The three terms used to address waste are reduce, reuse, and recycle. Reducing is cutting back on the amount of waste, reusing is finding a new way to use waste material, and recycling is using waste material to remake new goods that can be sold or used again.
Published in Chapter:
Circular Economy for India: Perspectives on Stewardship Principles, Waste Management, and Energy Generation
Saravan Krishnamurthy (Symbiosis International University (Deemed), India), Geoffrey Fudurich (Ryerson University, Canada), and Prakash Rao (Symbiosis International University (Deemed), India)
Copyright: © 2019
|Pages: 27
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-8482-7.ch015
Abstract
The stewardship of resources for the good of the people is an ancient concept in India, practiced by revered kingdoms. This chapter discusses the original ideals of stewardship and how colonization caused a deterioration of this philosophy in favor of materialistic wealth generation. Colonization followed by the development of an industrialized and capitalistic leaning in the economy brought wealth and increased consumption for Indian people and also created multiple waste-related issues. These issues require a drastic overhaul of waste management practices, with particular attention to industrial ecology. Modern stewardship by India's CSR community is essential to prevent further environmental degradation due to poor waste management practices. The circular economy holds promise as a new economic system and philosophy that can refocus society towards the values of stewardship espoused by the nation's ancestors, while transitioning to a circular economy.