India generates more than 1,50,000 metric tons of trash every day — that’s equal to nearly 20 football fields covered in stinky, squishy garbage! Unless this garbage is properly managed and disposed of, we’ll all find ourselves sinking in it. So, it’s not surprising that many children’s books gently prod young readers in India to reflect on their choices and habits, and make small and big changes to contain the ever-growing mountains of waste.

Portraits of Waste

Garbage is one of the most visible forms of environmental degradation and several books paint vivid portraits of this. Gigantic piles of discarded plastic turn into a monster in Aithihya Ashok Kumar​’s wordless picture book Plasto. In A Cloud of Trash, Karanjeet Kaur and Bhavana Vyas Vipparthi introduce readers to Cheeko — the unhappiest girl in the world — with all kinds of waste literally hanging over her head. A cow groans in pain after swallowing plastic in Anna D and Shreya Sen​’s What did Priya Eat? and a duck meets a similar fate in Katie Pyle and Jemma Jose​’s Something’s Stuck around the Duck. In Radha Rangarajan and Rohan Dahotre​’s A Suitable Shell, a hermit crab combs through litter on a beach in search of a replacement for the orange shell it has lost. These books serve to open conversations and make readers examine the consequences of unmitigated littering. 

To keep our cities clean, municipal corporations employ a fleet of waste collectors who take away stinking, oozing piles of garbage every day without complaint or protest. There is also a large, informal army of workers, including children, employed in this trade. Many children’s books turn the spotlight on waste workers who are often labelled untouchable and shunned. CG Salamander and Samidha Gunjal’s Puu and Sagar Kolwankar​’s My Name is Gulab open a window into the world of manual scavengers and bring out the ostracism that their children face in school. In Trash! On Ragpicker Children and Recycling, Gita Wolf, Anushka Ravishankar and Orijit Sen describe the lives of ragpicker children hailing from the poorest migrant families, who are forced to scour through dustbins and landfills to find scraps to sell and feed themselves. In subtle and nuanced ways, these books highlight critical gaps in current waste disposal methods.

Finding Hope

Despite the dismal reality, stories of hope are never far behind. When communities begin to incorporate simple recycling ideas into daily routines, children feel empowered and connected to the issue of garbage. They are enthusiastic to discuss and share ideas widely and eager to do something together. Children across cities in India have initiated campaigns to clean-up beaches, parks and neighbourhoods, and such stories have been celebrated in picture books like The Miracle on Sunderbaag Street, The Miracle on Kachhua Beach and The Big Beach Clean-up.

Saving and repurposing broken, torn and discarded things is a time-tested tradition in India and several books have captured this in endearing narratives. In The Mundu Magicians, Gayathri Bashi introduces readers to little Unni’s resourceful Ammumma, who turns old mundus into everything from cradles and nappies to lamp wicks and spice bags. A similar theme appears in Niveditha Subramaniam​’s wordless picture book Ammama’s Sari. In Srividhya Venkat and Nayantara Surendranath​’s The Clever Tailor, the generous and creative Rupa Ram fashions an assortment of garments for different family members from turban cloth, while in Rijuta Ghate​’s Grandma Bubba’s Warm Shawl, a thrifty grandmother uses leftover bits of wool to make herself a colourful shawl. Meanwhile, Arvind Gupta and Debasmita Dasgupta​’s picture book What Happened to the Shawl? retells an ancient folktale on recycling. 

In the bilingual book Kabad se Jugad Little Science, Arvind Gupta generates a profusion of upcycling ideas to create fun and scientific toys from trash. A Stitch Out of Time by the French artist Anaïs Beaulieu uses images of her embroidery on throwaway plastic bags to contrast the rapid take-over of our surroundings by plastic with the slow time of creation, whether of a tree or a piece of embroidery. The similarly named, A Stitch in Time by Himadri Das and Veena Prasad meanwhile, introduces readers to repair melas and repair cafés, both cool buzzwords today. 

Perhaps the most amazing true-to-life recycling story of all is Lavanya Karthik​’s The Boy Who Built a Secret Garden — about Nek Chand, who used industrial debris and discarded waste from homes to create a stunning 40-acre rock garden in Chandigarh, a fine example of discarded waste transformed into a national treasure.

Facts and Ways Forward

Several non-fiction books, such as TERI’s Reduce Reuse Recycle and SWMRT’s Trashonomics break down trash into different components, trace its life cycle and suggest how to reprocess and manage it. Our Toxic World: A Guide to Hazardous Substances in Our Everyday Lives by Aniruddha Sen Gupta and Priya Kuriyan is an insightful, graphic examination of waste in everyday life and ways of addressing it.

A lot of the waste that ends up in landfills can easily be managed at home. Loveleen Misra and Kavita Singh Kale​’s picture book Wet or Dry uses verse to impart a lesson on waste segregation, while Sandhya Rao’s Think Eat Save reminds readers to eat responsibly, reuse leftovers and share food with others. 

Many activity books also dwell on tackling waste in everyday life. Garbage to Gardens: An Activity Booklet on Solid Waste Management for Schools by the Centre for Environment Education has several hands-on learning activities to help students understand concepts and take action. The Red and Yellow Ouch & Moo Books by Daily Dump, a waste solution company based out of Bengaluru, list activities that help children track and reduce their plastic consumption, while the Ooze books by the same organisation explain the hazards of batteries and how to safely dispose of them.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not,” says the Lorax, in Dr. Seuss’ eponymous book about environmental degradation caused largely by industrialisation. Perhaps, this is what we need to clean up the mess that we have created — caring deeply and believing that we can make a difference, however small, to allow our blue-green planet to flourish. 

Bibliography

1. Plasto (Pratham)

2. A Cloud of Trash (Pratham)

3. What did Priya Eat? (Pratham)

4. Something’s Stuck Around the Duck (Pratham)

5. A Suitable Shell (Pratham)

6. Puu (Scholastic)

7. My Name is Gulab (Tulika)

8. Trash! On Ragpicker Children and Recycling (Tara books)

9. The Miracle on Sunderbaag Street (Kalpavriksh)

10. The Miracle on Kachhua Beach (Kalpavriksh)

11. The Big Beach Clean-up (Pratham)

12. The Mundu Magicians (Pratham)

13. Ammama’s Sari (Tulika)

14. The Clever Tailor (Karadi Tales)

15. Grandma Bubba’s Warm Shawl (Jyotsna Prakashan)

16. What Happened to the Shawl? (Pratham)

17. Kabad se Jugad Little Science (Eklavya)

18. A Stitch Out of Time (Tara books)

19. A Stitch in Time (Pratham)

20. The Boy Who Built a Secret Garden (Duckbill)

21. Reduce Reuse Recycle (Teri)

22. Trashonomics (Solid Waste Management Round Table)

23. Our Toxic World: A Guide to Hazardous Substances in Our Everyday Lives (Sage)

24. Wet or Dry (Pratham)

25. Think Eat Save (Teri)

26. Garbage to Gardens: An Activity Booklet on Solid Waste Management for Schools (Centre for Environment Education)

27. The Red and Yellow Ouch & Moo Books (Daily Dump)

28. The Ooze books (Daily Dump)

29. Ammu’s Bottle Boat (Tulika)

30. Rose & Rocky Go Green (Pratham) 

31. Cheenu’s Gift (Pratham)

32. Anand (Pratham)

33. Trickster Bird (Tulika)

34. Art is Everywhere: Here, There and in Trash (Pratham)

About the author:

Being around books, children, libraries, bringing nature into classrooms, teaching English, doing craft – these are some of Yashodara​’s favourite things. She can be reached on yashodarakundaji@​gmail.​com