By: Ryan Schlief, Posted: Feb 5 10

Regions: India

Issues: Environment, Labor, Sanitation

Tags: Chintan, climate change, india, labor, waste recyclers, wastepickers

In December the world's attention was drawn to Copenhagen for one of the largest international meetings about climate change. Jaiprakash Chaudhary (better known as Santu) representing Safai Sena (a waste recycler association), and Chintan staff person, Malati Gadgil, both actively participated in the climate change talks. Santu and Malati (below, center) were both trained by WITNESS and, with others, made the video on waste recycler rights, Counterbalance.

Malati writes here about their time in Copenhagen, unifying with waste recyclers from around the world, teaching the attendees how to recycle properly and eventually taking to the streets.

Waste recyclers of the world unite!

I went as part of Chintan environmental research and action group along with waste recycler Santu. He has a formal name which does not perhaps go quite as well with his charismatic and very powerful presence – Jaiprakash Chaudhary. We went with similar organizations and partners from two other cities in India, Pune and Mumbai, and in Copenhagen we were joined by many other friends and collegues from Latin America. All of us represented the informal recycling sector – 15 million from across the globe.

It all began with a tatkal (fast track) passport application for Santu which arrived thankfully within days and several frantic trips to get a visa in time. But all is well that.....

The plane ride from Delhi did Santu in and he arrived in Copenhagen with a raging fever. We were then stranded at the airport for hours before all our colleagues from various parts of the world arrived.

Santu spoke in Hindi, so I translated what he said into English and another colleague from WIEGO translated what I said into Spanish. This was how the next 7 days would be – a little taxing on the translators and listeners and noisy!

Thankfully, Santu very quickly recovered, but unable to sleep due to jet lag, he took to singing at wee hours in the morning.

Three wastepickers from Pune and Mumbai, three coordinators, Santu and me shared a two bedroom apartment in Copenhagen. It had one bathroom, which became a logistical nightmare. While logistics were a challenge, food was not. In true Indian style we had packed for an army. There were ready-made packages of upma, daal makhni and poha. We actually brought much of it back with us to India.

Our Demands in Copenhagen

First thing on the agenda was to continue talks between the various contingents who had previously met in Bonn in the lead up to COP15.

After several meetings as a global alliance of waste recylers and allies, we came up with a list of demands the heads of state and climate change negotiators:

1. Approve a Global Climate Fund that will invest in resource recovery programs that ensure decent livelihoods for all workers and wastepickers in the recycling economy, and is directly accessible by waste recylcers and other informal sector groups.
2. Recognize the critical and productive role that the informal recycling sector contributes to climate change mitigation and to a healthy economy.
3. Exclude waste disposal technologies (including incinerators, landfill gas and incinerator variants such as pyrolysis, gasification and plasma) from the Clean Development Mechanism (an arrangement that allows certain industrialized nations to fulfill their carbon reduction commitments by purchasing carbon credits from certain developing nations) and other climate funds.

Can people at COP15 recycle properly?

While walking around the conference halls, Santu noticed the haphazard way in which trash was being disposed. While there were three trash bins for segregated garbage it “wasn’t done properly” according to Santu. He said that if the folks at COP15 were actually serious about recycling, they needed to be taught how to segregate waste. So on Dec 11, we grabbed a corner and the waste recyclers showed everyone how segregation is done! It was a huge success.

Watch the video from COP15 of Santu speaking about the contributions of waste recyclers (you may need to install a plug-in to view this video).

Individual meetings

We were not able to meet with our Indian delegation, but had a briefing with Jairam Ramesh, the Minister for Environment and Forests. He said mitigation (reducing carbon emissions) can only be achieved through technology. He still doesn't see that mitigation is possible with the help of thousands of informal wastepickers who are making their living and saving greenhouse gases by using low-tech but high yield processes. He unfortunately did not take any questions from waste recyclers.

Indian economist Nitin Desai, an official negotiator for India who was part of the press briefing by India's lead negotiators, said that we have to incinerate – in fact he said it is considered a "green technology". He said: "there is so much waste lying around. We can't afford to make people sick." This means that Nitin Desai again does not see that there are existing solutions, including recycling and composting.

We did, however, meet with some members of the CDM board. They took questions from the audience and Santu bravely got up and asked: "How do you support incineration? (incinerators are waste-to-energy plants that produce electricity from burning of waste) It directly conflicts with our work. The incinerators need the dry waste to burn, but we can recycle it. In fact - we do a much better job in mitigating. So how can you still support these projects?”

Some of the board members were so intrigued that they caught up with us and wanted more information. A baseline modification for CDM projects which would include the work done by wastepickers was suggested by our group and we intend to follow up on it.

Unfortunately, due to an ill family member Santu left ahead of us and was not able to join us in a protest march.

March against the lack of real progress

On Dec 12 we partook in what I am still convinced was a peaceful rally to protest the failure of the climate change talks. Our entire group displayed banners and chanted slogans to recognize the work of waste recyclers. The Latin American contingent learnt Marathi and Hindi slogans and we learned theirs.

Halfway into our march we saw about five people running, within seconds our street block was cordoned off. The sniffer dogs were brought in, armed police stood like pillars in front of us. The wastepickers looked stricken. Over the next 1.5 hours that we were detained it got cold. I just got angry and demanded to one of the policeman that he let us go since the saree-clad women in our group were not equipped for the cold. After haggling, they eventually let us go.

So when I asked Santu how he would remember Copenhagen, this is what he said, “I will tell people that there are bicycles everywhere and they even have a special lane. I can't imagine people living here, it is too cold and there are no people on the street. I will be happy to return to India.”

We had solidarity with waste recyclers from around the globe and continue to build on our collective strength. Nationally Santu (as part of the Safai Sena waste recycler association), Bharati Chaturvedi, Director of Chintan, and I have met lead negotiators post-Copenhagen and we hope these talks will result in real progress for recyclers on the ground. But it's too soon to tell...

Santu's visit to Copenhagen was reported in international and Indian press as well as numerous blogs.

During February, Chintan and waste recyclers will be screening Counterbalance, the video co-produced with WITNESS, in its advocacy campaign to incorporate waste recyclers into Delhi's waste management plans as entrepreneurs. Chintan's latest report, Cooling Agents, makes the case for broadening the climate justice agenda to include the most at-risk populations and those whose work is protecting the environment.