Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

If you are worried about the piles of waste that rot on our roads, about the corporation that you think doesn't know its job; about corrupt politicians who you think swindle public money, about the whole system that in your opinion, doesn't work, and if you think your job ends there, please skip the rest.

On the other hand, if you want to do something about it, here are a few shockingly simple things you can do, which can go a long way.

Reduce - Reduce the use of materials that can end up as difficult-to-manage waste

1. Avoid takeaway food as much as you can, if you do, do it from a place where as little plastic is used for packaging as possible.
   
2. Buy cotton clothes instead of synthetic/semi-synthetic clothes
3. While shopping, buy stuff with as less plastic packaging as possible.
4. Again, while going shopping, take your own shopping bag along.
   
5. Never, never waste food.
6. While arranging parties - go for paper/ceramic cups, plates. Never go for plastic or other synthetic stuff.
7. When going on a trip, carry your own water bottle (plastic or otherwise). Take a look near our railway tracks and you'll know why I say this.
   
8. When buying soft drinks, buy them in cans instead of plastic bottles.
   

Reuse - Reuse whatever is reusable. You'll be surprised how little we normally do this.

1. Re-use plastic bags, do not just throw them away after a single use. Wear them out by use.
   
2. Reuse one-sided paper for your rough scribblings
3. Use fountain pens instead of ball-pens. If you do use them, make sure you get them refilled - do not just throw away used pens.
4. Give away your old usable clothes to charity
5. Sell away unusable clothes, glass, paper to recycling shops

Recycle - when you can't re-use, make sure you recycle

1. Disposing plastic should be your last option, and when you do, make sure you dispose it properly, understand where it’s going, make sure it gets recycled if it is recyclable. The fundamental thing here is segregation of plastic.
   
2. Segregate the degradable from non-degradable waste at source. Do not just dump all your waste on the people who come to collect them - remember they are also people like us who would not really enjoy digging through someone else's garbage.
   
3. If you have the space, dispose organic waste in your own yard in a compost – rather than burdening the corporation/municipality services. Actually it doesn't take that much space;here's a good link on how you can go about composting.
   
4. If you live in a flat, talk to your association to get a compost unit built.
   

(I'll keep adding to this list as I think of more:))

Ask! and Ye Shall Learn

Here's a theory: The best way to learn anything complex is to ask the right questions and find their answers. It is not by learning the answers first, without understanding the question (which is of course how me mostly try to learn - we pick up a book and read).
The problem has be comprehended before coming to the solution.
The art of learning then, is in fact the art of finding the right questions to ask.

The most correct question to ask at any point of your learning, is probably always the most fundamental one. You need to search out for yourself and attack the most fundamental aspect of the problem that you do not understand, and find the answer. And then, apply the process recursively. Theoretically by the end of it, you would have found answers to all questions that were there to be asked.

I am not venturing to try and prove this logically (I tried and found it too boring to do:)).

The Power of Now - A book review

This is more of a recommendation than a review. And I haven't read the whole book yet, being the slow and erratic reader that I am:)

The fundamental message of the book is quite simple, and counter intuitive. It's that the root of all worries and sufferings is in the way our mind operates - in that it dwells too much in the past and the future, and very little in the present.

Now, we have heard that before, but what sets this work apart is the solution that it suggests.

It is - to stop thinking (yes literally) and you will see that your focus automatically shifts to the present. In the book, Eckhart Tolle argues that the present is all you have - the past and future being mere illusions. And that to operate in the present, you don't need to think. You just need to "be".

To actually stop thinking, might seem like an extreme thing to do. And I haven't succeeded in doing that, though I've succeeded to see a lot of logic in the theory - if you watch your mind, there is indeed a lot of unnecessary activity that does nothing but wastes your processor cycles:)

Anyway, I suggest you read the book yourself before you judge; so pick up the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle the next time you visit a book shop, it could change the way you use your mind, in a very positive way.

Queue etiquette and us

Every time somebody jumps the queue in front of me here, I am forced to think, why only here? why doesn't this happen in the US or the UK, as much as it does here? Are people more ill mannered here? Do they lack basic courtesy?

Many of you would have tried reacting to the queue jumpers by telling them that they are supposed to wait. And you'd also have noticed that some people are quick to apologize and fall back, but some react indignantly as if you have encroached on one of their fundamental rights.

But, what exactly is the root-cause of this behavior? Believe me, it's not that people who jump queues have fundamental flaws in their character. I know people who are perfectly considerate of others in most situations, but then, react differently when put in a queue situation. I've had such people reproach me for waiting my turn, when others behind me were eagerly jumping the queue.

So, what exactly is the psychology behind this? I think it has a lot to do with conditioning. People are conditioned to think that if you don't fight for what you want, even if it means using unfair means, you won't get what you want. And every time someone succeeds in getting his way in such manner, the belief simply gets reinforced.

So, the next time you see someone jumping the queue, tell them politely that you are waiting ahead of him/her in the queue - this I'm sure most of us try to do.

But more importantly, next time you see someone jump the queue, talk to the person serving the queue; because if they serve someone who just jumped the queue ahead of someone else, they have just reinforced the belief that made him/her jump the queue in the first place.

Does excess breed inefficiency?

Does excess breed inefficiency? If so, does scarcity breed efficiency?

The optimal state for a system is the state where the system produces the expected output without any wastage of resources. In engineering terms, the state of 100% efficiency.

Now, the estimation of the right amount of resource to allocate is a challenge with most systems. Particularly when you are dealing with systems that involve people. Practically, there are two ways of arriving at the optimal state when you are dealing with such systems where accurate estimation is not possible.
Route 1: You over-allocate a resource and gradually reduce the supply till you reach the optimum.
Route 2: You under-allocate and gradually increase the supply of the resource till you reach the optimum.

Which is the better way?
I feel, the latter holds more promise.

Here's why I think so:
Do we tend to use a resource irresponsibly/inefficiently when there is too much of it to use? Looking at a few daily-life observations, I must think, the the answer is yes - if I have a hundred rupees in my pocket when I am waiting for the bus on a normal day, I wouldn't think twice about calling for an autorikshaw. If I have just ten, I'd rather wait for the next bus. If there is no shortage of electricity, I'll probably not bother to switch of the fan when I walk out of a room for five minutes. If there is abundance of water supply, I may tend to be careless about it.
And, here's a really interesting observation I made while staying abroad, an average household in USA or UK seems to generate more waste in a day than an average household in India... why? one main reason I felt is that these countries have a much better waste management system (in other words, a surplus of waste management capacity) which people tend to over-use. The real reason behind all this may be subject of a deeper study - may be it's economics, maybe it's just human nature.

Okay, now if all that is true, then the converse must be true also. If the supply of a resource is restricted (naturally or artificially), then the efficiency of its use has to increase (bringing it closer to 100%). If so, this would be the easiest way to increase efficiency of any system where people are involved.

Applying the theory to time management - you should be able to get more done in your day if you restrict the time you allocate yourself for each of your tasks.

Applying to project management - you should be able to get more productivity out of your team, if you restrict the number of people in it.

Applying to waste management - restrict waste disposal systems, and you get a much cleaner (pun intended) waste management system. In fact this is something I've seen being tried out in parts of London - to my surprise I found no trash bins in sight after getting down at Liverpool Street, and had to dump my coffee cup in my laptop bag:). By the looks of it the ploy seemed to be working.

To summarize, I feel the better way to get a people-system closer to 100% efficiency is by under-allocating and then scaling up. (But of course there are situations where this may be too risky to do)

Comments welcome; author not responsible for any unwelcome consequences of applied theory:)

George Bush, food crisis and the Indian middle class

Let me start with the news item that really pushed me into starting this blog - "George Bush blames it on the Indian middle class".

I was watching the news yesterday on a Malayalam Channel (Manorama), and interestingly, the exact words that came out George Bush's mouth were not played out. What the listeners were subjected to was the interpretation of what he said. And then reactions based on that interpretation. I had to wait to see today's newspaper (Hindu) to know actually what he said. While at the same time, many local dailies cried out indignant headlines on their front pages.

Let's look at exactly what George Bush said: http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/may/03food.htm

If you think about it, what Bush said does sound logical. Now, I am not saying it is completely correct. Macro-economics is a wild beast, there are more theories on its behavior than there are laws, so anything anybody says needs to be taken with that in mind. Most of the time, the best we get would be a theory that sounds logical.

I am no economist, but from what little economics I know, what Bush said is one such theory that makes logical sense. When demand increases, and supply does not increase proportionally, prices will increase. Whether demand for food has actually increased in India, and whether supply has failed to keep up, I do not know for sure, hopefully somebody will sooner or later come up with the numbers. But it is logical to assume it has, after all we have one of the fastest growing economies in Asia, and the fastest growing population in the world.

Of course, there are factors which George Bush has intentionally downplayed - like the bio-fuel angle; which may make his statement partially wrong. If you look up the wikipedia entry for world food crisis, there are ten factors listed, and "Impact of food for fuel" and "Change in global diet" are the first two. The fact is that no one knows for sure. There is no single reason, but there are many, behind the crisis we are facing now.

The point behind all I've written: there is no reason for Indian politicians and media to have reacted the way they have. They probably have their reasons.
If people are saying that we in India are eating better than we used to a year back, then we should be proud of the progress that we have made.

Comments welcome.