AS THE sun rises over Delhi, 16-year-old Radha slings a gunny
sack over her shoulder and ambles off to work. Her destination is the back-lanes of Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, where she
and her friends rummage through roadside trash and rubbish
dumps for tangled wire, cardboard, bottle caps, dry pens,
toothless combs, fused bulbs and anything else that can feed
the huge Indian recycling industry, the biggest in the world,
and thus earn them a living. Radha and her friends are not
workers of the Delhi municipality; they are, however, its
unsung saviours.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has
3-4 garbage bins - usually overflowing with waste - in each
of the citys 500 authorised residential colonies. The
corportion periodically activates its laggardly trucks to collect
the
waste over its vast jurisdiction, spending about Rs 70 crore
a
year (see box: Running out of options). Running parallel to
the
MCD'S waste (mis)management system is the teeming unorganised sector that comprises ragpickers, local kabaris,
intermediaries, recycling factories and affluent businessmen. It
is a
multicrore business.
This informal waste collection and disposal
sector work starts from, literally, scratch. While
domestic garbage is dumped into the municipal
bins, the burgeoning uncivic litter on the roads
remains unattended to by the municipality.
Without Radha and her ragtag bunch, the city
would be a foot under garbage every day.
Small workshops and shops take especial
pleasure in dumping their waste in back-lanes
rather than forwarding it to municipal bins.
Adding to the mess are the unauthorised settlements that have mushroomed all over the capital, and which the MCD's network does not
cover. These are the areas that the informal
sector taps to make its money.
Ragpickers sell their collected waste to the
kabariwallah who is often stationed close to the
back-lanes. On an average, a ragpicker earns
about Rs 40-50 a day. There are about 75,000
ragpickers in Delhi rounding up a monthly revenue of Rs 9 lakh.
The kabariwallah is the first of the several intermediaries in the
trade, who usually own a few shacks that double as godowns
for junk. Take Shankar: he operates from a back-lane near the
Income Tax Office. He deals mainly in plastic and glass bottles.
He buys plastic at the rate of Rs 2 per kg to Rs 16 per kg,
depending on the quality. Plastics from homes - dibba-balti
in trade parlance - are usually high-grade and, at Rs 16 per
kg, fetch the most. This high-density plastic is recycled into
buckets, grocery containers, jerrycans and oil canisters.
The cycle-borne kabariwallah, equipped with a weighing
scale, scours residential colonies and buys old newspapers,
magazines, plastic and glass bottles - anything, in fact, that
can be classified as household junk. Old newspapers and magazines used to constitute an important part of the trade of the
kabariwallahs. But with the gradual popularity of plastic bags,
the bottom of the newspaper-and-envelope industry has been
developing cracks for some time now, with frequently fluctuating prices of old newspapers. Even then, a persevering
kabariwallah manages to earn around Rs 1,500 a month. The
kabariwallah-on-wheels also sells his wares to the intermediary whom a bottomfhe-barrel ragpicker goes to.
The first level of intermediaries is also the quality control
and classification unit. The broad categories of waste are: plastic, paper, textiles, glass, iron and aluminium. And each category supervises several subategories.
Plastic waste includes cable wires, broken buckets, shoe solm
Polythene milk bags, oil cans, bottles, tiffin boxes and pieces of
Pvc pipes. Tonnes of this waste tr;vel via the middlemen to
Jawalapuri, a western suburb of Delhi. The market, which has
80 recycling units and is considered Asia's largest scrap market, houses 1,500 dealers. Each day, over 100 trucks wheeze
into Jawalapuri. In a month's time, the trucks deposit 400-500
tormes of plastic that chokes Jawalapuri's lanes and by-lanes.
The market is also the dumping ground for large amounts
of imported scrap. Says Ashok Jasmehra, head of the
Jawalapuri Plastic Dealers' Association, "Recently, we started
getting waste from Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Germany, Singapore
and the US. A few months ago, one of our dealers had gone to
Singapore to strike a deal for importing plastic waste."
The waste in Jawalapuri is sorted into high-density and
low-density plastics. Labourers, predominantly women, comb
these truckloads and are paid Rs 50-60 per day for their efforts,
Recyclers prod and pick through Jawalapuri, putting the junk
through their factory grinders and shredders and reducing it
to manageable basics. One such businessman is Manall Chawla.
Chawla buys the dibba-batti variety of plastic and trans,
ports it to his suburban Shahadara factory. He has 8 labourers
who sort the plastic according to the colour, wipe off the grime
and slough off labels. The material is then cut into chips with
the help of a manual grinder; the chips are melted and moulded into thin plastic wires that are put through crushers. The finally product is colloquially
called dana (granules), which is
I to plastic goods
manufacturers.
Recycled plastic is used for
making, among other things,
ythene bags, thick plastic
waterproofs used as covering and
dating material, slippers and
soapcases. Recycled plastic
a shorter lifespan than the
original and is, therefore,
aper by at least 20 per cent.
In the process of conversion
n plastic scrap to dana, about
6 per cent low-grade residue
Mic is produced. The residue,
priced at Rs 2 per kg, is grade
lastic, which is then used to
make black polythene. The
Aity deteriorates with every
cycle, but the tenacity of the
ian recycling trade is evident
from the fact that very little
in
mics is considered a total
waste.
Broken gates, window sills, iron
rods, wrought iron tables and
mim tin containers - if it's
iron and is considered scrap, it
wdly finds its way to Loha
Mandi (iron bazaar). The mandi
dis with both household scrap
and commercial junk. Vying
r pcide of place could be an
antique iron cupboard and parts
an aircraft that pranged. When
the ragpicker deposits his
w scrap with the first level of
intermediaries, he is paid
1 per kg after a preliminary
sorting is conducted.
Says Om Prakash, general
secretary of the Scrap Dealers'
nociation, "There are about
4,000-5,000 shops in this mandi.
id we are kabaris only in name.
Our business is a very large
& You should not compare us
with your household
is.. There is a cluster
of 600-800 shops which belong to
those who sort iron from the plentiful metal junk that they
have collected. These are the shops of the menials, with a narrow drain setting them apart from the rest of the market.
Loha Mandi is without a processing unit. Iron that arrives
here is purchased by middlemen who transport it to Haryana
and Punjab, where it is melted in heavy duty furnaces. The
melted iron is forged into automobile parts.
All waste paper - cardboard boxes, file and notebook covers,
magazines, newspapers and computer stationery - ends up at
the paper scrap wholesale market on G B Road. Truckloads of
paper and cardboard - none of it recycled - are then sold to
dealers in Jammu, Srinagar and parts of Himachal Pradesh
Says Ishwardas Kohli, a wholesale waste paper trader, "Most cv
the paper is bought by fruit vendors and is used for packing
fruit in cartons, which hs why the demand is seasonal."
Some paper bag makers also pick up bulk quantities
paper from here; in a virtual cottage industry, the paper is dis
tributed among women and children trained to fashion 1i 'fa ia
(paper bags). Yet another portion of waste goes to paper re
cling factories, most of them in Rajasthan and north India.
There are nearly 20 shops of wholesale dealers on
G B Road. The profit margin is about 5-7 per cent, with eac
dealing with 50-60 sacks of waste paper per day. Sometimc
they get large orders. As Hiranand, a deale-
revealed, "Just 2 days ago I sold 32 tonnes of paper
a vendor in Srinagar, which meant a transaction
close to Rs 33,000 with a single customer." Trade
such as Hiranand employ only I or 2 persons as
assistants. His infrastructural costs are, therefore
almost ntgligible. He maintains only a godon
cum-shop and a telephone. And yet, he falls into t
of upper crust category of kabariwallahs. He files his
income tax returns every year.
Interestingly, though the kabariwallahs are igrx
rant of the environmental aspect of recycling, tix
not have become the providers of raw material for pa
use chemicals for bleaching paper. recycling which has caught on
among small entrepreneurs and
a few non-governmental
organisations (NGOS ) in Delhi.
These
NGOS such as Tara (a division of
Development Alternatives)
and Jan Sewa Ashram are running
commercially viable
handmade recycled paper units
(see box: Recycled paper is the
in-thing).
Unlike waste paper, plastic and
iron kabariwallahs who deal
only in a single material, those
dealing in brass, copper and
aluminium generally handle all
3. These metals are expensive
and the profit margin iq low.
The dealers, therefore, are
stretched far and few in between.
Says Shakir Khan, who has a shop
near Lahori Gate, "My
profit margin is very low. It's
about 1.5 per cent." Shakir deals
in copper and brass items, His
daily turnover touches the
region of Rs 500-600.
Copper and brass are sold to
small factories in the vicinity,
which melt the metal and then
remould them into utensils or
motor parts. Another trader, M A
Khan, who deals in all
3 items, says that his profit
margin is 2 per cent and he saves
about Rs 20,000 - Rs 30,000 a
year.
Basti Harphool Singh, a place in
the interiors of the capital
city, is home to some glass and
rubber traders. Glass and rubber are generally reused. Most
of the glass bottles such as
beer,
juice and alcohol bottles are
collected by the kabari and sold
to
small vendors who use these
bottles for various purposes.
There are some bottles which
have a high resale value
because they belong to a popular
brand. For instance, oil bottles belonging to Dabur Oil have
a high price because these are
then used by local manufactures
to sell their spurious products. Another category of glass
constitutes of broken bulbs,
mirror strips and glass shards.
Says Kulbhushan 13hatia, a rubber and glass trader, "These are
generally sold back to glass factories, where broken strips of
coloured glass are melted and
then remoulded into marbles."
A common factor among all
these traders is that most have inherited this business. And though they Scrapped. waste disposal
are called kabariwallahs, there are
many who have amassed a fortune from this trade and have
now diversified into other businesses such as hotels and real
estate.
The wholesale kabariwallah is a rich man. He lives in a
posh colony and commutes by car. The money in this trade
attracts some people to it. For instance, Rajender Jaswal, 26, a
graduate of Jawalapuri, got involved in this trade initially as a
lark but when profits started pouring in, he stuck on.
Says RaJender, "My family is always trying to persuade me
to take a white-collar job, but I will continue in this trade
because I earn much more than what I would get as somebody's employee." Rajender is also one of the few who, maybe
because of his education, feel that they are doing a great service
to the environment by contributing to the recycling business.
But there is another side to this business which is perhaps
of greater concern. And this is the appalling work environ-
ment of those who are employed by these businessmen.
Those who collect, sort and carry the waste expose themselves
to many diseases and hazards for which they get no compensation. For instance, the whole area of Jawalapuri is like a big
slum which turns into a slippery slush during the monsoons.
There are hardly any pucca roads through the huge square.
Even the fire department refuses to bring in their trucks in case
of fire, which is a major occupational hazard in Jawalapuri's
80 plastic recycling units, where plastics are heated.
According to Jasmehra, "A fraction of a highly inflammable material (camphor) in some plastic waste, is generally the
cause of fire. Moreover, even though majority of the shops are
pucca, most of the sorting is done in the open."
Places where plastic is crushed have chips and plastic dust
flying all over. The same is the case with Lcoha Mandi. The
shops-cum-godowns have poor ventilation. Labourers loading ane
factory, Timarpur unloading trucks often suffer frorr.
wounds. But the fear of tetanus do
not bother them. Says Lovesh Sharma, who is a broker,
the workers take tetanus shots when they come to work here
Though many of the dealers pay wiekly or daily wages tc
their labourers, most of the labour is treated like bonded sla
in absence of rules and regulations regaTding employment in
these mandis. Ironically, lack of governmental interference
possibly a major reason behind this tl@riving recycling trade.
works against the labourers. There are no welfare schemes for
these people. A few NGos have tried to organise some kind o
support for the ragpickers, but these labourers have yet to be
noticed by authorities or welfare agencies.
High profits in this trade and the iack of regulation is nou
encouraging the brokers to import junk from other countrie
who are only too keen to oblige. The Directorate of Foreign
Trade does not restrict import of any scrap except plastic. To
import plastic a license is required. But many people such as
Rajender have imported plastic waste at dirt cheap prices and
made huge profits.
In 1993, India imported 7.8 million kg of plastic from the
us and andher 7.4 million kg from Australia.. "Scrap impon
has become a very lucrative business especially after the
import regulations have been relaxed," says Sanjeev Kohli, a
leather exporter who is exploring the business potential of
being a wholesale waste dealer.
What businessmen like Sanjeev fail to realise is that ever.
though plastic can be recycled, the process is limited. B%
importing plastic waste, we are heading towards a situation
where we will simply end up with more waste on our hands.
Nevertheless, the recycling business in Delhi has been in
existence for years. And for years it has been ignored by all
except those directly involved. This is one waste management
system that already has a strong economic incentive to itWhat is required is that this unorganised sector, be effectively
utilised in handling the city's waste.
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