Page 49 - IMDR JOURNAL- 2022
P. 49
productivity growth. As a result, modern industrial cultures believed they could continue to despoil nature
indefinitely. In creating throwaway commodities at scale, industrialised economies overlooked the
significance of maintaining and recycling. A "throw-away culture" has instead arisen in which people don't
know where their products come from or where they go once they've been thrown away.
As a global economy, we have steadily grown created capital for the items we make. On the other hand,
human capital has hardly increased in value, while biodiversity, a measure of natural capital, has decreased.
So, we've 'progressed' at the price of nature. Our metrics of development, like GDP, don't account for these
sources of wealth. This product isn't valued; the environmental impact of manufacturing a vehicle or
computer isn't taken into account when determining its worth. Our measurements, in reality, represent the
disruption from an earlier age where we'd instinctively recognise the importance of these things.
Current industrial operations rely on a linear system where we extract natural resources to build goods, sell,
utilise and trash these. Nonbiodegradable versions of these goods wind up in ecosystems... And, in
generating and discarding more, we produce by-products like carbon dioxide and methane, which further
damage natural capital.
A circular economy gets away from this trend – this approach lowers the use of non-renewable resources,
reuses items as far as feasible, and recycles or upcycles. I've researched intriguing cases. An organisation in
Bengaluru collects garments and plastic products dumped by consumers. Instead of letting them choke up
ecosystems, expert producers (here, rural craftswomen) upcycle these, converting discarded plastic, metal,
or denim into household
decorations which are sold online. In a circular economy, materials that would otherwise be thrown away yet
have value are repurposed by combining them creatively.
The practise of recycling glass jars and bottles was widespread in Indian households as well. The
biodegradation of glass is extremely slow. Such reuse seems to be fueled by a shared understanding.
Someone might buy jam or pickle in a glass bottle, and for many years, the container would be reused in a
home, keeping tea leaves or lentils or even growing plants.
This idea may now be put into practice on a large scale. If a firm were to think of itself as a family, its problem
would be how to collect bottles from millions of families. Significantly, India already has a massive army of
workers who recover bottles, tins, paper, and jars bring these to a wholesaler who sells these to a supplier
who provides these back to the corporation where these may be recreated. Even today, in Indian
communities, traders come about on bicycles, begging for old papers or used utensils to put them into the
recycling industry. These procedures remain on the outskirts of the established economic system, but they
should be codified made more efficient, and these employees should receive considerably better respect and
recompense.
The Government has been aggressively establishing policies and pushing programmes to bring the country
towards a circular economy. Different standards, such as those governing the management of plastic waste
and electronic waste and construction and demolition waste as well as the recycling of metals, have
previously been published by the organisation.
While rising manufacturing and shifting consumption habits will provide more jobs and raise per capita
income, the impacts of such higher output on the environment must also be adequately managed and
minimised. A 'Take-Make-Dispose' linear economic model will confine India's manufacturing sector and the
country's economy, given that the country has just 2% of the world's landmass and 4% of its freshwater
resources. Consequently, recognize and revolutionize the industrial process's material flow and move
towards a circular economy's multiple economic and ecological advantages. Circular economy offers
economic growth
Most advanced economies have not measured everything that goes into growth. Natural capital being
44