Kevin lives in America but he is no different from most Indian nine-year-olds who do their arithmetic homework before dinner. One evening in February he worked diligently on the ratio of birds to worms and gave it the next day to his teacher, who was pleased that he had begun to grasp fractions. That evening Kevin showed his homework to his parents, who taped it on the fridge. On Saturday Kevin's mother casually threw the homework into the paper section of the family garbage, from where it was picked up and taken to Clifton, New Jersey's recycling centre.
The following day a truck belonging to Zozzaro Brothers Inc took it to its plant, where it was made into a 700-kilo rectangular jumble by a paper baler, bound by steel wire, and loaded into a container. A week later they sold Kevin's homework to Yao Yang Enterprises in California, who in turn sold it to Hangzhou Jinjiang Paper Co in Linan, a Chinese town about 100 miles northwest of Ningbo.
Linan is small by Chinese standards. The paper mill is located in the town's centre and its prosperity is based on getting cheap waste paper from America. There Kevin's homework was cut into fine pieces by a machine, its ink removed, added to a slurry that broke its original fibres, dried and made into newsprint and sold to a Chinese newspaper.
This quintessential story of globalisation was recounted recently by Jon Hilsenrath of the Wall Street Journal, and it ought to inspire India's entrepreneurs and policymakers. Last year China sold goods worth $125 billion worth to America, but it bought only $22 billion, and given this imbalance, American policymakers are delighted that waste has become
America's third largest export item to China, after airplanes and semi-conductors. ''We are the Saudi Arabia of scrap,'' says the research director of America's Scrap Recycling industries.
Some of America's waste is recycled and stays on in China, but most of it makes a round trip - it is reconverted into toys, stationary, electronics - that are sold in American stores.
This story shows how the global economy is creating masses of jobs in both China and America. More Americans are now collecting waste paper than in paper manufacturing or in newspaper publishing. By law Americans are required to recycle certain varieties of paper and it now recovers 50 per cent of its waste, thanks to the environmental movement.
Fortunately Indians abhor waste, but this story should teach us the value of separating paper from other trash at home. There is also a huge entrepreneurial opportunity in organised paper collection in India. We do have our kabariwalla, but there are so many layers in the trade channel that a paper mill ends up paying Rs 7 versus the Rs 4 per kilo that I earn from my kabariwalla. Hence, Ballarpur, Rama Newsprint and our other paper mills prefer to import waste paper from America. But unlike the Chinese, our mills are stuck with old technology and convert waste paper inefficiently. If our entrepreneurs with the latest technology could convert 10 per cent of America's waste (China does 23 per cent), it would fuel a small revolution. The government can help them with a more rational duty structure. Today, our newspapers import fresh newsprint at 5 per cent duty, but paper mills have to pay 9.2 per cent for importing waste paper. Both ought to pay the same, 5 per cent.
When Jon Hilsenrath told Kevin about his homework's complicated journey, the nine year old replied, ''That's pretty cool,'' and he showed the reporter his favourite toy, a Nintendo Gameboy, which was made in China.