Dharavi, Mumbai may have lessons for developed world.

Dharavi, Mumbai

Dharavi, located on the outskirts of Mumbai, is a massive slum, with a population exceeding that of one million persons, in just 175 hectares of land. Once India’s largest slum, it is now fifth in Mumbai alone. Yet, though Dharavi no longer reigns superiority in terms of size, it is still very much the focus of many of the world’s MEDCs whom strive for improving recycling and protecting the planet. This is due to the way in which many of the massive population make money; by collecting the waste from the inhabitants of Mumbai (at their  own expense) returning it to an area of Dharavi known as the 13^th Compound and then sorting and re-selling anything of value. This allows the inhabitants of the slum to “claw a way out of poverty” (Dan McDougall). This is allowing Dharavi to turn over an estimated $700 million per annum (The Guardian).

In Dharavi, there is but one way to make a living; recycling. 200,000 people are formally employed by said industry; however all of the inhabitants of the slum make money in this manner. Dharavi is home to an estimated 15,000 single room factories, and 5000 recycling businesses. One will struggle to locate an item not of recycled materials. The majority of the waste from the middle and upper classes of Mumbai is transported to Dharavi by housemaids and servants for the sole purpose of recycling.

 Dharavi is the ecological heart of the city, recycling 85% of all waste materials of the city. This compares strikingly to UK recycling figures; over the last decade less than 20% of waste was recycled. As the UK produces 30.5 million tonnes of waste per annum, this equals a staggering 23.9 million tonnes of waste in landfills each and every year. If the UK could match these recycling rates, then but 1/4 of the current figure would enter landfills per year (just 6 million tonnes), but also costs in sourcing materials would be dramatically cheaper, allowing for higher profit margins, which consequently allow for generous reinvestment into such crucial areas as re-booting the economy.

Obviously, there are draw backs to a scheme such as this in the UK:  82000 tonnes of waste is produced on a daily basis. In Dharavi, approximately 500000 people sort 4000 tonnes of waste daily. This equates to 125 people sorting one tonne of waste. If we are to extrapolate this figure, it would state that the required number of employees to execute such an operation would be 10,250,000 people; 5 times the number of people currently unemployed in the UK. Obviously, this would be impossible. However, with a substantial capital investment, it may be viable with just 2.5 million workers and a highly industrialised system. Yet this raises further problems; where would such a sizeable investment be sourced during a time of international recession? Furthermore, there would be large running costs, and the cost of the massive building space required for such an operation would be staggering.  However the implications of a far more extensive profit via the use of recycled materials may make such an avocation feasible. Then there is one further possibility; making the recycling in the home far more extensive. Taking just a few moments extra sorting each item in a more categorised system would allow for an elimination of the sorting which would cost a great deal and significantly dent gross profit. Still, people barely have time to recycle in the current manner; a recycling system requiring a much greater input of time would be highly unappealing and potentially damaging to the economy.

In addition, living costs in India are much lower than in the UK, allowing for much greater reinvestment of capital, and hence a more successful scheme. Wages and applying to business law would dampen possible successes of a similar operation in the UK.

The process of recycling in Dharavi is as follows: the plastic, is handled in all forms, including bottles, boxes and pens. This is initially sorted by colour and quality. Next, the plastic is ground into flakes and sold to a granule maker. In his factory, the plastic flakes are washed, dried, melted and squeezed into wires before being chopped into pellets. These pellets are then used for production of different types of plastic products.

The cost of producing plastic is high, and also much is contributing to the huge tonnage of materials currently entering landfills. To recycle more efficiently, to the extent of that which takes place in Dharavi, would eliminate plastic production costs, whilst minimising the volume of waste entering landfills, sufficiently solving two problems.

Obviously, there is much to be learnt from Dharavi which not only will significantly help the environment, but also the economy, however, currently such an undertaking appears difficult to implicate on a national scale, and so much thought and consideration would need to be offered, if such a scheme is to be successful in the UK.