Waste generation and management: India
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[https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL%2F2018%2F07%2F30&entity=Ar00327&sk=6540E0FF&mode=text Radheshyam Jadhav, July 30, 2018: ''The Times of India''] | [https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL%2F2018%2F07%2F30&entity=Ar00327&sk=6540E0FF&mode=text Radheshyam Jadhav, July 30, 2018: ''The Times of India''] | ||
| − | [[File: Processing of Municipal solid waste | + | [[File: Processing of Municipal solid waste- the best and worst states, presumably as in 2017.jpg|Processing of Municipal solid waste: the best and worst states, presumably as in 2017 <br/> From: [https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL%2F2018%2F07%2F30&entity=Ar00327&sk=6540E0FF&mode=text Radheshyam Jadhav, July 30, 2018: ''The Times of India'']|frame|500px]] |
Barely 35,600 metric tonnes (MT) or a quarter of the 1.43 lakh MT of garbage generated daily in Indian cities gets processed. The remaining three-quarters about 1.1 lakh MT are dumped in the open. Only eight of 35 states process more than half the daily garbage generated in their cities and not one has achieved 100% processing. | Barely 35,600 metric tonnes (MT) or a quarter of the 1.43 lakh MT of garbage generated daily in Indian cities gets processed. The remaining three-quarters about 1.1 lakh MT are dumped in the open. Only eight of 35 states process more than half the daily garbage generated in their cities and not one has achieved 100% processing. | ||
Revision as of 12:53, 6 September 2018
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
The Times of India
Contents |
Region-wise
2017-18: the performance of 20 cities
‘My city could be one of Delhi’s wards’, June 8, 2018: The Times of India
From: ‘My city could be one of Delhi’s wards’, June 8, 2018: The Times of India
Capital Can Take A Cue From Tiny Panchgani That Has Ensured 100% Waste Segregation At Source
Can Delhi learn from waste management practices of Panchgani, a hill station with only 15,000 inhabitants and a floating population of a few lakhs? Or, from Alappuzha, which doesn’t need to collect waste — it only supports people by subsidising bio-gas plants or composters? Maybe.
Panchgani mayor Laxmi Karhadkar, who gave a presentation on how Panchgani ensured 100% waste segregation at source in the past couple of years, said: “My city could be one of Delhi’s wards.”
On Thursday, municipal commissioners and municipality staff working on waste management gathered to share their stories of decentralised waste management at the Forum of Cities that Segregate, organised by the Centre for Science and Environment. An assessment report for 2017-18 with citywise ranking (for 20 cities of different population sizes) was also released. Karhadkar said she had an annual budget of only Rs 5 crore, which was too little to invest in high-technology waste management solutions, because the city had other needs too. Instead, she ensured that each household was given garbage segregation bins from CSR funding.
Swachcha grahis were sent to each household, they taught the garbage collectors to collect only segregated waste. “We started by explaining to people and appealing to them, then warning them and, finally, fining if they didn’t segregate,” Karhadkar said, adding that “segregation and recycling should go hand in hand, otherwise there is no use as the waste will get mixed at the dumpyard”.
Alappuzha also has 100% waste segregation at source. It doesn’t landfill, instead a majority of the households have biogas plants and composting systems, making it a highly decentralised system.
Delhi, which has centralised waste management heavily dependent on landfills, has been facing a massive shortage of space, so much so that the East Delhi Municipal Corporation wants two locations on the Yamuna river floodplain or ‘O’ zone for landfill sites.
IIT-Delhi had recently observed that no reparation work was possible at the Ghazipur landfill site where EDMC was currently dumping its waste. More than 1,600MT of solid waste continues to be dumped at the site, 17 years after its scheduled closure. The landfill’s height has touched 65m and is extremely vulnerable to accidents. Despite this, the segregation % of EDMC and South Delhi Municipal Corporation is below 33 compared to more than 90 in Indore, Alapuzzha, Vengurla and Panchgani, according to the assessment. But the collection and transportation efficiency of EDMC and SDMC are above 90%; yet, SDMC and EDMC landfill nearly 50% of their waste compared to less than 10% in Alappuzha, Panchgani and Vengurla.
Delhi: waste management
Gujarat
Surat: underground garbage system
From: Dipak K Dash, Surat’s underground garbage system shows way to Delhi and other big cities July 2, 2018: The Times of India
HIGHLIGHTS
The city’s municipal body has installed 43 underground garbage bins, each of which can contain up to 1.5 tonnes of waste as a part of the Smart City Mission
These underground bins have been placed on footpaths and each of them have two inlets for throwing waste to help people avoid littering.
Surat is showing the way to Delhi and other big cities that are struggling to manage garbage spilling out of ‘dhalaos’ and filling the air with foul smell. The city’s municipal body has installed 43 underground garbage bins, each of which can contain up to 1.5 tonnes of waste as a part of the Smart City Mission and these are fitted with sensors to send alerts to the control room as soon as 70% of the container is full.
These underground bins have been placed on footpaths and each of them have two inlets for throwing waste — one for individuals and the other for municipal carts bringing collected waste — to help people avoid littering.
“We will be placing 75 such bins. After this started in a limited area, more and more municipal councillors are making similar demands. Once people have good experience and see the result, they will push for better facilities. We will be expanding this to other areas as well,” said M Thennarasan, commissioner of Surat Municipal Commission. He is also the director and chairman of Surat Smart City project.
At Dumbhal, which falls in the textile market area of Surat, this correspondent saw how huge metal bins were lifted using cranes and the entire waste was emptied mechanically without any individual touching it. Thennarasan’s deputy CY Bhatt said this was the best option that the municipal body could go for as these did not leave any foul smell. A private player has been roped in to manage these bins. “It’s a good initiative. Even if it rains, the water won’t get inside. This should be done in other areas as well,” said a passer-by who lived in nearby Mukti Nagar.
Surat generates about 2,100 tonnes of garbage per day and about 800 tonnes is processed and treated.
The rest was disposed of scientifically, officers claimed. Thennarasan added that they would install a system in place to treat about 2,000 tonnes of waste daily.
The municipal body has engaged 425 vehicles which ply on 900 routes for door to door collection of waste. Each vehicle has RFID tag and GPS for real-time tracking and to prevent leakage.
The city is also unique in that it treats 57 million litres of sewage every day and turns it into 40 million litres of potable water, which is supplied to the nearby Pandesara industrial estate, which has several dyeing and printing mills. “Narendra Modi as chief minister had visited Singapore in 2007 where he saw such a plant and pushed the idea of having it in Gujarat. The municipal body has been supplying treated water to industry for the past four years. The treated water meets all parameters of high quality drinking water,” said Anand Vashi, director of Enviro Control Associates, which runs the plant under the PPP model. Another plant to produce 32 million litres of treated water per day will be ready by February.
Thennesaran said besides meeting infrastructure requirement, the municipal body is working to take care of the huge migrant population in the textile and diamond city. The corporation has awarded work to build five housing projects to provide transit accommodation to migrant workers. “They will be allowed to stay by paying the monthly rent that we will fix. These will be ready in 18 months. There will be both dormitories and rooms for families. In the second phase, we will take up six more projects,” he added. Though the Centre has been talking about this rental housing scheme for over three years, not much has been done to formulate the policy.
West Bengal
Kolkata: C40 Award for best solid waste management improvement project, 2016
NDTV, December 2, 2016
Kolkata, along with 10 other cities from across the globe, has been honoured with the best cities of 2016 award in recognition of its inspiring and innovative programme with regard to solid waste management.
"Kolkata Solid Waste Management Improvement Project has achieved 60-80 per cent (depending on site) segregation of waste at its source, with further waste segregation occurring at transfer stations," a media release said on the occasion of international summit of Mayors of millions plus cities of which Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and New Delhi are its members from India.
"Forward looking, the project aims to eradicate open dumping and burning of waste and to limit the concentration of methane gas generated in landfill sites," it said.
Kolkata is the only Indian city to receive the prestigious award. It received the award during the C40 Mayors Summit held in Mexico City.
Disposal of garbage on roads
The Indian Express, December 20, 2016
Throwing garbage in public can cost you Rs 10,000: NGT
Any person found disposing garbage in a public place will be fined Rs 10,000, the National Green Tribunal said.
The tribunal said that all authorities are under a statutory obligation to ensure that waste is collected, transported and disposed of in accordance with Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, so that it does not cause a public health hazard.
“All major sources of municipal solid waste generation – hotels, restaurants, slaughter houses, vegetable markets, etc, should be directed to provide segregated waste and hand over the same to the Corporation in accordance with the rules,” said NGT chairperson Swatanter Kumar.
“Any institution, person, hotels, residents, slaughter houses, vegetable markets, etc, which do not comply with the directions and continue disposing waste over drains or public places, shall be liable to pay an environmental compensation at the rate of Rs 10,000 per default,” added Kumar. Kumar said that the city generates 9,600 metric tonnes of municipal solid waste per day and there is no clear map ready with the municipal bodies to deal with the huge quantity of waste.
He also directed the commissioner of each corporation to submit a scheme, within a month, for providing incentive to encourage people to segregate waste at the source. The incentive could be by way of rebate in property tax, he added.
“Penalties can be imposed on residents, societies, RWAs etc, who do not provide segregated waste. It should be kept in mind that as per ‘polluter pays’ principle, each person would be liable to pay for the pollution they cause through waste disposal,” said Kumar.
“It is the duty of a citizen to ensure that said waste is handled properly and not add to the pollution or cause inconvenience to other persons. The entire burden cannot be shifted on the state and authorities,” he added.
Municipal solid waste (garbage)
Processing of MSW: the best and worst states
Radheshyam Jadhav, July 30, 2018: The Times of India
From: Radheshyam Jadhav, July 30, 2018: The Times of India
Barely 35,600 metric tonnes (MT) or a quarter of the 1.43 lakh MT of garbage generated daily in Indian cities gets processed. The remaining three-quarters about 1.1 lakh MT are dumped in the open. Only eight of 35 states process more than half the daily garbage generated in their cities and not one has achieved 100% processing.
State-wise data on the website of the urban affairs ministry shows that states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Jharkhand don’t process even 10% of their municipal garbage while Arunachal Pradesh and Dadra & Nagar Haveli don’t process municipal garbage at all. J&K processes a mere 1%.
Chhattisgarh (74%) tops the list and is one of only four states that process more than 60% of municipal garbage. Telangana (67%), Sikkim (66%) and Goa (62%) are the others in this category. Delhi processes 55% of its daily garbage. There are 84,000 municipal wards in India and 61,846 or almost three-quarters of these wards have achieved 100% door-to-door garbage collection, according to the website. Yet, without proper disposal facilities this makes little difference.
Civic bodies in Maha generate most garbage
Municipal bodies in Maharashtra generate maximum garbage — 22,570 MT daily — followed by Tamil Nadu (15,437 MT), Uttar Pradesh (15,288 MT), Delhi (10,500 MT), Gujarat (10,145 MT) and Karnataka (10,000 MT).
Municipal bodies are dumping waste on to landfill sites, which are overflowing their capacity and polluting the surrounding land, groundwater and air. According to the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), cities are now running out of land on which to dump their waste and have begun throwing it in the ‘backyards’ of smaller towns, suburbs and villages.
CSE has advocated a waste management strategy that emphasises segregation at source and recycle and reuse, instead of centralised approaches like landfills. Solid waste management should move towards behaviour change and local solutions, without which the ‘clean India’ goal cannot be met, according to the CSE.
Plastic waste
2018: Amount generated and recycled
Jasjeev Gandhiok, It’s city vs plastic and you’re losing, June 5, 2018: The Times of India
From: Jasjeev Gandhiok, It’s city vs plastic and you’re losing, June 5, 2018: The Times of India
World Environment Day: Waste Continues To Pile Up As Multiple Bans Fail
With “beat plastic pollution” being the theme of the World Environment Day this year, there is renewed focus on a problem that has assumed worrying proportions.
According to CPCB data, India generates 15,342 tonnes of plastic waste per day (about 5.6 million tonnes annually), out of which Delhi alone contributes to 690 tonnes daily — making it the largest contributor, followed by the likes of Chennai (429.4 tonnes per day), Kolkata (425.7 tonnes) and Mumbai (408.3 tonnes).
Despite multiple bans on plastic bags in the capital, including a recent NGT order that prohibited non-biodegradable plastic bags fewer than 50 microns in thickness, authorities are yet to fully clamp down on the menace.
While the bans resulted in an initial phase of heavy fines, the number came down considerably after a couple of months. According to a 2014 toxics link study on plastic waste, plastic was contributing directly to ground, air and water pollution and ending up at landfill sites, where it stayed for centuries as it does not decompose easily.
“Plastic bags defy any kind of attempt at disposal, be it through recycling, burning or land filling. Plastic bags, when dumped into rivers, streams and sea, contaminate the water, soil, marine life as well as the air we breathe. When plastic is burned, it releases a host of poisonous chemicals, including dioxin into the air,” the report said. It also highlighted how despite a 2012 ban on plastic bags in Delhi, they were still readily available and in use. A similar ban by the NGT in 2017 saw heavy fines of Rs 5,000 per violator in the first few months with around 30,000 kgs of bags being seized. However, a TOI analysis of popular markets found that the fines had dropped to a bare minimum with the ‘banned’ plastic being sold openly.
“Our study showed that in the initial two months of the ban, plastic usage fell drastically. However, poor implementation meant plastic bags returned to the market again. Fines are a big deterrent, but proper long-term planning is required,” said Priti Mahesh, chief programme coordinator at Toxics link.
Chitra Mukherjee of Chintan, an NGO that focuses on waste management, said waste pickers could only send plastic for recycling if it was segregated. “Currently, almost 90% of the waste is not getting recycled as it is not being segregated at the household level,” Mukherjee added.
CPCB, meanwhile, said producers are now being held accountable under the new solid waste management rules 2016, which introduced “extended producer responsibility” — a move that should ensure more plastic is recycled.
Quantity of garbage generated
Daily generation of garbage, 2000, 2015
From 12 November, 2017: The Times of India
See graphic:
The quantity of garbage generated every day in seven leading cities of India, 2000, 2015
Waste segregation
The best and worst cities: 2017, 2018
From: Paras Singh & Jasjeev Gandhiok, SC Fumes At Officials, But City Needs To Act Too, July 17, 2018: The Times of India
Delhi’s garbage problem is raising a huge stink and while the Supreme Court has come down heavily on authorities for turning a blind eye to it, it’s not that the issue has cropped up overnight. The capital’s three landfill sites — at Okhla, Ghazipur and Bhalswa — have been well past their “exhaustion” limits for over a decade now.
Corporations and landowning agencies appear to be shooting in the dark when it comes to finding alternative landfill sites. Even when they do find one, they have been faced with large-scale agitations: simply put, no one wants mounds of garbage near their home. When Ghonda Gujran and Sonia Vihar received in-principle approval from CPCB to set up new landfills in April, the move was met with unprecedented protests.
Environmentalists were up in the arms too: the sites were perilously close to Yamuna and came in the “O-Zone”, putting the river at risk of further damage due to waste dumping. The #NotInMyBackyard phenomenon was at display in Geeta Colony in east Delhi and Singhola village near Singhu border too. “We are unable to convince people to even let silt be dumped near their localities. The capital produces almost 14,000MT garbage daily, but no one wants it in their backyard,” a senior corporation official said.
A recent study by CSE analysed waste-management systems across the country and found that cities like Indore (MP), Panchgani and Vengurla (Maharashtra) and Alappuzha (Kerala) had a decentralised system in place with over 90% of the waste being segregated. Alappuzha, in fact, was found to have 100% waste segregation at source, as it opted for mini-biogas plants and composting pits, instead of a landfill site. Experts say Delhi also needs to shift to a decentralised system — immediately.
“The only way forward is a decentralised waste management system and the inclusion of the informal sector in solid waste management. Around 1.5 lakh wastepickers are already segregating our waste at the secondary level,” said Chitra Mukherjee, who heads Chintan, an environmental research and action group. Mukherjee said registration of ragpickers, giving them contracts for door-to-door collection and allotment of space for waste segregation would lead to a “definitive change”.
