SCRIPT (Sustainable Consumption and Recycling Interventions for Paper and Textiles) for Reducing Urban Climate Footprints

The project targets two essential consumer products, paper and textile, whose compositional value in municipal waste is increasing significantly owing to unsustainable usage and wastage. The proposed intervention directly approaches the consumption patterns and multiple stages of the product’s lifecycle, whereas it attempts to impact production phase by strengthening post-use reprocessing and recycling for re-usage thereby enabling parallel production cycles so as to tame the demandside of the articles, largely by substituting with competitive recycled products. In case of paper, sustainable consumption and wise use can be ensured through awareness and capacity building on resource budgeting, reuse strategies, wastage minimization planning, product alternatives etc, whereas by recycling waste paper in moulding, pulping, mache and rolling alternative stationeries can be made with hand-rolled paper for office usage, which can be resold to the consumer reducing the demand of fresh paper stuff. This creates a win-win situation as since the consumer saves through purchase of recycled products and the beneficiaries earns through production of recycled goods. Assorted frayed textiles can be compiled with waste paper during recycling process to produce more durable and textured handmade paper that can substitute plastics for packaging, hardboard and coarse print paper etc. Estimates show that recycled handmade paper can substitute up to 27% of the fresh paper usage. With biotechnological innovations, improvised handmade papers can be made from wasted paper and textiles for more extendable usage increasing this substitution share. A logical capping on production can thus be expected, provided the recycling processes are structured as MSME production units. Recycling of textiles has a lineage in the Asian society within Indian ecoregion that sustains a traditional handcraft called ‘Kantha’ , wherein old textiles and garments are reused to make wrappers, covers and blankets those are intricately embroidered. The same can also be used for making microutility products like table coasters, tea-cosy, comforters and cushions etc. Project Activities that has already been taken up in Kolkata, India, Dhaka Bangladesh and Thimphu Bhutan are enlisted as hereunder 1) Identification of urban intervention area, direct beneficiaries from women street waste workers, urban stakeholders and local partners for project grounding, planning and implementation. 2) Need assessment survey of beneficiaries and assessment of recycling potentials of municipal solid waste, based on composition. Livelihood vulnerability indexing of the beneficiaries 3) Identifying institutional mechanisms and implementation strategies, defining stakeholder partnerships, developing program network 4) Awareness drives and sensitization campaigns on segregation of waste at source, reduction of consumption footprints and wastage minimization, launching of mobile apps for consumption foot printing. 5) Basic to advanced level capacity building, skill development and financial inclusion of direct beneficiaries 6) Defining paper and textile waste collection chain, Establishing pilot recycling workshops & Technology transfer for manufacturing recycled micro-utility products 7) Recycling and reuse of paper and textiles through detailed production chain, standardization of recycled items, pricing, packaging and marketing, value addition 9) Awareness on usage of recycled products through Exhibition Sale, developing retail value chains 10) Monitoring and Evaluation, economic and ecological impact assessment, estimation of reduction of emission footprints 11) Data interpretation and interim analysis, report dissemination and feedback review 12) Formalizing local institution for recycling enterprise as a registered entity for business Direct environmental benefits earned from the project will be reduction in urban landfill emission of approximately 1000 MT CO2e and more per annum through the intervention; however additional abatements shall be drawn from wiser consumption of paper and textile, optimizing the lifecycles and post production usage through awareness and sensitization etc. Co benefits in the context of urban habitat will be reduction in air pollution due to structured handling of regular municipal wastes, conservation of periurban wetland habitats often used for dumping, production of renewable energy and organic manure from degradable waste recycling etc. Societal mainstreaming of 500 women waste workers and their family through financial inclusion, capacity building and organized trade would bring back dignity to the ‘citizens of dirt’. Basic amenities of these direct beneficiaries like health, child care and basic education will be assured. The sustainable development for poverty alleviation will come by virtue of an increased income of nearly 35% over their previous earnings. Direct economic benefits would include financial inclusion through bank linkages and micro-insurance coverage of 500 women ragpickers towards economic security, creation of more than 1200 man-days for job opportunities every year and formation of a micro-enterprise on waste recycling with an initial annual turnover of USD 8500-9000and expected increase of 20-25% in internal revenue returns per year. Initiated project will have the co-benefits of diversifying in two verticals, one is recycling of wet garbage into vermicompost impacting in reducing landfill emission and promoting sustainable agriculture, other is reuse of non-biodegradable plastic bottles for creating home garden potteries. This activity will be associated with capacity building to initiate newer entrepreneurs into the trade.Additionally, policy change impact through advocacy in Integrated Solid Waste Management in concerned 5 to 7 Urban Local Bodies (Municipalities) and structured waste management in 100 corporate houses would be expectedly achieved. Please use our mobile based application for consumption foot printing that would develop a baseline data stock for further interventions and research. This can be directly downloaded as below Step1 : From your android phone select google play . Step2. search with keyword safeinch. Step 3: select the app carbon footprint and install the app . For all other involvements like donating waste papers and cloth, technology cooperation, sales and mobilizations or in regard to metadata sharing for research and evaluation, please send us a mail to office@safeinch.org with a copy to amritasafe@gmail.com