The title of this series, Out of Sight, Out of Mind reflects how I feel about people's interaction with waste. Once thrown away, into a bin or just out of our immediate reach, it's no longer our concern. We forget about it.

I didn't think I needed to explain this to anyone, but since I'm writing under the same name again, I wanted to share this as well.

In my last post, I got to share a little about what got me into thinking about waste, though as a rather rough sketch.

Over the past few years, friends of mine have jokingly referred to my work as a waste… Or called me a trashy guy. Some, more than others, have been quite talented in their usage of puns about garbage and me. I should have been compiling those jokes. I wish I had. Would have made this process of writing about waste a little more amusing at least for me :p

Conversations about my work, especially with my friends are always nice and often, eye-opening… Even the ones with silly jokes. Why 'waste', is something I've been asked a lot. 'Why would you seek out a job that involves rummaging through people's trash even if you're not actually physically doing the rummaging?' That's a frequent question. Could say I recognised the potential..?

In primary school, we had a hobby club- Best out of Waste, where we have seen waste materials being creatively transformed into useful objects. My brain processes certain stimuli differently ever since. For instance, when you walk past a garbage collection vehicle, shed or dump, you'd want to hold your breath - close your nose and mouth, to avoid the smell at all costs. Maybe even your eyes, to avoid making yourself squeamish. I don't feel the need to. The thought of climbing into it would be off-putting to some extent, but passing by a collection of waste doesn’t cause a sensory reaction of grossing me out. Instead it reinforces my resolve to work on it.

In my future posts, I will share what I got to learn as I worked on my Master's final project, that I introduced in the first post. What I learnt about the river and about its managing authorities, about interactions of permanent and temporary residents around it, and the politics that gets in the way of getting things done - things my study could not focus on and how come. With that, I'll also share what form my project eventually took.

I am well aware that I don't know ALL that goes on in the world of waste (mis)management. My way of being resonates with that of Socrates.

What I've studied, read, heard, seen and worked on helps build my perspective. But that is all that is, A perspective. This perspective is alive in some ways - it keeps growing and changing, occasionally shuts down to numb me from what's happening around me. Sometimes it triggers extreme reactions even when there seems to be nothing that I can do about it.

There's only so much one can know about waste in different areas, without getting into the specifics of context. Other than different types of waste materials within waste collection and processing, I'd like to share some of terms that come to mind, that I think all ought to know, and possibly many already know of.

Segregation at source; Primary and Secondary Sorting; Processing/Change in the form of waste materials; Recycling supply and demand; Refuse Derived Fuel; Extended Producer Responsibility; Bulk Waste Generators; and last but definitely not the least, Formal and Informal sectors in Waste (that I see as two sides of the same coin).

I will share about all these terms in future, but for now, I'll just share about the last one. The Formal and Informal. During my master's, I got to read academic papers on a variety of topics. One that I read, questioned whether the formal and informal sector in waste were dichotomous - opposites. I don't remember the specifics but I do remember reading the paper and wanting to find out for myself.

I managed to shape my experiences in such a way that I got to spend a solid chunk of time interacting with, interviewing and observing the work done by the informal sector in a few different cities within India, while working with or researching about the waste management sector in those places as well.

Rag pickers, waste pickers, kabadiwalas and waste workers in different parts of the country, and possibly in different countries as well, who speak different languages, have different levels of education, and deal with different hardships in their own lives, are doing a lot of the same things without being told to do so. They collect specific waste types, moving about, in search of scrap dealers or aggregators offering the right price; sell them the accumulated waste materials and then move on to repeat their work cycle.

Even if they're doing this to earn a living and support their families, I think it's also of value to recognise that informal workers in waste have a far greater understanding of the recyclability of different waste materials and their monetary value, than most of us do, as consumers of products. They see the importance of taking this waste out from mixed waste, which would probably end up going into a landfill or dumping yard somewhere.

There's no map for who goes where, when, why or how, to collect or drop off materials. But they still move around quite a bit, from one end of the city to another in order to fulfill their duties.

The formal sector covers municipalities, government, civic and private waste management organisations. Most of these like to keep maps in their offices. Of the country and cities of operation, with different zones identified, some of which they work in and others that they'd like to work in. Other than that, they meet similar government regulations, have similar safety regulations and technologies at their disposal, but like to show the world how they stand apart from one another, with their own USP (Unique Selling Point) while intrinsically doing similar things.

Members of the formal sector create market linkages to connect scrap dealers, traders and aggregators with recyclers and other parties in order to work on the processing of certain waste types. Some even try to collect waste directly from groups that generate large quantities of specific waste materials.

How does the waste reach these traders though?

Majority scrap dealers, traders and aggregators get their base materials from the informal workforce, since they don't need to bother with logistics - multiple waste pickers come to them, like worker ants carrying food to their queen's colony, supplying only those materials that that specific party trades in. So the informal sector effectively feeds the formal sector. The informal sector even picks up what the formal sector fails to pick up or accidentally drops while moving from one collection point to another.

I have found myself wondering, what did the informal sector figure out, that others in the formal framework failed to recognise? And, how does the formal sector really feel about the informal sector?

I have heard many people refer to these sectors as the 'organised' and 'unorganised' sectors of waste. I disagree with this view and would like to speak up about the same. While it feels natural to call the formal sector organised, that doesn't automatically make the informal unorganised.

While organised is the opposite of unorganised, in waste, the formal and informal sectors are not opposites.

There is a level of organisation within the informal sector that has developed organically and doesn't need to be enforced in any way by any outside forces. All involved know that they have a role to play and what their role is. And they carry these out, no matter the discrimination or inconveniences faced. If not organised, what else would you call that!?