Newsletter
Wastewatch
Chintan's very own e-newsletter, Waste Watch comes to you every two months. Each time, the newsletter looks at how the world is treating its resources. Contact us to share your success stories.
Jahaan-e-Kabadi
The fifth festival of waste and citizenship. The theme title itself tells you things are different here in the city of Belo Horizonte, in Brazil’ s North Eastern Mineas Gerais state.
Kabadnama
Kabarnama is a hindi wall magazine, created by the informal sector for itself, with Chintan facilitating the process.
Jahaan-e-Kabadi
Municipalities all over the developing world are throwing up their hands and giving up on themselves. As far as waste goes, it seems as if urban local bodies and municipalities have no self confidence left at all. They’ve gone the privatisation route.
Kabadnama
Kabarnama is a hindi wall magazine, created by the informal sector for itself, with Chintan facilitating the process.
Wastewatch - Diaper Boom
In a recent article, the Independent recently confirmed a ghastly growing in India: that nappies are the future of babies bottoms. Not any nappies, but disposable diapers. According to the publication, the markets lie in unexpected places-the lower income communities in the developing world.
Jahaan-e-Kabadi - Waste Rules
There are many reasons why waste recyclers find themselves marginalized in global cities. One is that they are not legally recognized as legitimate service providers. In India, we totally lack the imagination to integrate indigenous private service providers with the needs of our expanding cities and simultaneously addressing poverty. At least, that is what policy making has historically done. Now’s a chance to wipe the slate clean and work with new opportunities.
Wastewatch - Such a Long Decade!
It’s been 10 years since India first began to look at what to do about it’s plastic waste. In 1996, the Ministry of Forests and Environment set up the Plastic Waste Management Task Force. Filled with representatives and sympathizers of the plastic industry, the task force’s biggest concern was related to the image of plastics in the public eye. There was no environmental health representative, nor were there representatives from other industries who may have supplanted plastics in some cases. Instead, the task force advocated for handling plastics by getting users to neatly place their plastics in bins. The fact that anything in a bin would be recycled at the cost of the health and dignity of several thousands of waste pickers and junk dealers was never dealt with. Nor was the fact that plastics are petrochemical based, a fast depleting resource. What a mess!
Kabadnama
Kabarnama is a hindi wall magazine, created by the informal sector for itself, with Chintan facilitating the process.
Wastewatch - Avian Flu
One of the most severe global threats in the last few years has been from Avian flu, or bird flu. What happens here is that the H5N1 virus, usually only harmful for birds, mutates and attacks human beings. The resulting flu is so serious it can kill. It is also highly infectious and a pandemic is easily possible if the disease is not controlled early. One of the weakest links in this is the poultry excreta, where the virus is found and survives for a long time. Waste, therefore, become more of a danger to mankind than ever before.
Kabadnama
Kabarnama is a hindi wall magazine, created by the informal sector for itself, with Chintan facilitating the process.
Wastewatch - The Landfill and the Kabari-wala
As you read this, the Masterplan of Delhi 2020 (MPD, 2020), prepared by the Delhi Development Authority, the DDA, will be under finalization. The Masterplan will determine our cityline in the next 20 years. It will determine the lives and work of thousands of people and the fate of the land, the river and the forests we have left. And of course, it will determine the how waste is handled and by whom.
Wastewatch - Danger Looming Large in Delhi?
Studies in India show that even a boiled egg from near an incinerator is contaminated wit dioxins. What would be the fate of people, much higher in the food chain? To a large degree, studies from Europe are just as alarming. They point out that children born to people living near incinerators could have low birth weight and birth defects. This, along with other compelling evidence about incinerators, makes it hard to ever believe that this waste burning technology is safe or our health. Alongside this, there is also the problem of other burn technologies, such as RDF, or Refuse Derived Fuel, which could have a similar impact to that of incinerators. In short, RDF involves compacting waste for burning as fuel.
Wastewatch - Waste–to-Energy
Some cynics quote, that growing waste is the sign of prosperity and development in India. Well it can be nothing farther than such a crude lie. The copycats always promote the things that the western world has applied to it’s situation for good or bad, Take the case of RDF technology for burning waste to derive energy, which is being set up in Delhi. World over the technology has been discarded but in Delhi the government has given the green signal to the toxic fuming monster.