One of the things I’ve really noticed is the use of natural materials. All of the building sites have bamboo scaffolding and it is used by the painters in our office building as a ladder (photo top right). The men happily posed for me for this photo.
When I buy fruit they are placed in a paper bag that has been made by gluing or stapling together sheets of printed paper (photo bottom right). The sheets may be from a report or a letter or a bill – I’m not sure what the privacy implications are and if people are careful about shredding things that they do not want someone else to receive as bag. Or maybe not many people are curious enough to look at what is on the paper in their bag? I find this approach of re-using rather than re-cycling interesting.
The other two photos show the view from our office block – bales of paper and shredded paper are being sorted. I haven’t been able to find out if they make the bags here. The Bangladeshi in our office seem bemused at my interest in this paper sorting venture we can see from the window.
Plastic bags are not allowed. Some shops provide muslin bags which last for several trips or bags made from plastic netting. Jute bags are also widespread as jute is grown in Bangladeshi –indeed it is one of the major exports and the local economy is benefitting from the current interest in jute shopping bags across developed countries. Jute is also used to wrap large packages, instead of cardboard.
Its these little everyday details of life that fascinate me when I visit other countries – which makes sense of the things I document in my own life too.
7 comments:
This is indeed fascinating. I thought it was very sad here when Health & Safety stopped our chip shops from serving chips in what we called a "poke" of old newspaper
You are right Helena..it's things like these snippets that makes other countries so interesting to me!
Alison xx
Love the idea of those bags - I bet they could be sold at an etsy shop!!! LOL!
And the bamboo scaffolding is scary interesting.
Rinda
That's awesome that they don't use plastic bags! I wish they would discontinue them in the US!
Doug has a sturdy scaffold system he uses when he paints tall things and I always worry about him being up so high. The bamboo scaffolding made me laugh, thinking about how much I would worry if that's what he used!
That is really interesting about the bags. They'd be screaming about privacy concerns here in the US no doubt but when I think of all the useless paper memos that went around our office that went straight into the trash because we all got the email about it already, I think making bags out of them would have been a wonderful way of dealing with them.
Oh my, you wouldn't catch me near that scaffolding...Your glimpses of Bangladesh are just so interesting Helena.
Wonderful to find out these interesting details from another country - I so enjoy your posts and your observant eye!
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