Clothes are sorted by colour before being spun into yarn, a step that makes the bleaching process easier, at a recycling factory in Panipat, India.
Clothes are sorted by colour before being spun into yarn, a step that makes the bleaching process easier, at a recycling factory in Panipat, India.
© Anuj Behal. Used by permission.
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Borthakur, Anwesha. “Recycling Cultures in India: Studying Electronic and Textile Waste.” Springs: The Rachel Carson Center Review, no. 9 (February 2026). https://doi.org/10.5282/rcc-springs-20093.
At our home in Delhi’s National Capital Region (NCR) in India, I often wake up in the morning to the calls of street vendors. Many of them are experts in fixing small household items—be it a pressure cooker that needs a quick repair or a kitchen knife that requires a swift sharpening. Their calls are one of the few things in Delhi that remind me of my childhood in Assam, a state in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas. The cries of the scrap dealers, locally known as kawadiwalas, in the mornings in an otherwise quiet neighbourhood of the small town of Tinsukia are still distinct in my memory: “Tina, loha, plastic,” they were shouting, asking for recyclable waste such as old newspapers, plastic, or metals. (From the article)
This article was originally published in Springs: The Rachel Carson Center Review. Springs is an online publication featuring peer-reviewed articles, creative nonfiction, and artistic contributions that showcase the work of the Rachel Carson Center and its community across the world.
2026 Anwesha Borthakur
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