[Reader-list] COP21: Paris – Through the Eyes of Mansoor, Our Friendly Neighbourhood Scrap Entrepreneur

[Kabir Khan]

COP21: Paris – Through the Eyes of Mansoor, Our Friendly Neighbourhood
Scrap Entrepreneur
<http://wastenarratives.com/2015/12/21/cop21-paris-through-the-eyes-of-mansoor-our-friendly-neighbourhood-scrap-entrepreneur/>

Bonjour! Is probably something you’d hear Mansoor, our friendly and free
spirited dry waste collection entrepreneur, say the next time you meet him!

Mansoor, who heads one of the dry waste collection centres of Hasiru Dala,
recently attended the UNFCCC climate change talks in Paris. Waste pickers
from across the globe were invited and were encouraged to exchange
information, views and perceptions of how waste is being dealt with in
their countries and also methods by which this could improve.

The annual Conference of Parties (COP) are annual conferences held to
discuss and review the aims and objectives concluded upon at the Rio Earth
Summit in 1992. The Earth Summit chalked out a framework – named the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which encompassed
195 parties/ countries. This framework set the objective of reducing and
stabilizing the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs), the main contributor
to global warming – which through scientific evidence has proven to be
detrimental to the environment, by causing irreversible damages to the
climate, Earth and ecology.

So how does a waste picker help in mitigate climate change you ask? The
answer is really quite simple, says Mansoor. We all know the 3 R’s: reduce,
reuse and recycle. Have we really paid attention to the order in which they
have been presented to us? Reduction of any waste has to happen in the
first place, if can’t be avoided, next the consumer should make an effort
to reuse. Only as a last resort, if the item cannot be reused, should it be
given away for recycling – as segregation and recycling takes effort and
energy. Mansoor explains using daily gadget we all use – mobile phones. A
rhetorical question he asks us all – how many mobile phones does an
individual have? Apart from the two working phones that you may have on
you, we all have those extra phones – that have some small damages, just
tucked away in a corner. With technology changes so often, people are
increasingly tempted to change phones more frequently. Newer phones mean
further extraction of the Earth’s resources to produce the devices in order
to meet the growing demand. A few months down the line, a small damage to
the phone and most of would like to just dispose off the phone rather than
getting it fixed; thus leading to copious amounts of waste. Wouldn’t it
just be simpler if we thought twice before buying a phone, and if and when
it gets damaged, to just get it repaired rather than picking up a new
handset?

Thus, our last resort should be to recycle – ONLY if reducing and reusing
is not a possibility. Another example that Mansoor narrates is of plastic.
While we all know the importance of reducing and reusing the plastic bags
we get, practically anything we buy these days comes in plastic packaging,
hence the dire need to recycle plastic. Recycling of plastic is done in
such sophisticated methods these days that the final product is as good as
virgin plastic – Mansoor tells us. Therefore, wouldn’t it be much better if
we recycle the plastic, rather than making virgin plastic that requires
fresh input of petroleum, and whose production process would further lead
to all sorts of pollution? Mansoor feels it is important to have ‘recycled’
printed on products that are recycled, so that this creates awareness among
people and encourages them to buy recycled products. Continued here...
<http://wastenarratives.com/2015/12/21/cop21-paris-through-the-eyes-of-mansoor-our-friendly-neighbourhood-scrap-entrepreneur/>




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Regards

कबीर/کبیر

Phone:00-91-96-63-427-315
Email: kabir.postbox at gmail.com
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