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Mezze is widely served in the Greek and Middle eastern world. An assortment of little dishes and tasters which accompany a nice ouzo or a glass of wine. So when you read mezze moments you will have tasty snippets of life as I live it, India for four years and now Brisbane Australia, all served up with some Greek fervour and passion.

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Wednesday 1 September 2010

The Joy of Rubbish

Today is the 1st of September and I am a very happy woman. We have been here for over a year and one thing that has always upset me is that there is no "organised " rubbish collection here, well not as we know it. There are rag pickers, and others who recycle bottles and paper so there is a lot that does get recycled.Here are some boys sorting through the rubbish.
 However the sad reality is that cans, plastic, wrapping, I put all this VERY reluctantly into my bin and I know for a whole year now it has gone into a hole in the ground around the back of the house and intermittently burnt. Just that nagging feeling of OH dear this is not really what I want to do but what is the answer ?

Well let me introduce Balram.( aka Bhart Lal 9873537074) Now all of you who have read "WHITE TIGER" will know this character. Chubby, humble, but sharp as a whistle and looking to make more out of nothing Gottit??Balram appeared at my door the other day and for the grand amount of 500 rupees per month (less than £10) he will take away the rubbish into government landfills and hopefully recycle even further. I feel elated and jubilant at this small step in my household organisation which also coincides with the organisation of my edible waste which is now going to be composted for the vegetable garden courtesy of the lovely terra cotta containers of the Daily Dump which I blogged about some time ago.


This is progress and I never thought rubbish could give such joy.

5 comments:

  1. But please don't pass on your old medicine bottles or imported alcohol bottles. They often get used for counterfeit medicines and bootleg alcohol and could cost someone their life. Break them and discard.

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  2. Thank you for passing on this little piece of information. Actually we are a minimum medicine family and if we do use anything it is in the form of pills in blister packs.Bottles get recycled but I am afraid I have little control over how they get used. However good to know and thanks for commenting. Much appreciated.
    Kind regards MM

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  3. Interesting about the alcohol bottles. Is there a use for pieces of broken glass? I see people daily in the market behind our home sorting the glass bottles and beer cans ... is there some place to take the glass?

    Good find on Balram!

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  4. Will ask but dont know really - it being India I would say yes there is a use for everything - we just need to track it down. xx mm

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  5. Almost in confirmation of what I said earlier, here is a Washington Post article on the counterfeit medicines "industry" in India.
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/10/AR2010091003435.html
    It probably won't affect wealthy urbanites and well-connected expats but it has life-threatening implications for the poor who think they are getting the "real medicine". By the way that first anon was me.

    Sharmishtha

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