Recycling

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Written by vl

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As I cleared old mail (still in their envelopes) today, I was reminded of the true concept of Recycling – something my Dad practices better than us all - thought it may seem old fashioned, but definitely a lesson in life, that flashed by as I squandered away sizeable amounts of paper away in the “Blau Tonne” the box for recycling paper.

So the way he would do it, is to cut the mail envelope and turn it around to use the inside surface (pure white or soft white) to write upon. He normally collects all bill envelopes and never tears them open in a rushed way. Then he just slices them in 2 halves, instantly giving him the equivalent of a little less than 1/2 A4 paper size, to write on. So he never needs a fresh note book. He mostly generates his own note book.

And here I was, just tossing carelessly torn open envelopes, of even higher quality paper and wondered, where my sense of Recycling was?

Few years ago, in 2008 I think I attended a ‘Think Tank’ meeting in Munich – an India Symposium conducted by super hi-fi folks. A Lady of Indian Origin from UK (some commission on Innovation), sat there lamenting about the Low Innovation Quotient, that plagued 3rd World Countries. I was agast and furious.

I managed to identify an Indo-German rooted young Prof, who was also amongst the panel, as to the merits of the case in point. I brought up a simple example, of the times I grew up (read that as ’70-’90s). My Grandmother and so my Mother too, always collected the Daily Newspaper after our reading. At the end of the month, it would make a reasonable pile for the ‘Kabaadi Walah’ or the Recycling Man (who always rode the most eco friendly ‘bicycle’ for his work), to weigh and collect the same and give some money in return. This paper would then land in small locations, where men/women would cut them to size, fold them and stick them to make envelopes (that will later appear on the stands of the vegetable vendors in the market), using glue made of rice. So all in all, it was a totally ‘eco’ process. And when you bought the veg's from the market, you never had the craze for ‘one more bag please’. The bags were sometimes small enough to take what you needed or large enough to load up a few kilos. At the end of the day, that would still be paper for further recycling.

Now take the case of the advanced world and their love for ‘Recycling’ – so much so, that they believe that they can teach us poor idiots, a larger than life lesson in the art of recycling. So what they do is, they print paper nobody wants to read really. Folks then take them from their mail boxes, sometimes even directly to the ‘Blau Tonne’, without it embracing their lives. Then comes a diesel operated carrier, with men, who lift this unused paper periodically, drive with it to a distance and then, compact it to carry it to paper recycling centers, where tons of chemicals, dyes, energy and resources are further used, to produce another round of such wonderful economic waste. Lovely!

When I explained this to the Indo-German origin young Prof., he was left with his mouth wide open – he wished I had raised my hand and pointed out to this lady, the stark difference between being penny wise and pound foolish.

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