Wastepickers Teach UN How to Properly Sort Waste
http://frontlineagainstclimatechange.inclusivecities.org/index.html
Among so many suits, ties, and Colgate smiles, as if nothing was
happening and the world had yet another replacement globe that was
waiting in the wings, the recyclers of India and Latin America taught
people how they have been earning a living with dignity for dozens of
years with the cry of “Let’s recycle, not incinerate.”
It seems unbelievable, but the environmentalists of the world and the
official delegates from different nations couldn’t separate their wastes
correctly into different bins. So all the waste that was produced by
people every day in the Bella Center (the place where the UNFCCC COP15
talks are being held) ended up mixed inside four different containers,
which were supposedly for plastics, paper, organic waste, bottles, and
other wastes.
So on Friday, December 11 at 6:30pm, after painting placards and banners
on cardboard boxes that were reclaimed from some of the hundreds of
informational booths at the center, the recyclers got down to business:
“We, the poor nations, are teaching you how to mitigate climate change.
The solutions that our countries need aren’t the supposed “clean energy”
projects (of waste-to-energy incineration and landfilling), nor the
carbon markets, since more than 15 million women and men earn a living
from recycling. That’s why we invite you now to learn how we can protect
the climate together,” explained Exequiel Estay in name of the Global
Alliance of Wastepickers/Recyclers and Allies.
With this, they carefully put the badly sorted waste over more cardboard
boxes and in less than five minutes were able to leave everything
well-separated so that it could be recycled. We don’t believe in any
case that this will be the future of such waste in Copenhagen, which
paradoxically has incinerators emitting white smoke all over the place,
but the idea was to give the world a lesson on how things can be done
differently: in solidarity with the poorest and also with the environment.
