05/06/2026
Sandip has recently picked up a new hobby. He collects recyclables not just from our house but from our friends' houses too, stores them for months, and then sends them for recycling.
We've been doing this for the last few years, usually through RecyclePay, which is trying to institutionalize the traditional kabadiwala system.
Growing up in a lower-middle-class household, recycling wasn't an environmental choice. It was simply how we lived.
I still remember how, after our annual exams, my mother would collect all our old notebooks, newspapers, cardboard boxes, and other recyclable waste and keep them in a corner of the house. Months later, when enough had accumulated, it would all go to the kabadiwala.
Nobody called it recycling. Nobody spoke about circular economies or sustainability.
Things just weren't thrown away.
Waste had value. Things had a second life. And households like ours knew that long before sustainability became a buzzword.
Looking back, I realize that many of the practices we celebrate today as environmental solutions were already part of everyday life for families like mine. Not because we were trying to save the planet, but because resources were limited and wasting things simply wasn't an option.
As our lives become more urban and consumption-driven, I often wonder about the systems we left behind. The habits of storing, repairing, reusing, and recycling that quietly kept materials in circulation.
This World Environment Day, I'm thinking about those practices and the wisdom they carried.
Maybe the future of sustainability is not just about new innovations. Maybe it is also about recognizing that many communities have been practicing forms of circular living for generations, and ensuring those systems are not lost in the rush toward modernity.
