June 30th, 2008
I walk into the kitchen this morning to find these milk covers stuck on the walls. Questions popped up in my head. What the hell are they doing on the wall? What are the covers glued with?
I preen a little closer to inspect. I peel out one cover to find what’s holding it. It’s water! Yup, the wet cover sticks to the white tile just like Post-It notes.
As to what they doing on the wall, I gave up guessing and asked my wife. It’s a simple drying technique, she tells me. Notice the picture carefully and you’ll see that the snipped corners are facing down to let the water drain out.
“Why dry?”, you ask. Because wet covers are a haven for fungus and foul smell. So, why not simply discard them? Because those empty covers make some money. The ‘old newspaper wallah’ pick them for Rs.5 per 100 covers. At an average of 5 covers a day, that’s 150 covers a month at a Rs.7.50 valuation! The trouble that folks go through for this!!
The economics of kitchen never ceases to amaze me! I’ll file this under ‘It happens only in India”.
14 Responses to “The Economics of Milk Covers”
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I am proud and happy that It happens only in India. Rather than discarding them in the garbage to add woes to plastic pollution, Indian homemakes, sell it off to recycle. Its not the economic value, but the ecologic value that makes me proud and happy
lol… been seeing this happen at my place since the last 30 years… and am sure my parents must be doing it long before that too
Amazing.. Eco friendly and paisa vasool
ohhh gud income
.. but there s a problem ! what if the same cover is used again for refilling milk ? Will that be hygienic? I remember one old sun news story stating this covers are used again with out any recycling !
Good idea
The same cover cannot be used for refilling the milk.
In the machine it is one sheet that gets folded and then heated to get this cover.
So don’t worry
The refilling is being done in
1. Water Bottles
and
(sic)
Injection Syringes and
worse still
Injection Needles
Not all human actions have economically rational explanations, i guess!! There is probably rational explanations of different kind like:
1. Environmental consciousness.
2. Feeling proud of inventing the technique to glue the covers to wall is one.
3. Some repetitive tasks we do in the day make us happy; this might probably be one.
-Mahesh
Celebrating Life…
Well, Kribs, it is bacteria that grows in the milk residue to make it smell bad, not fungus.
More importantly, it is not only in India that thoughtful people recycle container waste, rather than simply throwing it into their landfills. This, of course, represents “doing right” at the back-end of the decision process. If only people would judge every product purchase, in part, based on how much single-use garbage the packaging creates, we would be better-off still.
Finally, the only reason there is any substantial recycling in India, your wife’s thoughtfulness notwithstanding, is only because of “The trouble that folks go through for this!!” Not all folks, actually; mostly the poorest of folks, ragpickers, who are eeking out a survival doing the work the rest of society is too proud, lazy, or careless to do for themselves. They go to “the trouble” not, as you should, because of the magical power of the individual to make the world a better place for themselves and others, one less piece of garbage-in-the-street at a time; they do it because they have not yet been able to parlay their blog, tech savvy, and winning personalities into a life of affluence.
Look, there is nothing wrong with a life of wealth and comfort. But the mantle of affluence doesn’t wear well with gee-whiz exclamations of surprise at the open and obvious struggle of those at the other end of the economic ladder.
Cheers,
MBJ
p.s. Good for your wife!
p.p.s. The abjectly idiotic comments about refilling the bags with milk for resale shows just how willfully ignorant people (and I dare say, Indians in particular) are about the waste-stream they generate.
Kribs Macha – Thank god we still have people like your wife da. i am sure the money is not really the driver for her here. Making the world a better place to live in by recycling the non biodegradable plastic bags is a much bigger achievement here. We have inherited the world from our parents and are borrowing it from our children as well, and here is an example of how we can give a little bit of it back to them.
It has been an age old method of drying the milk covers. Generally, these dried milk covers come handy while travelling to keep the wet items. Once it becomes old, then it can be sold out, for recycling.
The paisa is not the main concern !!
Eco friendliness is the main funda behind this.
Hats off to All Home makers for doing this.
Cheers !!1
hahaha.. this is a site that welcomes me every morning in our kitchen too.. granpa has this habit, and states the same reason that your wife did~~~
my mom too saved those covers once but because of those there were many cockroaches begin to come and also now a days news paper walla r not taking these covers.