{"id":4330,"date":"2020-06-28T09:47:56","date_gmt":"2020-06-28T08:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalindianstories.com\/?p=4330"},"modified":"2020-07-06T12:17:19","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T11:17:19","slug":"lockdown-diaries-bamboo-house-india-supports-waste-pickers-with-continued-livelihood-and-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalindianstories.org\/index.php\/2020\/06\/28\/lockdown-diaries-bamboo-house-india-supports-waste-pickers-with-continued-livelihood-and-aid\/","title":{"rendered":"Lockdown Diaries: Bamboo House India supports waste pickers, daily wage earners with continued livelihood and aid"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘My Waste, My Responsibility’ is the mantra followed by Hyderabad-based social enterprise Bamboo House, India. Prashant Lingam, who co-founded the initiative along with his wife Aruna Kappagantula in 2006, moved from making eco-friendly bamboo homes to recycled eco-friendly plastic homes, plastic paver titles and kiosks for street vendors, using tonnes of used plastic garbage that would otherwise end up in landfills and oceans.<\/span><\/p>\n

The beauty of the enterprise is that the founders, start-ups themselves and struggling during these months of lockdown, have continued to provide support to the rag pickers, their Safai Sathis<\/em> (cleaning helpers) and daily wage earners. \u201cWe ensured that during the lockdown period also, our team members are provided for, and they do not face financial crisis like many daily wage earners in India are during this period,\u201d said Prashant.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“For those who are not in permanent roles, we\u2019ve raised funds through individual donor participation and ensured both our artisans and waste pickers,\u00a0 <\/span>faced no problem for their monthly food needs. We are a very small enterprise ourselves, and we have struggled to provide financial benefits to our Safai Sathis<\/em>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Pic Courtesy: The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ramanamma, Saidulu and a few other Safai Sathis<\/em>, after taking proper precautions and maintaining social distancing ensured established recyclers made purchases for their plastic waste collection. That has ensured their income flow continued even during the lockdown. \u201cBut this crisis has again thrown open the debate on how vulnerable our communities are, especially those working for the betterment of the society by segregating the huge piles of rubbish. They do not have the basics like a bank account, ration card or provisions of receiving social benefits. Being economic migrants makes the situation more difficult for us to solve,\u201d he confirms. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Model<\/span><\/h4>\n

“We generally try to make business models around environment issues which would create livelihoods at the base of the economic pyramid. Our focus at present is to popularise this concept more so that it comes to market-notice and a much bigger market is created to impact the livelihoods and use of eco-friendly and recycled material,” said Prashant.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"India generates 7 lakh tonnes of plastic waste annually and Prashant has been using plastic, LDPE shredded waste, paying rag pickers to separate the plastic waster, connecting them with street vendors and working on a model that is beneficial to the environment, targeting the menace of plastic waste, and providing livelihood to the marginalised and a plastic recycled roof over their heads. \u201cRecycling of plastic is a wonderful business opportunity, said Prashant. “For every house of plastic we use around 1000 kgs on waste, with direct and indirect livelihoods to 50 safai saathis<\/em> and for bamboo around 100 livelihoods are impacted in forest areas.”<\/p>\n

The plastic waste is collected by rag pickers from garbages, landfills and dumps and sold to street vendors who then transport these tonnes of plastic to the factories to get treated. The manpower in the worksites work on these materials to make plastic paver tiles, plastic kiosks for roadside vendors, plastic portable houses for the homeless.<\/span><\/p>\n\r\n