A visit to a waste segregation site in 2017 changed Tarini’s perspective towards life. She had passed by that location every day on her way to the school. The driver would typically ask her to roll up the car windows to avoid the foul stench emanating from the waste site. It was a busy place because she would always see women and girls working in that location-be it summer, monsoon or winter. She asked her mother if they could visit the dump site. The site was located in a spot where the road narrowed and was perched at the corner of a bridge that went over a nullah.
One afternoon her mother took her to the waste site. There she met two women waste pickers who were manually segregating waste. It was a hot afternoon and the stench of the rotting garbage was over powering. Flies and mosquitoes were all around and it was uncomfortable standing in a spot without being bitten. Yet the two waste pickers continued to work quietly and efficiently sorting through and making neat piles of certain recyclable items which they hoped to sell by the end of the day.
The waste pickers told Tarini that their livelihoods depended upon generating enough funds by selling the recyclable waste to purchase their daily groceries. Tarini found out that they had been doing this work for a long time, nearly two decades. They were very articulate as they spoke at length about the advantages and disadvantages of their profession, challenges faced by them and their aspirations.
Like all mothers, they wanted their children to be educated and lead good lives. Unlike most working people Tarini knew, these waste workers had no buffer in case they fell sick or needed medical treatment. They did not have a basic guaranteed daily wage nor did they have access to medical care or any social security once they retired. They would often get physically and verbally abused both at home and outside. Despite all this they told her that they had no choice but to carry on. People did not want to employ them as domestic help due to the stigma associated with working at a waste dump site. On the other hand they could not afford to be fired or lose their earnings and working in waste guaranteed them a daily wage. Like one of them said “…as long as humans exist, we will always have waste…..”
Tarini found that they were “informal workers”. What that meant was that they always remained on the fringes of poverty while the community and the waste dealers (generally men) benefitted from their cheap labour. Tarini decided to make a difference. She wanted to bring due dignity to the waste pickers.
She did not know where to begin. After some brainstorming, she thought of conducting a waste collection drives in her community which has about 4000 residents. She was not sure if the governing body of her residential community would allow it. Fortunately they did and the first drive yielded a small truckload of items comprising discarded clothes, toys, household items and books (https://www.mypunepulse.com/14-yr-old-tarini-uses-art-to-spread-awareness-on-waste-management/). That was the beginning of several waste collection drives that were conducted to facilitate recycling of waste.
The “waste” collected at these drives was sold by the NGO affiliated with the waste pickers. The funds generated were used to educate the waste picker’s children. Clothes and other items like toys, books, utensils were recycled (https://www.timesnownews.com/pune/pune-v-collect-a-drive-collecting-old-items-to- reuse-recycle-for-a-sustainable-environment-article-91812833 and https://swachcoop.com/initiatives/v-collect/)
This initiative led to other projects for the benefit of the waste pickers over the next few years. The Red Dot campaign ( see https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/drive-for-safer-disposal-of-sanitary- trash/articleshow/66046026.cms) highlighted the need for proper segregation of sanitary waste; co-creation of art with waste pickers benefited aged waste pickers (see https://www.facebook.com/kastakaripanchayat/posts/pfbid0fGqWeLx2NqrSApEPxz9 ArKzLJoSznKGDwtmY5QeJ2YrYkMyBXW9wguTo6DQvYdcql), an android mobile app design facilitated waste collection drives and an e-book.
Tarini enjoys painting, craft projects, writing, reading and spending time in the midst of nature.