Seen in a market just outside Kibera was a mobile phone repair guy who only had the oldest phones and parts, many of which had been separated into their component pieces. Layed out for display, it allowed the passing customers to spot a part or piece which they might need replaced on their phones.
It caught my eye at first simply because it looked like an attractive mural or piece of art.Photos taken by author on 23rd January 2012, Nairobi KenyaBuses are not manufactured in Myanmar, and must all be imported. As part of the restoration process that buses almost universally undergo upon entering the country, their interiors are removed and everything inside is reconfigured. In certain municipal buses, the original seats are not put back in, or are put in using a different setup, because the bus's interior must be modified to fit the sizable compressed natural gas tanks that will power the bus (this is limited mostly to Yangon and Mandalay, the two largest cities and where CNG filling stations are located).
The process of shuffling around the seats to accommodate the compressed gas tanks creates a supply of surplus bus seats, which may be purchased either directly from bus restoration workshops or from a middleman at a market. Here, the blue vinyl seats queued up for reupholstery were actually purchased from a market in Mandalay by this bus repair shop after they deemed the seats the bus came with to be unfit for reinstallation.
Another source of demand for such "extra" seats comes from folks such as the owner of the Liteace truck in the included picture, who, when relegating passengers to the rear of the truck wants to appoint them in comfort and style. This adapted seating solution is far kinder to rear passengers than the usual standard, which consists of throwing a plastic or straw mat into the bed of the truck and hoping your passengers have enough upper-body strength to hang on for dear life when going around corners.
What opportunities exist here? Is there a need for more custom-designed, bespoke "aftermarket seating packages" to fit in the back of these Toyota Liteaces? Will we see the emergence of more theme packages such as those seen in the interior of many conventional passenger cars in Myanmar featuring doilies, soccer teams, and/or anime characters, only weatherproofed for rear truck seats? Which kind/brand of bus seat is best at accommodating passengers, being retrofitted to the rear bed, etc.?
As regulations change and purchasing a vehicle becomes more simple and affordable for the masses in Myanmar, which enterprise will recognize this opportunity first and extend into this potentially large market - aluminum crafters who already excel at pre-designed packages for the rear bed of Liteaces (Apex Company has taken care of the bed cover for this truck - note the front of the rear bed cover acting as a roof), or the bus retrofitters, who already have experience installing/uninstalling seats and can extend that knowledge to smaller trucks without much additional effort?
On this fruit cart, a naked bulb that was previously exposed to Thailand's frequent monsoon season rains is now shielded using the elements that form an order of take-out fruit: a styrofoam "clamshell" container and wooden skewers used for eating said fruit.
Besser kann man alte Computer-Kompenenten vermutlich nicht recyclen: die britische Künstlerin Susan Stockwell hat diese riesige Weltkarte aus alten Motherboards, Verkabelung, Ventilatoren, Platinen und Whatnots für die University of Bedfordshire zusammengebastelt. 2010 hat sie mit dem Sammeln begonnen und ist jetzt gerade fertig geworden. Papier kann sie übrigens auch.
“UK-based artist Susan Stockwell recently completed this gigantic world map made from recycled computer components for the University of Bedfordshire.”
Another “killer app” might be Africa’s embrace of post-consumption economics, where items are reused and recycled in a myriad of new ways. The classic example is the popular akala sandal, made from recycled motor vehicle tires. The inaugural issue of Makeshift magazine has several features on how this recycling-intensive re-culture actually drives economic growth, while leading to consumption patterns that are more sustainable over the long run. This type of economy relies on the scrap pickers at the bottom of the economic pyramid, who are willing to transform the smallest items of waste into economic value, meaning that small pieces of plastic can be transformed into shoulder bags, clothing or other items with economic value.
Five years ago, Ntege was a plastic waste collector. He would walk for about 10 hours a day combing through garbage skips in search of all kinds of plastics including used mineral water bottles, jerrycans, basins, cups and plates.
“I started as a plastic waste collector. We would earn about sh200 per kilogramme of waste collected but the people we were collecting the plastics for were making a lot of money. I also decided to become a boss,” Ntege says.
A boss, in this case, employs other people to bring him plastics, which he sells to other industries. If his smile is anything to go by, Ntege’s life has changed for the better.
Ntege cannot tell the number of people he currently employs because he encounters different collectors daily. “The biggest number of the collectors is from the streets. In a day, they earn enough to feed them and actually others have moved on to become bosses like me.
People are fast realising that there is a lot of money in collecting plastic waste, so everyone is joining the trade,” he says. Ntege sells his collection to Plastic Recycling Industries (PRI), in Nakawa.
At the industry, he is paid between sh500-sh900 per kilogramme of plastic waste. He collects about 10 tonnes per month. At the end of the month, Ntege says he makes over sh1m because he is still at a small scale.
Upper scale plastic traders make about sh4m per week with a collection of about 15-20 tonnes per month. PRI recycles the plastic waste into flake, which is used as raw material in the manufacture of plastics.
“PET is produced for export to Asia and Europe and HDPE is locally consumed by companies like Nice House of Plastics,” Mariam Namakula, the PRI production manager, said.
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the type of plastic labelLed with the #1 code on or near the bottom of bottles and containers.
It is commonly used to package soft drinks, water, juice and some foods.In China, recycled PET from PRI can be used to make new products, including carpets, fabric for T-shirts, athletic shoes, sleeping bags, winter coats and new PET containers.
PRI employs about 33 permanent staff and 64 casuals. However, the company employs over 2,000 Ugandans indirectly. The World Bank estimates that 1% of the urban population in developing countries earns a living through this work.
Every year, 20 million pounds of the discarded holiday lights make their way to Shijao
Factory workers stand over bundles of Christmas tree lights to be recycled / Adam Minter
European Environmental Agency Report full article
The report finds that revenues from recycling are substantial and growing fast. From 2004 to 2008 the turnover of seven main categories of recyclables almost doubled to more than 60 billion Euros in the EU.
However, due to the reduced demand for raw materials and a decline in commodity prices during the economic downturn the turnover of recycling declined sharply at the end of 2008 and in the first half of 2009. According to the EEA this seems to have recovered somewhat since then.
The report said that the booming economies in Asia are driving increasing demand for recyclables and pushing up the price of materials.
Another driver identified by the report is the EU waste directives, which have obligations to recycle or recover increasing percentages of waste, and discourage landfilling. As a consequence, the amount of recyclables sorted and placed on the market has increased 15% between 2004 and 2009.
Furthermore, the EEA claimed that more jobs at higher income levels are created by recycling than compared to landfilling or incinerating waste.
The overall employment related to the recycling of materials in European countries has increased steadily from 422 per million inhabitants in 2000 to 611 in 2007. This represents an increase of 45 % between 2000 and 2007, corresponding to an annual increase of 7 %.
According to the report's authors, recycling can meet a large proportion of the economy's resources demand, alleviating pressure on ecosystems to provide resources and assimilate waste. Recycling already meets substantial proportions of demand for some resource groups, notably paper and cardboard, and iron and steel.
However, the EEA added that even maximum recycling could not cover all EU demand for resources. Increased recycling can improve 'resource security', but economic growth driven by ever increasing material consumption cannot be sustained, as it requires an infinite volume of resources.
