People must realise that waste management is not just the Government’s problem. They have to actively participate in this process which, in fact, must begin with the segregation of garbage at the source, in homes and offices, for instance
Metropolises are engines of economic growth but they are also large waste producers. Yet, thinking about waste management is seen as a waste of time. ‘Oh! It is a municipal problem’, is the public’s response to waste management. The ‘Not in My Backyard’ factor is strong. As the Municipal Commissioner of Delhi, I had found huge resistance from citizens to set up garbage bins in colonies so as to enable waste-collection. The public believed that waste-collection was an issue that could be shifted out of the locality and solved. Yet, in urban management, little can be achieved without the participation of the citizens.
Attempts to create new land fills have failed. Residential colonies do not want waste lying around. Villages do not want it either. Rivers and other water bodies are not available for dumping garbage, as they need to be preserved. So where does the garbage goIJ Wise environmentalists suggest that since most of it is bio-degradable, waste should be composted. They don’t take into account the fact that composting garbage requires large tracts of land — the minimum time for composting one one consignment of garbage is three to five months.
Delhi generates about 9,000 tonnes of garbage daily. The waste is heterogenous and consists of soil, sweepings, kitchen refuse, glass, leather, batteries, paper, and construction waste. It garbage can be classified into five categories: First, recyclable waste that includes paper, bottles, glass and discarded plastic materials; second, construction and demolition waste; third, bio-degradable waste consisting of kitchen refuse, leaves and branches; fourth, hazardous waste like batteries, CFl bulbs, electronic items; and fifth, industrial waste generated by small scale industries.
All metros segregate their waste as a primary function of waste management. Since India has a highly efficient recycling system, compared to other countries, it needs to ensure that this system (also a source of employment for many) is not disturbed but encouraged. The yeoman’s service rendered by rag pickers, for example, must be integrated into a well-organised system.
Segregation at source or segregation at the end is an endless debate. End use segregation, apart from requiring more sophisticated machinery, deprives recyclers of their livelihoods. Today recyclers collect their materials either from households or municipal bins. This is not only a health hazard for the recyclers but also spreads garbage on the streets as recyclers rummage through them.
The only way to handle the garbage problem is segregation at home. This is done in many countries and must be encouraged here. In Delhi, I tried to promote the concept in 2004. A campaign was launched to motivate citizens to store waste in two separate bins — recycled waste in blue bins and bio-degradable waste in green bins. The idea was that this would encourage recyclers to pick up recycled waste from homes and earn a living. The bio-degradable waste could go into the land fill. The programme was only partially successful because the full stream of carrying waste in different containers was not worked out. Today, it is the duty of the citizen to deposit waste in the municipal corporations community bins. Any segregation programme needs community support, and it is not enough to just collect garbage from community bins.
There are three broad types of garbage which can be separately treated. The recyclables can be given or sold tokabaris or rag pickers, through an agreement between resident welfare associations and a recycling cooperative of rag pickers. This will ensure that the recycling industry is promoted with the active participation of households, colonies, ragpickers and NGOs. It will also take care of about 20 per cent of the garbage generated daily.
Delhi is a city which is continuously being rebuilt. With an area of just 1,400 square kilometers, and an expanding population of 16 million, there is no option but to rebuild the city. This means that a lot of construction waste is also generated. Dumping sites, identified by municipal corporations, are all full, and contractors are now stealthily dumping their waste on the Delhi ridge or road sides or Yamuna river banks in the night time.
This type of waste constitutes about 39 per cent of the total garbage generated daily. It consists of soil, masonry, bricks, concrete, metals, wood, sand and gravel. It can also be recycled — as is already being done by Il&FS Environment Infrastructure Services limited which set up a 500 tonnes per day plant in Jahangirpuri as a pioneering initiative in 2005. So far, this company has recycled 1.2 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste and used it to pavement blocks, tactile pavers for the visually impaired, kerb stones, ready mix concrete and road sub-base. This needs to become a vital part of garbage management.
The third and most complex is the bio-degradable garbage which makes for about 40 per cent of the total waste. It comprises domestic and vegetable waste, and is the most difficult to treat. It is mostly been dumped in land fills. There are three land fills in Delhi — in Bhalswa, Ghazipur and Okhla — but they will soon be closed as they are overflowing. Delhi has a real problem on its hands and environmentalists have not found a workable solution so far. The Delhi Development Authority is reluctant to offer any new land fill sites due to public objections.
This problem has been studied in great detail and the most important step that can be taken to resolve the situation is segregation of garbage at the source. This will make it easier for local authorities to transport waste to treatment plants for conversion either into refuse derived fuel or directly into power. Since plastics become hazardous when burnt, they can be separated out at the plant site mechanically and sent to the land fill for bio-degradation along with sludge, a by-product of the RDF process.
land fills are required for storing small quantities of waste, even after recycling waste, reusing construction waste and converting bio-degradable waste to power. There are no more sites available for land fills in Delhi. Two old mining pits had been identified in the Bhatti mines area to develop as engineered land fill sites but it is yet to developed due to opposition from green activists.
As far as industrial waste is concerned, these have be treated in Effluent Treatment Plants that have already been set up adjacent to the industrial estates in Delhi. The ETPs need to operationalised and must be managed by the industry on the principle of ‘Polluter pays’. The management of electronic and hazardous waste also needs urgent attention.
A long-term solution to the management of human waste generated by Delhiites, lies in our hands. The public has to accept source segregation of garbage (for bio-degradable and recyclable waste), which is the only acceptable way of waste management in mega cities. Creating segregated streams of treatment for bio-degradables, non-bio-degradables and construction wastes, will ensure that tail-end treatment is effective and uses appropriate technology to treat garbage. It is time to end the debate on the best way to handle the problem because the best is often the enemy of the good.
(The writer is a former Commissioner at the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and former Chief Secretary of Delhi)