Whenever the sorry state of waste disposal in India is brought up, the issue of source segregation of waste, invariably crops up as a great solution. Garbage in India is an eternal problem. It is strewn everywhere. It blows by the roadsides and chokes the waterways. It looks like it is uncontainable. Effective waste management will of course mitigate this. Waste management also has other benefits in addition to the aesthetic one; it can turn refuse into a resource. Waste to wealth and waste to energy are phrases often thrown around. Zero waste communities are possible we are often told. For effective recycling and reduction of waste that ends up in scarce landfill sites, segregation of waste at source is a must it seems.
The present state of waste disposal in India is in a poor state and almost non existent in many places. Waste disposal in many places means dumping all kinds of waste by the roadside, street corners, vacant lots belonging to others or the public, streams, river banks, lakes or any other place than ones own property. In many communities the local government bodies do the same. In once pristine natural sites or urban public spaces the mixed garbage rots and stinks in a pile. Stray dogs, goats, pigs and roaming cattle forage on it. The ragpickers and beggars come at night to rummage through the pile to find things that can be salvaged and sold. The biodegradable parts continue to rot and stink up the whole surroundings. The plastic, paper and wood is left and periodically somebody comes along and sets fire to it resulting in a smoking, smouldering pile and acrid fumes. The plastic of course flies all over and is the most colourfully visible part of this eyesore. More waste is then dumped on the smouldering ash pile and the whole cycle continues. In time, a big mound forms consisting of layers of rotting organic waste and ash interspersed with plastic, glass and metal. Roadsides become impossible to walk on. Waterways get narrowed, blocked and disappear. Shocking and unthinkable as it is to the outsider, it becomes part of life for the local population and they learn to live with it. The problem perpetuates indefinitely. Where waste collection exists it most often is not processed but dumped in a mixed fashion in large dumps which are not scientifically constructed landfills. There the roadside dump is magnified many times over and the same story is repeated on a larger scale.
Waste disposal as it is practised by many communities in India is not sustainable. It is slowly turning the country into a gigantic garbage dump bringing untold misery to countless millions. It is destroying our precious and sacred waterbodies and waterways. It is stunting our economic growth and that of our children. The status quo has to change. Newer systems that are regionally and culturally acceptable and appropriate should be adopted and developed. Systems that work should be protected and enhanced. For any system to succeed all sections of society and the government should cooperate and do so voluntarily and willingly. The government at every level should step up to its responsibility and do so in a proactive manner.
Any effective waste management system will certainly benefit from segregation of waste at source. Some would argue that source segregation is an integral and indispensable part of any modern waste disposal mechanism. They are probably right. The benefits are many.
Source segregation involves the sorting of waste at the residential or commercial level where different kinds of waste are collected separately and disposed of using recycling, composting and other means and very little waste is dumped at a landfill. It is practised in many communities around the world and some do a better job of it than others. When done properly it is a wonderful exercise. It reduces the need for large and ugly landfills and creates wealth and energy out of what otherwise would have ended up in a large unsightly dump somewhere to pollute the environment for a long period and sometimes irreparably so. It also involves the cooperation of the entire community or at least the majority of people to succeed. People will have to conscientiously and willingly spend the extra few minutes necessary to segregate the worse. With no direct benefit to the householder or businessperson it is sometimes difficult to motivate people to do it. It has to be something the person believes in and is willing to make a behavioural change to achieve it. It is not an impossible change and many societies in many countries have been able to achieve this. When the culture changes, people will find it difficult to throw a recyclable or biodegradable waste material in to the common bin. It becomes an innate behaviour to find the blue, green or whatever colour the appropriate container is coded as.
Segregation of waste also needs an effective collection and processing system. The segregated waste has to be collected and transported in a segregated fashion to a processing station or facility where it can be sent for further disposal. If a seamless mechanism is not in place the segregation at source would be futile. Quite often we find that the waste that is meticulously segregated by conscientious residents is often mixed again in the transfer process. At the microlevel it can possibly work, where in smaller communities people can make use of composting and recycling on an an individual or group basis to dispose of waste. However, in big urban centres where people are busy and space is limited, it is often not practical. Systems large and small have to be developed to transfer and process segregated waste for eventual disposal in an appropriate manner.
For source segregation to be effective we need a willing population, an efficient administration and visionary policy makers. In India we often find the first two wanting. The poor civic sense of the Indian public is legendary. To move a population, that has a hard time disposing of mixed waste in a civilized way, to source segregation could be a monumental task but certainly not impossible. This is a country where people litter everywhere; they throw garbage out through train windows and dump their household waste on street corners. Of course there are many instances where communities do segregate waste and success stories abound at a microlevel. If these take root and spread and more people voluntarily segregate their waste, they will certainly enhance any mass waste collection and processing system. However, short of draconian laws that are strictly enforced, this behavioural change is unlikely to come about at a mass level any time soon. Apathy of policy makers and bureaucratic inertia are also legendary in India. Corruption also complicates matters. Moreover policy advisors and thought leaders in India often tend to be dreamers far removed from reality. Our minds may not work with the same practical efficiency of the German or Japanese ones. Of course these are stereotypes, but stereotypes worth looking into.
As important as source segregation of waste is, so is the urgency to find solutions that are workable in the immediate future. Systems that rely solely on source segregation to work are desirable but deemed to fail if the necessary societal, politico-administrative pre-requirements are not in place. Mixed waste collection and disposal are often frowned upon because it is more difficult to process and environmentally unfriendly. It is difficult but not impossible to derive recyclable or compostable material from mixed waste and when done so, it tends to be expensive. The technology and mechanism to process mixed waste exists and is in practice in many communities around the world. When done well they do not pollute the surroundings and do not emit a stench. Although they will reduce the the amount of waste that will eventually reach a landfill they do so to a lesser extent than a system that involves some form of segregation. If not processed, mixed waste is deposed of in a landfill. Scientifically constructed landfills that are managed well and periodically capped, will keep garbage outside of cities and are an effective system. If designed well with effective drainage of the leachate so that it does not pollute the groundwater, it is a system that can work. The waste is contained and safe but does not really go away and stays around for eternity. For landfills to work they have to be constructed in a scientific manner and maintained. This requires large open spaces away from human habitation and huge capital expenditures. In India we do not have large open spaces away from cities and this problem is only going to get worse as our cities expand. The current situation in India is to dump the mixed and unsegregated waste anywhere and everywhere there is open space at sites that are not scientifically designed to contain the waste. They create massive eyesores. They result in groundwater and air pollution that affects the lives of the surrounding population. They breed mosquitoes that carry deadly diseases.The people who live nearby often rise up and protest against these sites. Their concern is genuine.
So what is the way forward? If the goal is to create communities where waste is segregated at source and disposed of properly, with effective recycling and composting mechanisms so that there is minimal need for landfills, we are far from the achievement of that goal. At the same time that we encourage source segregation and and inculcate this as a habit in the population, we need to devise mechanisms to dispose of mixed waste. We have to realize that there will always be mixed waste. Some people will never segregate their waste and it will be impossible to make them do it even with the most stringent laws and punishment. There are also situations where it would be difficult to put in place a mechanism for source segregation. We have to build systems that dispose of mixed waste effectively. We need waste processing centres that are built in such a way that they have minimum negative impact on the environment while extracting as much recyclable and compostable material as possible. Waste to energy processes that are not polluting will also play a role here. Processing mixed waste is inefficient and will be expensive and labour-intensive. If done well they can be a valuable source of employment for a segment of society. Ragpickers who risk their lives and health rummaging through potentially toxic waste, can be given safer and more reliable employment. Residual waste has to be disposed of in scientifically constructed landfills that are not polluting. If they are designed and built well, people will be more accepting of them. As source segregation takes hold over the next many years, the quantum of mixed waste will decrease and the need for mixed waste processing will diminish. So will the need for landfill sites.
If we do this right, we need short and long term strategies. The short term goal would be to manage the millions of tonnes of mixed waste generated daily in an efficient and effective way so that they do not end up on our roadsides and waterways causing irreparable damage to our cities and countryside. The processing and disposal of the mixed waste will be expensive, inefficient and not sustainable for the longterm. In a parallel fashion source segregation and processing of segregated waste should be encouraged and developed. Both strategies are important and are compatible. Neither can wait for the other. The systems that rely on source segregation will eventually replace the mixed waste systems and will lead to a clean India that we all desire so much. The time to act is now.
Jai Hind
No comments:
Post a Comment