Solid waste Mgt

1. Waste Management Practices
And Policy In India
From A Gender Perspective
Almitra H Patel
Member, Supreme Court Committee
for Solid Waste Management in
Class 1 Cities in India

2. 2
Women and Waste are inseparable
Women generate most of the kitchen wastes
and dispose of waste from homes.
Women bear the brunt of waste-related
illnesses
* caring for sick family members
• helping children who miss school
• managing with less if wage-earners are sick

3. 3
Women benefit most from
hygienic waste-management
India’s present waste-management policy
evolved over six years, in the following steps:
Sept ‘94 : The “plague” in Surat city.
Oct ‘94 : First Clean India Campaign of Capt
Velu by road to 30 cities in 30 days
July ’95 : Second Clean India Campaign to
60 more cities, all open-dumping
Dec ‘96 : Filed PIL # WP 888/96 in Supreme
Court of India against every State
Jan ‘98: Court appoints 8-member Committee

4. 4
Building Consensus
June’98: Interim Report: 400 city mgrs’
feedback
Mar ’99: Final Report, approved by all
States
Sept ’99: Draft MSW Rules from Ministry
of Environment
Sept ‘00: Municipal Solid Waste
(Management & Handling) Rules 2000

5. 5
Words to Remember
“Clean Up and Flourish or Pile Up and Perish”
“A city is only as clean as its dirtiest areas”
“The best way to keep streets clean
is not to dirty them in the first place.
Aim for cities without street bins.”
“Handle waste once only”

6. 6
Municipal Solid Waste Handling
Guidelines
Source-separation of “dry” & “wet” waste
Handle waste once only, in 4-6-bin carts
Doorstep collection of “wet” waste, for
Composting bio-degradables as first option
Recyclables left to the informal sector
Landfilling only compost rejects & inerts.

7. 7
The Rules also…
• Direct cities to “promote recycling or
reuse of segregated materials” and
“ensure community participation in
waste segregation”.
• Recoverable resources are to be
recycled via the existing informal sector.

8. 8
Third World Countries
are resource-conserving and frugal.
• We sell newspapers, bottles and tins to
doorstep waste-buyers and re-use a lot,
discarding little.
• We generate only 50-100 gms of non-
biodegradable waste per capita per day.
• Sadly, this small ecological footprint is seen
as “backward” or under-developed.

9. 9
In India
• In 35 cities of over 1-million population, “dry”
waste levels are approaching Western levels
of over 1kg per capita per day.
• Waste-picking at street bins and dumps
already supports 0.5% of large cities’
populations.
• Women (and children) form a large
percentage of the waste-pickers.

10. 10
Waste Separation at Source
• Source-separation will make cleaner
streams of ‘dry’ waste available for
recycling or re-use.
• There will be less injuries to waste-
pickers.
• Health hazards will be reduced.

11. 11
Bio-Medical Hazards
• In India we already have Bio-Medical
Waste (Management & Handling)
Rules 1998 to keep such waste out
of domestic waste.
• Such rules must be promptly and
scrupulously implemented.

12. 12
Some Best Practices
• Calcutta: 80% house-to-house collection
using regular Municipal staff and usual
wheelbarrows
• Many cities: Private groups are doing
doorstep collection on payment
• Everywhere: SLUMS are the most
cooperative. 419 slums in Mumbai have
Take-away-bin system

13. 13
Best Practices….
* Ahmedabad: 4 or 6-bin handcarts or tricycles
to avoid double-handling of waste
• Nasik: Trucks move from one street-corner to
another to have a city without street waste-
bins
• Surat: Pin-point beats include bins on raised
platforms, near drainage manholes
• Mumbai: Only wet waste lifted from hi-rises

14. 14
Best Practices….
• SEWA: Weekly doorstep collection of dry
waste by waste-picker women’s co-op, with
public-info help by Bank Officers’ union
• Pune : Union of women waste-pickers
collects for a fee both dry waste for recycling
+ wet waste into city bins or compost pits
• Bangalore : Citywide policy of dry-wet waste
separation at source, collected at doorstep by
city sweepers or waste-transport contractors

15. 15
Handling Special Wastes
• Leaf litter: Compost it. Burning is banned.
• Garden Waste: On-site composting, or
Charge Rs 20 per handcart to remove
woody waste to slum or cremation ground
• Street-food: Handcarts MUST have space for
waste, and deposit it centrally at end of day.

16. 16
Involving mothers and teachers
• Coorg: District cleanup by school-kids
bringing their dry waste to school
weekly for purchase by waste-buyers.
Funds used classwise for Eco-Clubs.
• Calcutta: 500,000 bookmarks with
year’s calendar and civic messages
• Kids make pretty wall-bags for dry waste

17. 17
Handling Special Wastes…
• Hotel food waste: Non-veg to piggeries, or
left-overs to night-shelters or orphanges
• Market waste: Stall-to-stall collection, hourly:
Wet waste to cattle or goats,
Dry waste separate collection daily.
• Commercial waste: Fees through trade
associations
• Broken glass: Festival-collection boxes

18. 18
Decentralised Composting
>> Saves enormously on waste-transport
costs
>> Reduces waste volumes for disposal
by 90%
>> Saves on manures for park
maintenance

19. 19
Who should do it?
• All institutions like colleges, hostels, hotels,
hospitals, clubs, marriage-halls, jails, zoos.
• Apartment-complexes, bungalows, Govt and
city offices.
* All city-owned parks and sites.
• Many individuals enjoy doing it voluntarily.

20. 20
Where it is done
• In garden strips along apartment walls, on
terraces or in flower-pots or window-boxes
• In local parks, traffic islands, road dividers
* In conventional large street-bins
• In sewage-farm premises
• On temple lands or private farms

21. 21
How it is done
• Biomethanation in factory canteens
• Vermi-culture (needs animal-husbandry care)
• Aerobic wind-rows or checker-brick bins
• Anaerobic heaps at transfer-sites
• With or without composting bio-cultures

22. 22
Simple Composting
• Use 5% cowdung solution or a bio-culture as
compost starter.
• Make into heaps or wind-rows at least
1.5 metres high.
• Turn every 5-7 days. Add water to keep
moist. Prevent overheating and smoke.
• Compost will be ready in 4 to 6 weeks.

23. 23
AVOID WASTE – TO – ENERGY
• Developing-country waste is very low calorie
• Cost is 6-8 times higher than for composting.
Control of air-pollution is very expensive, and
necessary but rarely well-maintained
• Fails if debris and road-dust are in the waste
Works against interests of recycling industry
and thousands of waste-dependent workers

24. 24
Composting Policy is required
• Composting should be a legal requirement
• Compost marketing must be pro-active
• Cities must use their own composts for
their parks, gardens and public buildings.
• No Sales Tax on soil bio-enricher products
• Investor-friendly policies like BOOT
• National Agriculture Policy to use compost

25. 25
Encourage Informal Recycling
• Provide decentralised sorting-spaces
• Provide waste-pickers with ID cards
• Collect non-recyclable rejects for landfilling
• Give recognition and facilities to recyclers
• Give power concessions for pollution-
control equipment
• Fill geographic gaps in recycling industries

26. Thank you
Questions, comments and suggestions
are very welcome.
almitrapatel@rediffmail.com