Paaa - perrr

This is the call we hear every weekend morning: "paaaa-peeerrr." Curious, we'd go to our kitchen window and look out, but all we'd see is a guy on a bicycle calling, "paaa-peerrr." Finally, after we started ordering a daily delivery of newspaper, Sarwary clued us in.

Apparently, this guy is calling, "paper." And what he does is go house to house collecting mostly newspaper - but also some other kinds of paper - for recycling. William enjoys the "Paper Man" immensely. He hears the call from a few blocks away and runs into the kitchen asking for someone to put him on the counter so he can "see Paper Man."

Here's how it works at our house: once we have a sufficient stack of old newspapers, Sarwary tells the security guards. Then, when the Paper Man comes by on his bicycle, the security guards send him up to our apartment. He brings up an old fashioned scale (think: weight on one plate, another plate for the papers) with a 1kg weight. Negotiations start - each kg is weighed out (Sarwary makes sure he doesn't put too much on and under compensate us). If the remaining paper doesn't come to a kg, they negotiate further - and once Sarwary kept the partial kg of paper for the next visit because she didn't think he was being fair. From what I can tell, cardboard boxes and white paper are also accepted by the Paper Man.

Compensation ranges from 3 - 5 Rs/kg. Between our newspaper and the occasional cardboard box, we probably get about 25 Rs/month. Not a lot (about what we spend on vegetables for one dinner), but newspaper delivery is only about 90 Rs/month, so paper is obviously pretty cheap. And, given the amount of garbage lying around in different parts of the city, I'm happy to see some of my waste be reused!