Mounting Garbage: Solid waste Management : Daily Current Affairs

Relevance: GS-3: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation.

Relevance: GS-2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors.

Key phrases: Solid waste, Segregation & collection, Treatment, Informal sector, Community involvement, Municipal Acts, SWM Rules, 2016.

Why in News?

India is struggling to efficiently dispose of mounting garbage

Background:

Currently, as per government estimates, about 65 million tonnes of waste is generated annually in India, and over 62 million tonnes of it is Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) that includes organic waste, recyclables like paper, plastic, wood, glass, etc.

Only about 75-80% of the municipal waste gets collected and out of this only 22- 28% is processed and treated. The remaining MSW is deposited at dump yards.

By 2031, MSW generated is projected to increase to 165 million tonnes, and further up to 436 million tonnes by 2045.

Though the quantity of waste generated is increasing, waste collection efficiency in India is still catching up. It ranges from 70 to 90% in major metro cities and is below 50% in many smaller cities.

India’s landfills are bursting at the seams, with more than 70 per cent of collected urban waste dumped in them.

The biggest threat to the environment comes from plastic, 60 major cities in India together churn out over 3,500 tonnes of plastic waste every day.

It is estimated that, on average, an affluent family throws away around 40 kg of recyclable plastic each year.

Mumbai generates the maximum e-waste, nearly 1.2 lakh tonnes annually. Delhi and Bengaluru follow with 98,000 and 92,000 tonnes, respectively.

Swachh Survekshan is a ranking exercise taken up by the Government of India (MOHUA) to assess rural and urban areas for their levels of cleanliness and active implementation of Swachhata mission initiatives in a timely and innovative manner.

The objective of the survey is to encourage large scale citizen participation and create awareness amongst all sections of society about the importance of working together towards making towns and cities a better place to live in. Additionally, the survey also intends to foster a spirit of healthy competition among towns and cities to improve their service delivery to citizens, towards creating cleaner cities and towns.

Challenges to waste management in India:

Segregation & collection: Segregation is rare to find, so unsorted waste is typically collected by municipalities daily with the help of the inadequate number of staff; Collection of waste is done door to door from highly congested and narrow streets on the manual bases.

Storage & transportation: Generated solid waste mostly stored into the community bins and individual bins. The residents often utilise the single bin for mixed waste, often found unmanaged, filled with leachate, especially during the rainy session. The solid waste collection vehicles visit on a weekly bases; where vehicles seem uncovered, holding inadequate capacity, also utilising traditional and manual collection methods in most of the cities. The scarcity of land for waste dumping is even a more challenging issue.

Treatment and final disposal: Municipalities are struggling with their unmanaged waste treatment process. The most significant challenge face by recycling plants is its heterogeneity. As a result, it is difficult to treat solid waste to generate bio-methanation, waste to energy.

Policies & its awareness: The general awareness of solid waste management is quite low due to a lack of self-motivation and attitude. The citizen usually find discarding waste from their house without segregation, which further makes it challenging to waste collector to distinguish the waste type. It's not only about their education, but also social taboos prevailing in society towards waste doesn't allow them to behave responsibly towards waste.

Unplanned fiscal & investment approaches: Despite high investment in waste in the last decades, authorities are failing all the time because of unplanned management and investment. It has even noticed that municipalities are spending lesser on the segregation, treatment process while more on the sweeping, collection and transportation.

Inadequate resources & land: A high density of the population in the cities creates a shortage of available land for the necessary amenities, which indicates the projection of a vast land requirement for the disposal of waste in the upcoming years. High solid waste generation among the urban regions will require an additional 1400 Sq. Km., by the year 2047. A regular uncontrolled hike in land prices makes it more challenging to manage land availability.

Unorganised informal sector of waste: Municipalities are mostly struggling to handle the vast waste with the untrained and unorganised waste sector. The adequate machinery and tools are found missing and lack of funds and fiscal amenities. The Informal sector has a significant value in the waste material reduce, reuse and recycling, low and middle-income countries like India.

Way Forward:

The key to efficient waste management is segregation at source, multiple streams of recycling and resource recovery.

Community involvement at different levels and improving the accountability of public and private sector is needed to be done. Professionalism in the administration and will to achieving the goal can improve the situation.

Monitoring of manpower and machinery can help in planning for future. GPS tracking of the garbage collection could be done. Annual report on the total waste generated in the city should be prepared.

IEC (Information, Education, and Communication) technique for public awareness should be used. Waste REDUCTION, REUSE, RECYCLING (3R) should be advocated to reduce the burden on the local bodies.

Suitable additions should be introduced in the Municipal Acts & Rules to punish those who litter the streets special cleaning charges could be added. Solid Waste Rules, 2016 should be strongly enforced by the governing bodies.

The government should encourage more research and technological intervention in the waste management sector. Stress should be given for waste to energy conversion mechanism in a more sustainable way.

Major highlights of the new SWM Rules, 2016

Segregation at source: The new rules have mandated the source segregation of waste in order to channelize the waste to wealth by recovery, reuse and recycle. Waste generators would now have to now segregate waste into three streams- Biodegradables, Dry (Plastic, Paper, metal, Wood, etc.) and Domestic Hazardous waste (diapers, napkins, mosquito repellants, cleaning agents etc.) before handing it over to the collector.
Collection and disposal of sanitary waste: The manufacturers or brand owners of sanitary napkins are responsible for awareness for proper disposal of such waste by the generator and shall provide a pouch or wrapper for disposal of each napkin or diapers along with the packet of their sanitary products.
Collect Back scheme for packaging waste: As per the rules, brand owners who sale or market their products in packaging material which are non‐biodegradable, should put in place a system to collect back the packaging waste generated due to their production.
User fees for collection: The new rules have given power to the local bodies across India to decide the user fees. Municipal authorities will levy user fees for collection, disposal and processing from bulk generators.
Waste processing and treatment: As per the new rules, it has been advised that the bio-degradable waste should be processed, treated and disposed of through composting or bio-methanation within the premises as far as possible and the residual waste shall be given to the waste collectors or agency as directed by the local authority.
Promotion of waste to energy: In a not-so welcoming move, the SWM Rules, 2016 emphasise promotion of waste to energy plants. The rules mandate all industrial units using fuel and located within 100 km from a solid waste-based Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF) plant to make arrangements within six months from the date of notification of these rules to replace at least 5 per cent of their fuel requirement by RDF so produced.