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November 1999
Years ago, an American friend of mine took home with her, a clay cup from India. It was one of those tiny ones, handmade by village potters, that roadside shops used to serve tea in at one time. The tea used to taste wonderful in the cups, with an earthy flavour unparalleled by bone china. But they were meant for one time use only. In a sense they were pieces of art, but not pretty enough to pack up and take away across continents and oceans. So why was she carrying it? ‘‘I want to show people back home that you people developed disposable cups long before we thought about them. What is more, you even used biodegradable material!’’ she said.
Unfortunately, the clay cups have now given way to non-biodegradable plastic ones. They have, however, spawned another art – that of recycling. Millions of people (waste collectors) are engaged in it. They buy the used plastic off consumers. Coffee, tea, ice cream cups and other catering containers, for instance, can sell for anything between Indian Rupees15-25 per kg. There are supposedly some 20,000 plastic recycling enterprises in operation!
Besides, a lot of plastic is reused before it is disposed of. So much so that even damaged plastic products may be fixed for an extended life. And so there are ‘’plastics mechanics.’’ They come to your home and offer their services to repair on the spot, broken plastic articles by the simple process of ‘fusion.’ Clever, isn’t it?
Admittedly, while waste minimisation by reuse and recycling is being practiced, it is unfortunate that there’s still enough plastic littered to clog the drains and fool the cows into consuming it as vegetable scrap.
More about plastics later in this feature, but first, a good wood-story.
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Kalpa vriksh is what the coconut palm is referred to in Sanskrit. It means ‘the tree that provides all the necessities of life.’ This is a story of how the coconut palm can help save the world’s precious natural forests.
It involves a flourishing commercial enterprise that tells a tale about economic and ecological sustainability; about how traditional and modern technology can successfully blend; about resource recycling and rejuvenation; about capacity building and social benefits to indigenous communities; and a lot else. Sounds like old rhetoric? It isn’t. This one’s for real.
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Australian designer Bruce Dowse was determined to do his bit to protect the world’s indigenous forests, including its rapidly dwindling pockets of rainforest. So, in the late 1980’s he went in search of a viable, ecologically sound substitute for tropical hardwood timber. Dowse zeroed in on the coconut palm. Not the coconut palm that was growing and fruiting, but one that was senile and well past productive fruiting. It was found in millions, dotting the coasts 25 degrees north and south of the equator, just waiting to be harvested and put to some constructive use. The problem, however, was that the coconut palm is not a tree at all but a member of the grass family with distinctly different properties. So, could it effectively replace conventional hardwood timber?
Dowse resolved to find out. He landed in Papua New Guinea, packed a container load of coconut palms and brought them back to Australia for research. Seven years of intensive testing and development followed. Intrinsic to this was the knowledge of traditional spear and arrow makers of Papua New Guinea, experts in working with palmwood. Their research concluded that anything made out of a block of timber could be made from palmwood. Only, it was a “wily product that’s harder to tame than timber and requires a different approach,’’ says Dowse. But once tamed, the ‘‘wily product’’ was remarkably strong and durable, its hardness comparable to ebony.
Thus was born PACIFIC GREEN, a commercial enterprise dedicated to the innovative use of coconut palmwood for furniture and architectural building products. Also emerged a decorative style –Pacific Modern – that adopted craft designs of the Pacific islands, and native materials peppered with the odd modern ingredient.
Operations were set up in Fiji where there were hundreds of millions of coconut trees, planted more than a century ago, that were past productive fruiting. Not only was there a ready supply of palmwood, but also a willing labour force that was happy to work on something that they could relate to.
Today, PACIFIC GREEN is established as an Australian-Fijian company, and it’s factory (this is more like a laboratory with constant innovation and experimentation on the uses and applications of palmwood) is run by local people. Meticulous hand-crafting is integral to design, and hence employment generation is a happy fallout of the labour intensive processes.
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And their products are a hit, selling in up market outlets of Hawaii, Australia, Tahiti, New Zealand and others including the UAE (see Green Souq). There are tables and chairs that reflect the modes of construction of the great Fijian war canoes and trading boats. Lounges that have been inspired by the traditional New Guinean water carriers. And club chairs with that distinctive Pacific look.
But the best thing is that they are based on a production system that, says Dowse, is ‘‘paving the way for a revitalised and sustainable economy with the coconut tree in its heart.’’ Senile coconut palms are recycled, new ones planted and the plantations returned to the local villagers. ‘‘The average Fijian plantation, planted close to 100 years ago, numbers 400,000 trees. We process a maximum of 350 trees a week, which are fewer than 20,000 trees per annum. At that rate of use, there’s 20 years worth of material in just one Fijian plantation,’’ he explains. That’s 16,800 trees from the tropical rainforest saved each year!
It’s commonly known that every part of a healthy palm tree finds a human use; but this extends that phenomenon to the senile palm as well! Palmwood off-cuts are transformed into slatted lamps, mats, café tables and chairs. And the surplus is turned into a valuable agro-compost, or used as fuel.
What is more, the process involves no chemicals at all. The Papua New Guinea technology that PACIFIC GREEN adopts has a simple way of treating and curing wood, something that indigenous peoples have been using for 1000s of years. Wind-dry the wood, salt it and smoke it. Similarly, all the paints, lacquers, stain and finishes used are water-based and non-toxic. And leathers selected for upholstery are vegetable rather than chrome tanned.
POOR PLASTIC
‘‘Plastics, at one time considered the solution to all environmental problems (because of their reuse value), are now being branded as villains. But it is not the product that is harmful. It’s our attitude that’s the culprit,” says G. Ajita, who teaches environmental science at the Centre for American Education, Dubai. She, like many of us, used to believe that plastics are a menace. But she doesn’t think so any more.
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Plastics, after all, are 100 per cent recyclable. They can be recycled several times into low-cost products like footwear, mats and even sewer pipes. Waste plastics, without sorting, are also recycled into synthetic wood products like rails, fencing, posts, benches and landscaping items. ‘‘Even jeans and sweaters are made from post-consumer recycled plastics,’’ she says.
Then there is the issue of its non-biodegradability being a threat to the environment. But look at paper. “Paper alone makes up more than anything else in a garbage dump. One frequently hears that at least paper biodegrades. But newspapers and telephone directories are found in dumping sites even after 40 years! Biodegradation in buried landfills is a very slow process. Besides, other materials like glass and metal are also not biodegradable,’’ points out Ajita.
According to her, biodegradability is not economically viable for most applications (although, with biodegradable plastics coming up, things are brightening up on this front). The solution lies in reuse and recycling into extended lifecycle products.
Paper and cloth bags are considered better alternatives than plastic bags. Ajita quotes statistics that suggest that if all plastic bags and packaging were replaced with materials such as paper and jute, there would be an approximate:
- 300% increase in the weight of packaging
- 210% increase in the cost of packaging
- 160% increase in the volume of waste generated and
- 110% increase in the energy requirement.
And let’s not forget the huge amounts of chemicals and water used in paper making, plus the effluent discharged that requires treatment. Most importantly, the paper industry is blamed for the loss of valuable forest resources. And if we believe that cotton and jute are the answer, remember that both go through extensive processing methods that use various chemicals. These can be dangerous.
The choking of drains and sewers is credited to plastic bags. They are also blamed for despoiling vast expanses of desert. But why do we dump these there in the first place?
Many countries have adopted a two-bin strategy – segregating the dry and wet waste, facilitating recycling of waste plastics. Dubai Municipality is attempting the same.
‘‘Plastic does not litter. People do. How about a change in our attitude?’’ suggests Ajita.
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WHAT ON EARTH CAN WE DO?
Ajita Nayar from Dubai gives us ideas:
Most plastics can be recycled, but plastic types should not be mixed for recycling. It is not possible to tell one type of plastic from another by sight or touch. Look out for specific markers that indicate the type – it will help you separate them. Plastic bottles and their caps need not be of the same type. It’s a good idea to separate the two before sending them for recycling.
Waste vegetable shavings need not be dumped into bins anymore. Instead they can be added to the pots or plots where cacti grow. Cacti seem to grow well with these.
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