SPEECH 1

Introduction:
When speaking of India, the same words usually come to mind: poor, dirty, underdeveloped. In a sense, this is true,
and will take years to remedy. Despite this, those living here see change come about day by day, ever so slowly.
The sprawling maze of stacked houses and delicately intertwining alleyways known as Dharavi is the largest slum in
India. Thats one million people crammed into just 1.75 square kms. Imagine one million people in half of New Yorks
Central Park, thats Dharavi. This series will focus on the economics of Dharavi and how this makes it so different
from other slums and townships around the world. People usually assume that slums are no more than some stacked
houses and beggars, but this cannot be said for Dharavi. To give you an idea of the size of the industry, the annual
turnover of Dharavi is estimated to be Rs. 30 billion. This is the product of many different industries such as, leather,
textiles,pottery, plastic and metal recycling, food products and money lending.

SPEECH 2
Recycling
India's growing middle class has access to more goods, services and products than ever before.
This new consumerism heaped atop rapid urbanization has left municipalities with an issue much
less glamorous than the new malls, grocery stores and mega-shops dotting the cities. Massive solid
waste accumulation has become an overwhelming environmental, health and aesthetic hazard for
urban areas. Mumbai, for example, generates nearly 7,025 tons of waste on a daily basis, according
to the Bombay Community Public Trust. Yet, as the study points out, this trash is from officially
recognized areas of the city and likely leaves out thousands more tons from informal slums.
As a result of this lack of infrastructure, a large informal ragpicking and recycling industry
has grown among the urban poor. Ragpickers mostly women and children wade through
piles of unwanted goods to salvage scraps that can be sold off to earn a daily living.

SPEECH 3
According to an article in the Guardian that explores the narrow bylanes of the 13th Compound, a
growing number of environmental campaigners say that Dharavi is "becoming the green lung
stopping Mumbai choking to death on its own waste." The vast operation employs an estimated
250,000 of the urban poor who sort, separate, clean, and recycle everything imaginable collected
from all corners of the city. Glass, paper, aluminum, plastics and tins are part of the 4,000 tons of

waste that get processed every day. The industry generates US$72 million per year, says an article
on Dharavi's recycling potential by the blog Green Jobs for India.
While the staggering numbers have earned the 13th Compound a label of "Dharavi's recycling
miracle," but the lack of infrastructure in Dharavi works against the scale-up of the recycling industry
to reach its true earning potential

SPEECH 4
DID YOU KNOW?
Over 80% of Mumbais waste is given a new lease of life.
The seller and the buyer both make money thus making it a true revenue-generating idea. In fact, wages
in Dhavari are well above the monthly average at 3,000 to 15,000 rupees per month. This fascinating
world of generating revenue out of trash has earned the industry the label Dharavis Recycling Miracle.
Extraordinarily, India has no municipal waste management policy or program of recycling which makes the
work of the ragpickers indispensable to the city.

SPEECH 5
CONCLUSION
A lesson to be learnt
Recycling is still very much the focus of many developed countries, who continuously strive to improve
their recycling endeavours. Despite many of the social and ethical controversies surrounding the recycling
industry in India, Dharavi has carved a reputation for itself as the ecological heart of Mumbai, recycling
up to 80% of all its waste material produced by the city.
With an accelerating consumer culture and population numbers on the rise, waste management will
continue to be a pressing issue of todays environmental climate. Resources are limited but wants are
unlimited.
In India, the fact remains that recycling has helped reduce the ever-increasing volumes of trash, fill less
landfills, produce bio gas and provide cleaner societies, as well as conserving resources and reducing
costs.

The scavenger mentality, grassroots recycling and sheer necessity of Dharavis ragpickers have led to
imaginative leaps in deploying waste and a growing number of environmental campaigners recognize
Dharavi as becoming the green lung stopping Mumbai choking to death on its own waste.
OR AS WE WOULD LIKE TO CALL IT, THE SLUM INNOVATION

SPEECH 6
THE PLASTIC PROCESS
The process starts with ragpickers collecting all the rubbish that they can from around the city of Mumbai. Sometimes,
they even buy old shoes as material to recycle! Some of the recycling factories even have agreements with hospitals
and restaurants, wherein they give their rubbish directly to them.
So now that the ragpickers have collected all of this rubbish, they sort all of the plastic by colour and quality.
The process continues in a cramped, oppressive room with a huge metal machine, populated by men AND WOMEN
with neither gloves nor goggles or helmets. This, so called factory, is where the plastic is crushed into small pieces
and then washed in a large bucket of water (which is probably dirtier than the crushed pieces themselves). These now
clean crushed pieces are laid on the roof to dry and lay in wait for the next stage.

The next stage has two parts. Firstly the small pieces are dyed a certain colour and the machine that does this also
heats them slightly. Next, the pieces of the same colour are melted in a different machine and are then rolled into thin
strings. This strings are then cut into small pieces, known to the workers as pellets.
The last stage of recycling is not done in Dharavi itself. The pellets are put into a machine which melts them down and
the, now liquid, plastic is put into moulds. When the plastic has hardened they are taken out of their moulds and used
again. They can be many things, water bottles to toy cars!
So now when youre drinking you Evian or Fiji water, just remember that what youre drinking out of may have been
made in Dharavi by a man who is being paid just 100 rupees (USD 2) per day.

EXTRA
People migrate to Dharavi from all over India to work in diverse industrial enterprises that capitalize
on cheap labor and virtual lack of regulation, producing a combined economic output valued at over
$1 billion per year. The most prominent of these industries is recycling, which collects and reuses an
estimated 80 percent of Mumbai's plastic waste in 15,000 one-room factories and employs over
250,000 people.

SPEECH 7
TIN ENTREPREUR: SMA 1010- 1011- 1012
Mr. Asif deals with empty tin scrap. He has been into the industry for over 18 yrs. When asked how
he entered this field, he explains how he had seen his father get into the tin recycling industry, and
thats when he knew exactly what he wanted to do.
Mr. Asif explains how in those years the quantities of tin containers were very rare as people would
prefer keeping them at home after the actual purpose of those containers was reached. So Asifs
father would flatten the containers up and sell it to the oil industries which would make them again
according to their own specifications.
In todays time, Mr. Asif gets around 2800 tin containers in a month. He buys them at the rate of Rs.
15 per tin container. The tin containers are cleant with warm water from inside and outside. And
once the containers are cleant they are segregated into 2 parts depending upon their condition.
The ones that are either rusted, damaged or even broken are hammered and flattened up in a flat tin
sheet and are sold to the traders.
The cleaner ones are then sent to the potential buyers and after having a look at them closely, are
sold at the rate of Rs. 25-28 per container.
The entire profit earned per container does not belong to him. Even though he has his own vehicle
that transports the containers, he does have to incur costs like wages, tea, food, phone recharges and
even paan for the workers.

Some call the Dharavi slum an embarassing eyesore in the middle of India's financial
capital. Its residents call it home.