“Just between you and me”

It was 1991. India was just stepping into the globalised world. For few of us speaking about equity in the new world order of environmental management, the threat of the rich world dumping their pollution load on us using the safe passage of globalised economy was real. But it just came out in public, though through a ‘leak’. The then Chief Economist of the World Bank Larry Summers revealed the grand idea in a top-secret official memo to his colleagues. ‘Just between you and me,’ he wrote, ‘shouldn’t the Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the less developed countries?’ His more ‘powerful’ argument in that memo read: ‘I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.’ For weeks, this leaked memo made news.

The world outside was realising the toxic burden of consumption, and where its trail would terminate. But economics of this trade of wastes work only when the health and environment of the poor are de-valued. Summers, who went on to become the president of the Harvard University, was pilloried for this idea by all—but he had the last laugh on all of us. This is the business order of the globalised world. It moves polluting factories and mountains of waste into the lands and hands of the poor, all in the name of commerce and livelihoods.

In 2018, this ongoing narrative got a shock. The world’s largest importer of plastic waste, China, banned this practice. It caused a disruption in the ‘recycling industries’ worldwide. New markets for such wastes had to be found. Many countries, including Malaysia and Indonesia, became the willing dump yards, till they decided enough was enough. But plastic waste is finding new ports where costs of recycling would be cheaper and would benefit local business and provide employment. This is the modern world’s notion of a circular economy. Summers’ version has come true. This is how, as I found out after a visit to Tikri Kalan, Asia’s largest wholesale market of junk located in India’s capital city of Delhi. The market spreads to the Bahadurgarh district of the bordering state of Haryana. There were massive mounds of garbage, but with a difference. This garbage — from our houses — had been sorted, segregated and made into almost neat piles of different stuff. I went to the Haryana side of the market. Here again, there were mounds and mounds of sorted and unsorted garbage. The Delhi side of the market operates from a parcel of land provided by the Delhi Development Authority, while the Haryana side is located on agricultural land.

I asked farmers why they had leased their lands for this waste trade. They pointed fingers at development, ironically called the Modern Industrial Estate. Here, they said that the industry had pumped industrial discharge into the ground through reverse boring. As a result, their groundwater was contaminated and agriculture was not possible. I could see smoke-belching chimneys from this ‘Modern’ ground. Often the pollution control board officials asked for proof to close down them. It was a rhetorical question. Because just near the farms and coming from the factories, I could smell and see the massive drain full of stink and dirt. The Haryana government stipulated that its pollution board officials could only ‘inspect’ an industry once in five years. This could well be called the perverse circular economy of our times — we produce waste and destroy land and livelihoods and then provide no option to the poor but to make a business out of this waste.

The fact is waste is a resource, as the traders informed me. They couldn’t afford to let it be burnt. But it is also a fact that there is waste that cannot be recycled, and has to be burnt. For instance, there are items like uppers of our discarded shoes or indestructible multilayered plastics that cannot be burnt. But it is also undisputable that these markets, which employ the poorest of the poor, are the reason why we are not (yet) drowning in our own waste. These markets are built on the labour of the poor, who rummage through our waste, pick up the pieces of any value and then sell it to the recyclers. It is an informal trade but extremely well organised. Some 2,000 different products were sorted out in this market. Depending on various measures, these sorted products sold at Rs 5-50 per kilogramme. The traders paid goods and services tax to the government. So, it is a revenue earner as well as helps the city from building landfill sites. We know nothing about this business, but we believe it is considered dirty. The municipal corporations will provide land for dumping waste, but nothing for its recycling. Where are the spaces for junk shops in our city plans? What should be the right model for this waste business? Should we accept the fact that this trade provides livelihoods for the poor so it is good? That would mean that we should use more and reject more. Is this the way ahead? I ask this, not just in the context of Tikri, but the globalised world around us. The world looking for new dump yards post-Chinese ban on plastics waste is surely not the answer.

This put me further on the trail of the circular economy. And each step shows the inevitability of such an economy in highly localised living like in India but also points at challenges a distorted global economy and consumption boom throw at us. The fact is that if the rich could pay the real costs of recycling, they would not ship it to poorer countries. I mean rich of the first world and rich of our world. The business is about cutting costs. And it is growing. At the May 2019 meeting of the Basel Convention — an international agreement that binds countries to be responsible in their trade of hazardous substances — plastic waste was included for the first time. But it was not without a fight. The amendment by Norway to regulate certain plastic trade was contested strongly by USA; and finally, after much dilution, it was agreed to distinguish between contaminated plastic waste and the so-called clean plastic waste, that was destined for recycling in an ‘environmentally sound manner’. So, some control has been brought in, but trade will continue and it will supposedly work for all. So, Summers’ argument is the new age accepted doctrine now!

The question is whether this is the way ahead? Waste can be a resource. There is no doubt about this. It is also clear that we must recycle and re-use as many times and as much as possible. The Basel Convention may try to stop illegal trade in hazardous substances, but it allows waste to be traded, recycled and processed in a ‘green’ and sustainable way. Given the economics of recycling, that would only mean that this will be done where costs are cheap and health and environment are discounted. It is not just plastic and it is not just the interests of the rich. While the European Union took a strong stand on plastic waste, it also sought permission to export electronic waste. Then we have second-hand clothes or second-hand cars, swamping African nations, all in the name of global charity as the poor can now afford better clothes. This is leading to new forms of local trade interests, which then want to trade in trash. It is their business. It is time we re-thought this commodity business of waste. It is time we re-work the ‘Not-in-my-Backyard’ to ‘In-my-Backyard’. Every city must handle its own waste, including its processing. It is only then that it will become more responsible in its production and recycling. We need to close the circle of this circular economy to make it work. Not Summers-style, but, really in sustainable-style.

This excerpt is taken from The rise of the neo-locals: A generational reversal of globalisation, published in August 2024