From rags to the Durban Climate Change conference

What do you need to visit a foreign city and deliver a lecture on climate change? A high-profile persona, an elite degree, and the right connections, perhaps.

However, Sushila Sable, 48, an illiterate ragpicker from Kanjurmarg doesn’t have any of the above. But her concern towards clean garbage disposal, which motivated 3,000 city ragpickers to form the Parisar Bhagini Vikas Sangh, was enough to have her speak at the Durban climate change conference a week ago.

Sable, who returned to the city on December 10, said, “It was discussion panel of garbage workers of across the globe. I explained that we are concerned about the environment and trying our best to dispose garbage by segregating dry and wet parts.” Sable spoke in Marathi and a Pune translator translated her speech in English. Sable spoke at similar conferences in Denmark (2009) China (2010).

As part of the Parisar Bhagini Vikas Sangh, around 3,000 women work at a small office at Chembur. They work with housing societies and hospitals like Sion, Nair and KEM hospitals, and few schools, too. “They segregate the garbage, sell the dry parts and use the wet garbage to produce natural fertilisers.” She opposes the idea of dumping grounds.

Sable said, “Segregating garbage at source reduces the cost of disposal because carrying garbage to the dumping ground needs a lot of money. It helps ragpickers too, as they need not go to the rotten dumping ground to pick the ‘saleable’ things and risk their lives.” Sable doubles up as a counsellor for ragpickers who have domestic disputes, or don’t sent their wards to school.

And what does she think of South Africa? Sable says, “India is much better than South Africa. Durban has two big dumping grounds and they dig the garbage in layers of chemicals. It’s just not eco-friendly. Luckily, in Mumbai, we have many segregation points. And they don’t have a ragpickers group like us.”

What is on her mind now? She said, “BMC should not give disposal work to a company. It affects poor ragpickers. Segregation at source should be made compulsory. A woman earns Rs150 a day if she segregates at source else she has to spent at least Rs10 to carry it.