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Paul Colombini and Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group
Born and raised in the great state of Maryland, Paul graduated from the University of Maryland at College Park with a BA in art history and a BS in international business.
His fascination with other cultures led him to teach English abroad for several years, first in Japan and then in China, while traveling throughout Asia. During this period of his “tertiary education” Paul came to appreciate both the vast beauty of the world, as well as the depths of human poverty and environmental degradation.
Paul is currently studying for a Masters in international development at The American University in Washington, DC. This summer Paul will be working with the Chintan Environmental Research & Action Group in Delhi, India: an organization which advocates for the rights of informal waste recyclers.
Paul remembers one of his first mornings in China when an old woman approached him reaching out her wrinkled and shaking hand. It took him a moment to realize that she wanted his nearly-empty orange juice bottle. From that time on he became fascinated with the daily, unseen work of waste-recyclers: people in developing countries who make their living by picking through trash and selling recyclable bits.
In India, as in China, poverty assures that virtually every piece of reusable refuse is collected and sold, and as a result recycling is much more efficient than in the United States. However, in an ironic twist of globalization, the same economic development which is pulling people out of poverty is hampering this efficient system and threatening the livelihoods of poor waste recyclers.
New laws in Delhi seek to illegalize waste-picking activities, which are seen as “backward” and “unseemly” but which are in fact vital to solid waste management. This summer, Paul hopes to help Delhi’s waste recyclers advocate for their legal rights by creating “A Site of Their Own”: a website on which recyclers can tell their own stories.
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