New Orleans ACORN India’s Dharavi Project has long focused on recycling in the Mumbai mega-slum where we work. Organizing young waste pickers has led us to create a cooperative of sorts employing scores of recyclers. ACORN has struck deals with many schools, including the French and American schools there, as well as with the Bloomberg office building to handle and sort all of their recyclable waste. In Katmandu, Vinod Shetty reported that we also have been able to negotiate being able to operate booths on zero waste at several conventions and trade shows in Mumbai where our recyclers also handle all recycling. Dharavi has long been famous as a model for integrating work and living arrangements for lower income families in India. Prince Charles several years ago held the slum up as a model of sustainability.
It is interesting to see developing countries in the global South leading the way in this most fundamental environmental task. A recent article in Science (September 20, 2019 by Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola, Solomon Assefa, Kareem Sheikh, and Jeannette Garcia) highlighted similar work in Africa and steps taken there to deal with plastic pollution that might be the envy of other countries around the world.
The article, written by both recyclers and academics, points out that there are a higher percentage of African countries than elsewhere around the world that have plastic bans. Rwanda led the way in 2008 by banning nonbiodegradable polyethylene bags as well as their manufacture with strict punishments and enforcement. Tanzania has a ban, and Kenya is trying a tax. Kenya is also experimenting with “incentivizing community-led collection that is turning plastics into mattresses and eco-friendly asphalt, bricks, fencing posts, school bags, and shoes.”
Looking at Africa’s largest city, Lagos, Nigeria, and its production of waste of all kinds, the Science authors argue that it represents a huge opportunity for building plastic recycling plants, but limited electrical power and formal and informal workers inability to sufficiently fulfill the demand of such plants for product are stunting the prospects. It’s a situation of water, water everywhere without a drop to drink, where plastic is equally ubiquitous, but there’s no system that creates enough to keep plants at full capacity yet.
Experiments in Lagos with incentive-based programs include RecyclePoints and Chanja Datti are promising. In these situations, individual collectors deliver plastic and have their work redeemed by cash or “points” that can be converted into consumer use. Elsewhere, Mr. Green Africa in Nairobi has built a network of 2000 waste collectors and recycled more than 2000 tons of plastic waste and rerouted it to manufacturers. Another operation called Plastic Bank is “a social enterprise deployed in Asia, with plans to expand into South Africa.”
As an organizer, I’ve argued solving community sanitation issues is a critical path to power, if achieved. The crisis in handling plastic in the developing world coupled with population growth and inadequate disposal systems, may force the creation of some innovative solutions that point the path.
