Alternate current - lighting up trash

The trash trail basically takes you on the journey of your trash from where you throw it, to the collection ( dipper autos, rag pickers etc), to the landfills (This was a CRaaaazy place, way bigger than you can imagine), to the sorters, to Jolly Mohulla ( this place is awesome! Its the collection point for things to be recycled) , and then finally to the recyclers.

This was an amaaaazing trip do to. And i think every person in bangalore should do it. You come back so aware of how much you consume, the waste you produce, and where you throw it. It makes me think twice before i buy a pack of biscuit. Is it really worth all the packaging that i will have to throw away? Can i but it elsewhere with paper packaging. Or can i bake them myself?

The most important thing i learnt was that waste HAS to be segregated at source! All the waste that we dont segregate can not be recycled. It gets mixed with the organic waste, begins to smell awful, no one wants to sort that out, and so its dumped in the landfills. On the other hand, the waste that we do segregate, can be sorted and taken to jolly mohulla, from where it goes for recycling.

We came met so many 'waste heroes'. The guys who sort and collect our waste , and people who clean it out and separate it. hats off to them really. And then the Jolly mohulla! This is by far the most organised market i have seen. Trash comes in as such a mix but it stripped down right to the piece of paper, every type of material separated, packed and sent for either reuse or recycling. You can find everything from a small bottle cap, to old scooters and truck parts.It is the most efficient place ever. The knowledge that these guys have about materials, no one else can. They do possibly the most mechanical work, but are truly 'jolly' people. Maybe they know that its because of them that we haven't run empty of all our resources yet!

Even just as a market, its so photogenic and has such a strong aura. Narrow lanes, brushed turquoise wheel barrows and rickety jharokas.Sacks and sacks of colours and textures balancing in towers. Even our trash looks beautiful here.

After the trip when you look back at the process a product goes through when its towards the end of its lifecycle, it makes you realise what the parameters to keep in mind are when you design, in order to ensure it can go back to a cradle rather than a grave. We love to mix materials as designers, but the more we mix, the more energy it needs and the harder it gets to recycle it.

There was so much to learn , really. I haven't been able to cover even a bit of all the things i felt and about all the wonderful people we met, saving our city. One has to go and experience it. But these are some snapshots from the trail. Sorry i couldnt get effective pictures from the landfill. There were acre and acre of some 7 feet high heaps unbearably smelling, trash we produce, we we weren't allowed to photograph ; the shame for the government that it is!

collection point

this is where dipper autos and the large compressing vans come to collect our waste.