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From Trash to Treasure

Posted on January 18, 2008 by Sara Mitchell
Topics: Water
Countries: India

The Economist recently took a look at how the process of recycling is helping to sustain one community in India. The dalits, a lower caste of Hindu, are participating in an economy that not only provides them with income, but helps to reuse some of India's waste.

Disposable plastic cups are many times reborn in Dharavi. In a spiralling continuum, they are discarded and gathered in, melted down to their polypropylene essence, and re-moulded in some new plastic form. Recycling is one of the slum's biggest industries. Thousands of tonnes of scrap plastic, metals, paper, cotton, soap and glass revolve through Dharavi each day.

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Keywords: sustainability, waste, recycling

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