SHIVANI SINGH

In its leader on plastic pollution, The Economist last week suggested that using less of the polymer was at best a partial solution. A better answer was to collect more and recycle.

The publication noted that the rich western world prohibiting and penalising use of plastic disposables – even the British Queen has banned plastic straws from her castles – may be better for the conscience than the environment because rubbish collection anyway worked smoothly in those countries.

The problem really is in the developing world. All but two of the 10 biggest plastic polluters of the world are in Asia. Of these, only China can afford western-style waste-management in the near future.

India, despite its 1.3 billion population, was not on the list of top ten plastic polluters, thanks to armies of waste pickers. This model of waste management, The Economist felt, was the best way forward for countries that were too poor to employ sophisticated collection and recycling methods.

Surprisingly though, our civic administrations have had little to do with this innovation, which reduces the pressure on garbage dumps that are fast running out of space. For years, the faceless, socially marginalised waste-pickers have been doing informally what is essentially the job of the citizenry and municipal staff.

Every morning, koodewallas dump our garbage bags — stuffed with anything from kitchen rubbish to plastic, metallic packing, glass, batteries, CFL bulbs and even sanitary waste — in the local community bin after segregating whatever they can sell to kabadiwallas.

There is a second round of sifting, again by waste-pickers, at community dumpsters. From here, truckloads of gar-