell you not to stress! As mentioned in the beginning of this article, this is a journey that each and every one of us chooses to undertake at our own pace. So pick and choose what you want to start with and then keep adding to it as you become more comfortable. While undertaking this process of change, don’t forget to live your life and enjoy yourself without beating yourself up, it’s not worth the stress. If there is something that COVID-19 has taught us, it is that we can live without many things that we thought were a necessity. Do a simple calculation to see how much money you have saved by not buying garbage of the net just because its being marketed to you. Remember, we collectively have the ability to change the behaviour of large corporations by voting with our wallets. The important thing to remember is not to force your thought process or ideas down people’s throats, rather lead by example and put out the facts before them: posts that leave it to the individual to make up their mind.

 The process starts with us first, and the only way that we can actually change the course of where we are headed is by making educated decisions about our personal beliefs and by putting in the effort to really understand the information that we are consuming. The single most important thing to remember is that we need to look at everything from a scientific perspective and no, we don’t need to be a scientist or a PHD to do so. All you need to do is think (I know it can be tiring but try it sometimes). Go onto google and see if the information has any scientific credibility or not for yourself.

 Note: A great author who teaches you how to think scientifically in a fun and easy to understand manner is Neil deGrasse Tyson a renowned American Astrophysicist.

Polyethylene terephthalate commonly known as PET or PETE is one the most commonly used thermoplastic polymer raisin used to manufacture soda bottles, shampoo containers, clothing and an assortment of other products. This article will shed light on the massive PET collection, segregation, pre-processing & aggregation market in India which is mostly dominated by the unorganised sector.

The following topics will be discussed in this article:

1. Generation of PET waste

2. Collection of PET waste

3. Segregation & Value addition PET waste

4. Aggregation

I am not going to go into numbers, but rather discuss where PET waste is mostly generated from in this article. The reason behind not going into numbers as of now is due to lack of credible data available & because the second part of this article series will be focused on PET waste volumes, for which I am in the process of researching & verifying data.

Generation of PET waste: PET is generated from households, industries, commercial establishments such as malls, hotels, restaurants, offices, roads, drains & dumpsites.

From households: Soda pop bottles, cooking oil bottles, shampoo containers, take away food packaging (PET Thermoforms) .

From industries: Damaged PET Jars (20 litres) & some containers of liquid soaps. Some Industries such as those involved in the bottling & distributing refreshments such as Coke & Pepsi generate vast amounts of PET waste in form of expired or returned products.Above: PET Collection From A Warehouse

From Malls: Mostly mineral water bottles & containers of cleaning agents.

From Hotels: From hotels there is massive generation of PET mineral bottles, along with miniature containers of PET used to package shampoos, conditioners and body creams.

From restaurants: Mostly bottles of mineral water & soda pop, with some bottles of oil

From Offices: Mostly 20 litre damaged jars, take away food containers, containers of cleaning supplies.

From, Roads, Drains & Dumpsites: Mostly PET mineral water bottles & soda pop which are thrown from moving cars, or not recovered from mixed waste by the unorganised sector due to various reasons.

Collection of PET: PET has street value! Which means if you can collect it and sell it you will be compensated for your efforts in cash. Of course collection methods vary from collecting PET on foot from streets & dumpsites, to using manual rickshaws & trucks for collection from homes, industrial and commercial establishments.

Collection From homes: Collection of waste from homes is mostly done by the un organised sector & that too in mixed form, as most households do not segregate their waste. In majority of the cases collection from homes is done using a manual rickshaw. The collector then proceeds to segregate the waste into different categories at the local community dump site or at his or his contractor’s warehouse. PET at this stage is recovered but not sorted, which means coloured and clear material are mixed and kept aside. In many cases liquid is still present in the bottles, with their caps and labels intact. Collection from homes is done mostly by small contractor’s (In some case these contractors are large) who are part of the unorganised sector. Some of them are independent entrepreneurs, others work for contractors who employ numerous such individuals to collect waste from homes & the road side. If the collector is an independent contractor, he or she will recover the PET and upsell it to a larger contractors who deal in PET. If the waste collector is working for a contractor than he or she will segregate and sell the PET waste to the contractor at a fixed rate. This rate includes the cost of collection and most of these individuals don’t get a fixed pay, but rather earn their money from selling the recyclables in the waste.

Collection From Industries: Collection of scrap from industries is mostly done through a tendering process where the collection agency or individual pay a fixed rate for the items that he or she is collecting. Certain industries ask for a mixed rate, as in different recyclables are mixed together (cardboard, PET, metals, paper) others ask for item wise rates. It depends on how well planned their waste disposal system is. From industries such as third party bottling plants & warehouses that service large FMGS companies such as COKE and PEPSI, PET is collect in bulk. The challenge here again is that most of these warehouses & industries do not have bailing equipment on site, so the material has to be filled in large sacks and then loaded onto trucks manually. Furthers in many of these facilities, most of the PET still has content in it which first has to be emptied out. The maximum PET that one can collect in a 22 foot truck is about 2000 kilograms. That too is achieved only if you have team that is well trained in filling sacks and then loading them onto the truck in a manner that saves space so that the maximum amount of sacks can be loaded. A sack on average would weigh about 65-75 kilograms.

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Truck Loaded With PET Bottles

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Above: PET Collecting From Industries

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Above PET Collection From The Unorganised Sector

Collection from Malls & Hotels: Have clubbed this because the process is almost identical. In both cases the contract for collection of waste is tendered out. Malls & hotels charge a lump sum from the waste collector and the waste is given to them at a designated area in mixed from. In hotels, the organic waste is dumped in a cold storage room & this waste is also sold to individuals who purchase it from hotels to be used as cattle feed. The rest of the recyclables are dumped together in one area from where the waste collector first segregates it into different categories and then loads it onto his truck.

Collection from Restaurants: Collection from restaurants is done mostly by the unorganised sector. Not surprisingly, most of the waste is sold & there is little segregation. A similar pattern is implemented at standalone restaurants as mentioned in collection of waste from households. In some cases certain restaurants do pay a nominal fee, but for the most part the recyclables are all sold, immaterial of the quantity or quality.

Collection from offices: Large commercial office complexes deploy professional housekeeping organisations. These organisations are responsible for various tasks, including disposal of waste. Large multinational organisations are present in this field, but unfortunately transparency in waste disposal is missing. Collection from these larges office spaces is done by private contractors who may or may not charge money for the services offered, depending on the quantity and quality of recyclables in the waste.

Collection from roads, drains & dumpsites: Collection from roads is done early mornings by private contractors in their rickshaws or by individuals on foot. They are out for about four to five hours scavenging for recyclables along the side of roads, empty plots, drains etc. They mostly work for a contractor who again pays them based on a fixed per kilogram rate of material that they have collected. Then there are landfill or dumpsite contractors. They control the rights to waste being dumped in landfills and open dumps across the country. This is a unholy nexus between certain individuals in the government and local garbage mafia goons who exploit kids, women and others, having them sift through waste that is dumped in landfills. Waste which has not been segregated and recyclables not recovered due to numerous reason, recyclables that are removed during the process of drain cleaning, which are mixed in silt and thrown in landfills, mixed garbage collected by municipalities or private contractors appointed by municipalities dumped in landfills are some of the ways that this waste makes it way to these open dumps, we refer to as landfills. One thing to keep in mid here is that the quality of the waste collected from the side of the road, drains & landfills is poor not only because its dirty, but also because of the kind of PET that is collected. Small PET bottles of cheap country liquor (quarters) addhas, paua, which are made of mostly recycled PET are of a higher percentage in this collection stream. These bottles have a paper label & aluminium ring around the neck, making the task of recycling them much more tedious than that for normal PET.

Segregation & Value Addition: PET is segregated into five or six categories depending on the amount of value addition you want to do. These categories are:

1. Clear

2. Coloured

3. Jars

4. Country Made Liquor Containers

5. With labels

6. Without labels

In some cases aggregators simply just segregate PET according to colour & in some cases they don’t even do that, they simply bale it and send it further for processing. But many in the sector also increase the value of the product by undertaking the following activities:

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1. Colour sorting & removing the labels & Caps : This increases the value of the material by Rupees 3 – 4. Labels are mostly removed by hand and in some cases where the quantity at hand is large, a label remover is used. Labels on bottles are either, BOPP, PVC or Paper. Post the removal of labels (90%) if there are some labels that are left, they are removed manually by hand. The caps are removed from the bottles and bottles are then fed into a bailer according to colour for the purpose of transporting them to the processing facility. The caps removed are made of PP and are of different colours. Some colour sort this manually, but most sell these caps in mixed form.

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Above: Labels Removed From PET Bottles

2. Cutting the Neck: Even though bottle to bottle recycling is not legally allowed here in India, it does take place in the unorganised sector where the neck portion of the bottle which has a higher IV is used for manufacturing mostly country made liquor bottles. Cutting the neck is only viable for clear PET. One can fetch 40-50% above the price of PET (Body) for the neck portion of the bottle. The neck is separated from the body using a mechanical cutter.

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Above: The Neck of PET Bottles

3. Shredding: You may shred the clear PET with or with labels. The one thing that you must be careful about is not shredding PET bottles with a PVC or paper label. Highly discourage shredding PET with labels on them.

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Above: Shredded PET Flakes

4. Country made liquor: Removing the aluminium rings is a must, as this not only increases the price but also opens up the market to a larger number of buyers for your product.

5. Jars: We simply just bale the jars and send them to the processing unit after colour sorting them and removing there caps.

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Above: Jars Bailed & Redy To Be Sent For Processing

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Above: Bailed PET Loaded & On Its Way To a Processing Facility

How much value you want to add is all dependant on the volumes that you are dealing with and the price at which you have bought the product. In some cases it may make sense to add some value & in others simply bailing it and sending it further for processing makes the most sense. The PET market is a competitive market with a lot of processing happening in the unorganised sector. Collection to a great extent remains in the hands of the unorganised sector.

Note: There are some new methods coming on line for collection of PET, such as Reverse Vending Machines with limited success. There is a dire need for policy reform in this sector and it’s about times that the government allow the use of R-pet in food grade containers along with pushing brands to fund and set up DRS across the country taking both financial and operation lability of the process.

I hope that this article has added value to you the reader. The next article in this series will discuss PET waste generation & collection volumes through information found in corporate reports, online in the public domain and assumptions based on research, personal data and experience.

Have a fantastically sustainable week!

Welcome to another Trash Talking Friday, the only trash talk that worked with Scarface and did not get scared! 

Each week, I send you Ideas to ponder about. Ideas that have the potential to change your life, and hopefully help you become a better human being by understanding yourself.

This week I talk about, 1) bio-plastic 2) terracotta products 3) plastic roads   

 Let’s get right into it!

Green Washing & Myth Busting:

The entire world seems to be wanting to move towards living a more sustainable zero waste life. Well may be not the entire world but many on social media networks such as Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and twitter are definitely looking to make the change! Great news, right? Yes and no!  

 Yes, because people are looking to make the switch and wanting to live a lifestyle which is driven primary by conscious purchase and consumption decisions. No, because many of these decisions are based on flawed information that in many cases may make you feel greenly great, but the impact of these choices are far from what you envision them to be. 

 So, this week’s newsletter is all about bursting some bubbles. 

Bioplastics:

Oh, I have switched to biodegradable plastic, oh, you should use compostable plastic it’s great for the environment and it’s made of plants! Every time I hear these statements, I turn green like the HULK! Let me break this down for all you sweethearts. This is what we call green washing, where the marketing and messaging is meant to touch the emotional green corners of your heart but in reality, your purchase decisions based on this green washed information are doing more harm than good. 

Firstly, whether bio-degradable or compostable it’s still bloody single use! In fact, it propagates and promotes the use of single use materials such as spoons, straws, plates, take away containers by playing on your conscious and giving you a false sense of guilt free consumption. You may think that since it is plant based, biodegradable or compostable you can just chuck it in your back-yard composter or simply hand it over to your garbage man or may be even just throw it on the ground as it’s natural and will degrade into mud! This is as farfetched as me claiming to be the father of Elon Musk! Here are the reasons why this new age material is not all that it claims to be: 

Require industrial composting units to decompose: PLA the most commonly used bio plastic is made from carbohydrate sources such as corn or sugarcane and this material melts at 320 degrees Fahrenheit. Our home composting units reach temperatures between 110 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit which is not hot enough for the material to start decomposing. The other challenge is maintaining these temperatures in your back-yard composter, which requires considerable effort and honestly is not something that is possible unless you are dedicating a fair part of your day in monitoring your compost bin and its temperature. Hence an industrial composting unit with a controlled environment is required to degrade this material in aerobic conditions (In presence of Oxygen). 

 India severely lacks industrial composting facilities: Most of it ends up in landfill dumps (Globally) where it stays for centuries not degrading due to lack of oxygen and giving out potent methane gases. 

 They contaminate recycling streams: Bio-plastic cannot be recycled with convectional oil-based plastic and if mixed contaminate the entire recycling stream increasing wastage and costs associated with segregation and processing. This is vital as most waste collectors don’t know the difference and often mix this waste with plastic, specially your garbage bags. 

 Moral issues with production: Can we afford to use vast amount of land for crops such as corn for production of bioplastics when India has alarming number of children under the age of five who are suffering from malnutrition? Further the sugar used to make bioplastic comes from transgenic crops (genetically modified crops) sprayed with herbicides and pesticides. 

Here is what one of many experts has to say: 

 

“They are basically the same as plastic and don’t decompose in the way most people think they do,” said Rebecca Burgess, CEO of City to Sea, a UK environmental nonprofit that was formed to reduce plastic in the oceans. “They often end up as rubbish littering our streets and oceans and killing marine life. Bioplastics are a ‘false solution’ as they are single use and there are limited options to compost them… Reducing the amount of single-use packaging we use is the only solution.”

At the end of this article I have provided recourse for you to learn more about this. 

Terracotta/Khamba Pots:

Here is another misconception, that just because it’s made of mud it biodegradable and great for the environment. Another green wash marketing tactic used to sell home composting units, flower pots and glasses to serve tea! Here is the truth about Terracotta.

Terracotta is not bio-degradable: Terracotta is made by firing clay, which makes the product impervious to water and air, changes its chemical composition which makes clay hard. Terracotta can never be reshaped again. Even if you break the product and turn it into powder, it will not mix with soil. 

Bad for the soli: In fact, because its non-biodegradable, it will adversely impact the natural properties of soil, making it less fertile by depriving it of nutrients and reducing its water content.  

Lasts centuries: Terracotta is immune to natural degradation; hence you keep finding historical artifacts around the world intact made of terracotta. 

Made of Top Soil: These products are made of top soil which is the most fertile part of the soil and should be only used for the purpose of growing food. 

Plastic Roads:

Dr. A Vasudevan a chemist from the Thiagarajar College of Engineering 

Madurai invented and patented the process of using end of life low or zero value plastic waste in the process of road construction. The technology is simple and requires collecting, cleaning and washing and shredding the waste in uniform size, post which it is melted at 166 degree Celsius and blended with the bitumen.

Of late social media has been celebrating this breakthrough as a miracle that will help the world get rid of their plastic problem with many projects across the country utilizing plastic waste in road construction and celebrating it. As with bio-degradable plastic, this too gives consumers a fall sense of hope. Here is why this not recycling, nor is it good for our environment. 

Highly toxic & polluting: Many studies have showed that heating plastic release high amounts of toxic emissions such as carbon monoxide, crolein, formic acid, acetone, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, toluene and ethylbenzene. This is particularly dangerous for workers laying the roads as they are exposed to these fumes. We all know how road construction takes place in our country and have seen first-hand the state of affairs of individuals working in this sector. 

Low value economically not feasible: Most of the end of life plastic bags used in this process are low quality, non recyclable with little market value. As majority of the collection here in India is done by the unorganised sector and there is little financial incentive for them to collect and segregate this waste. Further, even though bags under 50 microns have been banned in India, they continue to be produced and used in local markets in both rural and urban areas. By incentivising this practise, we are incentivising the demand for such manufacturing and giving this waste value for the wrong reasons. 

Micro-plastic: Just because its buried under a layer of bitumen does not mean it’s not there and will not cause any harm. As the road breaks down so does the plastic in it into small pieces of micro and nano plastic. This waste then seeps through into our ground water table, is washed away in drains and rivers with the help of rains and eventually ends up contaminating both our soil and water bodies. 

There are many more such green wash marketing gimmicks which I hope to be covering in subsequent articles in the near future (one of them being the Zero waste lifestyle). As of now what is important is we start moving towards the path of realising less is more. One way of doing this is to pause and think what will happen to the product once it reaches its end of life. As consumers we have to continuously educate ourselves so that in our search for doing good we don’t end up causing unintended harm. 

 Hopefully the last few newsletters have provided you with enough information to make educated decisions and I along with google are always a few clicks away to answer any question that you may have (google will be a lot quicker). 

 Remember, the strongest voice you have is in your wallet. If enough people start voting with their wallets things will change a lot quicker than you can imagine. The bloodline of any organisation is its cash flow, disrupting it from the outside with purpose will force change to take place. 

A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic. (George Bernard Shaw)

Until we meet again next week, have a fantastically sustainable weekend!    

If you have the urge to travel without leaving the comfort of your home, pick up any one of Jim Corbett’s books about his numerous true-life adventures of hunting down man-eaters in the mountainous regions of India. Corbett, who went from being a big game hunter to one the most famous wild like conservationist in India writes with such vivid recollection, detailing every aspect of not only the cat and mouse chase between him and the man eater (Mostly Tigers), but about the flora and fauna & the majestic landscape of the Himalayas. Corbett writes in manner that takes the reader on a tantalizing page turning journey with him. 

This particular book, “The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag” who terrorized people of the Garhwal region (Present day Uttarakhand) from 1918 to 1926 killing and devouring over 125 people till Corbett tracked and killed it, is something very really special & a must read. It is only apt then that while on the 5th page of this book I read this as one the reasons for why this leopard became a man eater and the most publicized animal that ever lived during those times. 

Above: A hill Station In Garhwal Region (Present Day Uttarakhand) Such Was The Landscape That Leopard Ruled Over, Stretching Some 500 Kilometres & Preying On Villages Within This Area.

Quote Page #5 The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag by Jim Corbett: “The people of Garhwal are Hindus, and as such cremate their dead. The cremation invariably takes place on a stream or a river in order that the ashes may be washed down into the Ganges and eventually into the sea. As most of the villages are situated high on the hills, while the streams of rivers are in many cases miles away down in the valleys, it will be realized that a funeral entails a considerable tax on the manpower of a small community when, in addition to the carrying party, labour has to be provided to collect and carry the fuel needed for the cremation. In normal times these rites are carried out very effectively, but when disease in epidemic from sweeps through the hills, and the inhabitants die faster than they can be disposed of, a very simple rite, which consists of placing a live coal in the mouth of the deceased, is performed in the village, and the body is then carried to the edge of the hill and cast into the valley below.

A leopard, in an area in which his natural food is scarce, finding these bodies, very soon acquires a taste for human flesh, and when the disease dies down and normal conditions are re-established, he very naturally, on finding his food-supply cut off, takes to killing human beings. In the wave of the epidemic influenza that swept through the country in 1918 and that cost India over a million lives, Garhwal suffered very severely, and it was at the end of this epidemic that the Garhrwal man-eater made his appliance”.

Above Corbett After Shooting The Man-Eating Leopard

Why I feel the sudden urge to write this post I don’t know, may be the mountains & forest are calling or may be because it disheartens me that so many from our generation and the youth of our country have deprived themselves of such brilliant literary work of historical significance that hold relevance even today. The name Jim Corbett in India is mostly known in reference to the national tiger reserve named after him, “The Jim Corbett National Park”. Beyond this, the significance and massive impact that Jim Corbett as an individual has had on wildlife conservation along with his deep understanding of cultural practices and beliefs of the people of India is little understood. 

These stories written by Corbett in my opinion should be made part of school curriculum. Children must from a young age be taught about harmony & equilibrium between humans and nature, and what better way to do so than by having them read words that paint a vivid picture while giving them a practical no bull shit lesson of how things use to be, and the relevance behind many of the age old cultural & religious beliefs that are still practiced across our county. 

Above: A Tiger Crossing A River (Ramganga) At The Jim Corbett Nation Park In The State of Uttarakhand, India

More than anything else, Corbett through his written words helps the reader visualize & use his or her immigration, something that is really missing not only in our education system today, but also in the vast ocean of electronic information overload that we are bombarded with on a daily basis. As Mark Twin put it “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus”

 

Welcome to another Trash Talking Friday, the only trash talk that can boil an egg by just looking at it! 

Each week, I send you Ideas to ponder about. Ideas that have the potential to change your life, and hopefully help you become a better human being by understanding yourself.

This week I talk about, 1) why pay for waste disposal service 2) how improper waste disposal effects are hidden 3) waste services must be considered a utility.    

Let’s get into it!

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Why Pay For Waste Disposal Services?

Do you charge for garbage collection? Will you pay me for my waste and recyclables? If I got a dollar for every time I have been asked these two questions in my 15 years as a garbage collector, I would be chilling in the Bahamas with an exotic cocktail, a reusable steel straw and maybe Halley Berry! Not really, I did the math and it only works out $21,900 so Halley Berry and the Bahamas are out but a life time of beer supply and reusable steel straws are in! 

As someone who runs a waste management company, I have thought about this often, trying to figure out the reason behind this, trying to relate it to other essential utility services such as water, electricity and gas where you must pay for what you use or the service gets disconnected (unless of course you are living off the grid, make your own bio gas & bathe, brush & clean yourself with rain water that you have harvested). I also often get the rebuttal, “but you are earning from the waste I give you”, while others say “I pay my taxes, it’s the governments responsibility to collect my trash”. 

Here is why I think this mentality exists & what needs to be done to change it: 

1.     I can dispose it myself: Making your own electricity or drilling for water at home is not easy. Even if you invest in solar, the upfront costs are substantial along with the fact that you will still need to be connected to the gird or use a generator to meet peak energy requirements. But the waste that you generate at your homes, can simply just be disposed of at the neighbourhood dump & in many cases just chucked out of your balconies or windows, given to the house help to throw in deserted empty plots or drains. Out of site out of mind, with little realization that the growing heaps of garbage around our communities, cities and the massive open dumps that we see on the outskirts of our cities have part of consumption buried in them. Stealing electricity is a crime, with heavy fines and jail terms in place, but dumping garbage in the open and not segregating it is rarely fined, if caught you can get away with a minor slap on the wrist of rupees 500. 

2.     The effects are hidden & not immediate: The out of sight, out of mind mentality in regards to waste disposal means that it gives you a false sense of assurance that the waste has been dealt with, its off your hands and now some one else’s responsibility. Remember, just because it’s been collected or disposed does not mean that it’s been processed or dealt with in a sustainable manner. In short, we can live with the inconvenience of storing waste at home for three to four days if it’s not collected (dry waste can be stored for months if you have the space), post which we would resort to action as per point number one, or have a local sanitation worker remove it for us for a small fee. Unlike the lack of electricity or water, effects of which we feel immediately the effects of improper disposal and management of waste are mostly hidden from the general public at large. From visual pollution, to stench, from our water bodies being polluted to global warming, from you and your kids breathing toxic air, your waste has a growing role to play in all of these problems. 

The effects of improper disposal and management of waste are not immediate, rather they are long term and dangerous, both on your health and your finances. Feeling out of breath, got dengue, have high levels of toxins in your body? Many of you don’t realise that your waste is a big part of these problems. Why? Because we don’t ask the right questions and dig deep enough to understand the underlining cause of problems at hand. The effects of improper disposal and management of waste are not advertised enough either. We are just told that we need to segregate and dispose our waste properly, why we need to do that is missing. A pack of cigarettes carries a stern and prominent warning to the effects of smoking on your health, unfortunately improper disposal or management of waste has no such warning, but the long-term effects are as deadly if not more for those who smoke and those who don’t. 

The financial costs of waste can be measured by how clean your community is. Believe it or not, sanitation has a huge role to play in property prices. In recent times, there has been an exodus of people leaving the country or moving to the hills or smaller towns like Goa, in search for a better quality of life. Would you pay top dollar to live in a community that’s filthy? This is also evident within neighborhoods. Areas that are cleaner, will demand a premium in rent or sale prices of homes than areas that are dirty. Then there is the cost to your health, which cannot be measured, the burden of which, both financial and emotional can be over welling and destructive.  

3.     It’s not considered a utility: Reverting back to the question that I get asked often times “do you charge for garbage collection? Will you pay me for my garbage since you will earn from it? Waste management unlike electricity, water or gas in not considered a utility. The missing sense of you paying for something hence you must receive something of value in return is a major reason why many hesitate or are unwilling to pay for waste disposal services. But what if I told you that this service gives you the gift of a healthy future. The gift of a cleaner environment for your future generations, a gift that your body can feel, that your mind can cherish and that your conscience can live with. 

Further, most people don’t realize how capital- and labor-intensive waste management is. From collection to processing, it all costs money to do things the right way. The irony of the situation is that waste is being utilised to produce electricity, cooking gas & CNG the very same products that we happily pay for without asking why? Weather delivered through private enterprise, the government or a mix of both, this service needs to be labelled a critical utility service that consumers need to pay much more for than many pay as of now. 

There are many other deep rooted cultural and mind set challenges pertaining to individuals not wanting to pay for waste disposal services which I will leave for a future article. What we need to realize is that ultimately, it’s our waste and we must take accountability to manage it. India is still a developing nation, its government is stretched for finances, corruption is rampant and the state of affairs of our municipal bodies is there for all to see. Our taxes should take care of many things, but unfortunately they don’t. Majority don’t pay taxes and with a bulging population which is increasingly relying on government handouts to survive or in many cases just to milk the system, it becomes critical that we as individuals take responsibility of the direction in which our country is headed. No one is coming to save you or our environment, its up to every individual to do their part to make our future sustainable. 

Adios until we meet again next week! Have a fabulously sustainable weekend!