Article: Recycling the trash

Saturday May 30, 2009

Conserve (a non-profit organisation) morphs tons of unused plastic bags into stunning products which are then sold in the domestic and international markets.

Social conservationist Anita Ahuja employs teams of rag-pickers — the most marginalised lot in Indian society — in a colony close to her home. These rag pickers collect plastic bags from Delhi's slums by scavenging in garbage bins and choked drains. Besides the plastic gathered by women from the slums, plastic bags are also collected from the local plastic sellers.

Anita says she, too, chips in by collecting plastic in her own unique way.

"Much to my family's embarrassment," says the entrepreneur, "I often get out of my car at traffic lights to collect discarded plastic bags from the roadside!"

The collected plastic is then treated. The workers wear masks to protect themselves from plastic toxicity. The handles and bottoms of the plastic bags are snipped and the open sheets scoured with detergent on a cemented buffalo water trough.

They are then hung to dry on a clothesline and layered together and pressed to make sheets that are designed, cut and stitched to specifications. These bags then go into a machine designed by Conserve, which presses them into thick sheets.

These sheets are then bought by Conserve. It takes about 60 plastic bags to make one sheet, which is then cut, lined with cloth and stitched or moulded into various products.

It is difficult to colour plastic so no dyes are used. Its natural color gives the final product its hues. The more colourful the plastic bags, the more colourful the product.

Of course the slum women making the sheets must wash the plastic very carefully, for buyers scout for both quality and cleanliness.

The handbags and fancier products are made by fabricators at the Conserve workshops. However, ordinary items such as shopping bags and tablemats are made by the women who have collected and processed the plastic.

Conserve has also set up numerous plastic bag collection units throughout Delhi and on its outskirts. From raw ingredient to finished product, the process takes about a week.

Related Story:
Gaga over garbage

This article was taken from: The Star Online: Lifestyle: Living 30 May 2009