Religion & Recycling

Religion gets shadowed or covered up in various ways in our day to day lives. Every now and then it does peek through and such glimpses linger.

Cleaning up the computer that my father uses, I sorted through the bunch of (data) CDs he had accumulated over the years and many needed to be disposed off. In one of those rare moments, my father, a proud pack rat, asked me to take out all the old electronic items tucked away in different attics! When it was all gathered, the waste pile included a floppies and CDs, a 20 year old TV, and even older space heater, coils from tube lights, and lots of wires bought almost 30 years ago when the house was constructed.

After a string of phone calls and searching online, I found out that Ash Recyclers was the only company / organization in all of Bangalore that recycled all types of electronic waste. I was more than glad when they offered to pick up the stuff from our house. When they did arrive to pick up the material, I was very curious to know how it worked out for them to pick up a relatively small consignment from a residence. Kumar, the collections manager, started showing the national and international media coverage that their work had recieved. I then asked what they did with the material and if they had the necessary permits and licenses. Syed bhai, who seemed relatively silent and reserved, made an impassioned speech about how most benefits from his operations go to a non profit working with muslim communities in urban, semi-urban, and rural areas. He went on to lay out some of the human development indicies in which muslims lag behind their counter parts from different communities and shared his motivation to taking up this work.

His strong convictions made me look within. I had not asked that question till I had seen the page of their brochure that mentioned that most of the proceeds are disbursed by the Masha Allah Trust. The progressive in me makes me think that I would have questioned with equal intensity if the benefits were distributed through a Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, or Jain institution. But then, the luxury of hind sight does pamper the progressive in each of us …