Rags and riches
India has its kabadiwalas and rag-pickers to do sorting of garbage. In Germany, recycling begins at home

Each day, each month, the bottles of shampoos, tins of cookies, empty shell of toothpaste, polybags from grocery shops and Maggi and Knorr soup wrappers must be disposed off. Let’s see how we do it. Alternative one: just dump it in the dustbin. Who segregates the glass, plastic, paper and vegetable peels is then not our concern anymore. Alternative two: we bear with some inconvenience despite space constraint and accumulate glass bottles, newspapers etc to sell it to the kabadiwala on a monthly basis. This way, at least a preliminary sorting is done, in that the non-recyclable waste is separated at the first point, though we still don’t care how, and in what way, do these bottles get recycled.

Two months into my stay in Berlin, I, as an individual, am doing sorting on a daily basis. On day one of my Berlin stay, as the seminar assistants did a guided tour of the guest house, nearby shops and eating joints to make us comfortable about the city, they also made it a point to take us to the garbage disposal site, which is a huge wire mesh with a lock, only to be opened with our room keys. Inside are huge containers of different colours, one for polythenes, plastic and packing material; one for glass; one for paper and one for items which you are not sure about, that is miscellaneous. “That’s our way of recycling, and taking care of the environment,” I remember one seminar assistant telling us. That’s not all. She told us each bottle of water or cold drink you buy carries the charge of bottle too, and if you return these bottles at a departmental store, you get that amount back. Later, when we went to the nearest departmental store, we spotted huge containers just for storing returned bottles. Also, polybags are not given free of cost with the grocery. You have to purchase it, and at 30 cents, these are a dear item. Good way of dissuading people from going for polythene packs, because one then opts for cotton carry bags.

Coming back to segregation, the strict segregation rules mean that my balcony has actually become a segregation ground. With some trial and error, I devised my way of segregating, and yet saving the cost of polythene bags (well, you need polythenes to throw four different categories of items, but then, as I said, these are not free). The garbage bin in the kitchen is reserved for tea leaves and vegetable peels. In one cupboard, in the bottom rack, are stacked tissue papers. Similar rigour is replicated with respect to segregation everywhere. In the institute, the stylish dustbin in the eating area has four compartments. On the railway stations, commuters, having read the morning newspaper, stack it into the paper chamber, and the college students, after a quick breakfast of croissant, throw away the paper wrapping or the plastic wrapping in the compartments devoted to them. While taking care of hygiene and safety of garbage collectors, this segregation method also ensures that the city is free of eyesores that our cities provide. On the flip side, there are wastages that can surely be avoided. Every item that I need, I am forced to buy in huge quantities, be it shampoo, or gel or tissue paper. The concept of sache doesn’t exist. Maybe that’s done with a view to avoid the menace of small packets dotting the cityscape, but it also means that you have to buy amounts that you don’t actually require.

Another wastage I have observed is in the servings in eating joints, and I am guilty of having to leave my plate half finished on many occasions. Order a dish and what you get is a huge filling of the main dish, say chicken or fish, accompanied by a heavy serving of salad and potato fries and/or bread. The leftover could be taken home in packs, or left back at the discretion of the hotel staff. This is our way of avoiding wastage.