Waste Management Practices And Policy In India From A Gender Perspective

1
Waste Management Practices And Policy In
IndiaFrom A Gender Perspective

• Almitra H Patel
• Member, Supreme Court Committee for Solid Waste
  Management in
• Class 1 Cities in India

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
 Women benefit most from hygienic
waste-management

• Indias 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
Building Consensus

• June98 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

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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

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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.

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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
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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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Best Practices.

• SEWA Weekly doorstep collection of dry waste by
  waste-picker womens 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

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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.

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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 years calendar
  and civic messages
• Kids make pretty wall-bags for dry waste

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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

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Decentralised Composting

• gtgt Saves enormously on waste-transport costs
• gtgt Reduces waste volumes for disposal by 90
• gtgt Saves on manures for park maintenance

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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Thank you

• Questions, comments and suggestions are very
  welcome.
• almitrapatel_at_rediffmail.com