{"id":3694,"date":"2015-06-22T11:43:11","date_gmt":"2015-06-22T15:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/?p=3694"},"modified":"2015-06-25T12:18:02","modified_gmt":"2015-06-25T16:18:02","slug":"finding-treasure-in-trash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2015\/06\/finding-treasure-in-trash\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Treasure in Trash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Trash_Picker_color_reduced\"<\/a>One of Aman Luthra\u2019s favorite memories from his childhood growing up in Delhi was watching the excitement generated by the arrival of the neighborhood \u201ckabariwala\u201d (literally \u201citinerant buyer of recyclables\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as my mother and the other neighborhood women heard him crying out that he was there, they\u2019d rush to sell him all the old newspapers, tin cans, glassware, and anything else recyclable that they had accumulated,\u201d says Luthra, now 36. \u201cThe women would get a few rupees for their trouble, and the man would collect enough to sell to bigger dealers, and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this way, Luthra\u2019s community kabariwala was part of a centuries-old system of informal waste collection and recycling that not only provides livelihoods for an estimated 1.5 million Indians but is also extremely efficient in recycling garbage and waste. Today, however, that system and way of life are under siege, due to India\u2019s rapid modernization, according to Luthra, a doctoral student in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering who has spent the last several years studying Delhi\u2019s waste pickers for his dissertation.<\/p>\n

Many cities across India have largely privatized their waste- removal services, essentially cutting large swaths of the existing, waste picker web out of the equation. Waste pickers, who have responded by organizing themselves as \u201clegitimate waste management service providers,\u201d often end up working longer, without pay, than before.<\/p>\n

\u201cLegitimacy as urban service providers is a double-edged sword,\u201d says Luthra.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of Aman Luthra\u2019s favorite memories from his childhood growing up in Delhi was watching the excitement generated by the arrival of the neighborhood \u201ckabariwala\u201d (literally \u201citinerant buyer of recyclables\u201d). \u201cAs soon as my mother and the other neighborhood women heard him crying out that he was there, they\u2019d rush to sell him all the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-students","issue-summer-2015"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFinding Treasure in Trash - JHU Engineering Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2015\/06\/finding-treasure-in-trash\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Finding Treasure in Trash - 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