A cycle and a loudspeaker accompany Ladoo as he makes his way around Chennai’s neighborhoods, gathering old clothes. He turns off his loudspeaker around certain homes. ‘They don’t like the noise’, he explains to me, as I stop him for a chat. Laddo has been in this business for twenty five years now. ‘In all this time, people have not changed’, he tells me philosophically. ‘Only my cycle and loudspeaker have’.
"பிளாஸ்டிக் சாமான், பழைய துணி வாங்குறது…."_ கணீர் கணீர் என்று சின்ன ஒலிபெருக்கியில் கேட்கிறது லட்டுவின் காரமான குரல், சிலர் வீட்டிற்கு அருகில் சென்றால் ஒலிபெருக்கியை ஆஃப் செய்துவிடுவார்; சத்தம் போட்டால் அவர்களுக்குப் பிடிக்காதாம். வடசென்னையின் வீதிகளில் இருபத்தைந்து ஆண்டுகளாக அவரும், அவரது சைக்கிளும், சுழன்று கொண்டிருக்கிறது. ‘மக்கள் அப்படியே தான் இருக்கிறார்கள். எனது சைக்கிள் மற்றும் ஒலிபெருக்கி மட்டும் தான் மாறியுள்ளது’ என்கிறார் லட்டு.
Have you stopped to think about how your household waste is managed? Informal waste pickers, like Gajendran, are crucial cogs in our waste management system.
இந்த நகரம், சுறு சுறுப்பாக இயங்கி கொண்டு இருக்கும் ஒரு குழந்தை! தினமும் இது ஓடி, ஆடி, விளையாடி களைத்து வரும்! மீண்டும் காலையில் இதை புதிப்பித்து, அழகுசேர்த்து , சீர்படுத்தி பள்ளி செல்லும் பிள்ளை போல அழகாக மாற்றுவது தூய்மை பணியாளர்களே!
The last day of the Break Free From Plastics meeting was kept for communications. How can we be more effective in getting across our stories to citizens, governments, and corporates? This session was led by Dancing Fox, a group that works to “help change makers tell their story, and help storytellers change the world”.
On the third day of the four-day Break Free From Plastics meeting, we started with an overview of the link between climate, oil and plastics. That the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, such as oil, gas and coal, leads to carbon emissions, which have caused a rapid change in the climate is well established. But what is the link between plastics and climate? If you create a venn diagram between the two, the overlap that you will see is fossil fuels.
Day 2 of the Break Free From Plastics meeting in Bali picked up pace quite rapidly. Where Day 1 aimed to set the expectations of the meeting and looking back at the recent past, today we looked at the various actions and strategies that are underway or planned for the coming 18 months. The conversation was anchored in four key questions, one each for the key themes that emerged from the previous day. We formed several break-away groups and had the opportunity to discuss each question.
The Break Free From Plastics (BFFP) Movement meeting started on July 17 in Bali, Indonesia with more than 90 individuals coming from across the world for the four-day meeting. This follows the 2016 meeting in Tagatay, the Philippines where 90 non-governmental organisations committed to work towards a ‘future free of plastics pollution’. It is hard to miss the messages about plastics in oceans and how plastics will outnumber fish or that birds and animals, even on the remotest islands, are dying from having ingested plastics.