India alone generates more than 1, 00,000 metric tonnes of solid waste every day, which is higher than many countries’ total daily waste generation taken together. Large metropolis such as Mumbai and Delhi generate around 9,000 metric tonnes and 8,300 metric tonnes of waste per day, respectively. India suffers from inefficient and insufficient waste infrastructure and also from increasing rates of solid waste generation per capita. Besides, the infrastructure and technologies, we must also concede that we have not addressed the issue from a systemic perspective.

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Current Situation of MSW in India:

• ULBs are responsible for segregated waste collection, transporting waste in covered vehicle, processing, recyclables, separating domestic hazardous waste and disposing inert material in sanitary landfills
• Various studies reveal that about 90% of MSW is disposed of unscientifically in open dumps and landfills, creating problems to public health and the environment.
• Over 377 million urban people live in 7,935 towns and cities and generate 62 million tonnes of municipal solid waste per annum.
• Only 43 million tonnes (MT) of the waste is collected, 11.9 MT is treated and 31 MT is dumped in landfill sites.
• Most cities have confined themselves to collection and transportation of solid waste. Processing and safe disposal are being attempted only in a few cases.
• The CPCB report also reveals that only 68% of the MSW generated in the country is collected of which, 28% is treated by the municipal authorities. Thus, merely 19% of the total waste generated is currently treated.
• According to a UN report, India’s e-waste from old computers alone will jump 500 per cent by 2020, compared to 2007.
• Disappearance of urban water bodies and wetlands in urban areas can be attributed to illegal dumping of Construction & Demolition waste.

Some of the major issues concerning solid waste management are:

• Absence of segregation of waste at source
• Lack of funds for waste management at ULBs.
• Unwillingness of ULBs to introduce proper collection, segregation, transportation and treatment/ disposal systems.
• Lack of technical expertise and appropriate institutional arrangement
• lack of infrastructure and technology
• lack of involvement from the private sector and non-governmental organisations
• Indifference of citizens towards waste management due to lack of awareness
• Lack of community participation towards waste management and hygienic conditions
• Lack of sewage management plan.
• About 70% of the plastic packaging products turn into plastic waste within a short period.
• Unorganized vendors and markets, existence of slum areas and Corruption are other issues plaguing MSWM.

Community Solid Waste Management technique:

• The key to efficient waste management is to ensure proper segregation of waste at source.
• Doorstep collection of mixed waste using primary collection vehicles and municipal workers to transport the waste to the MCCs. These can be run by self-help groups or NGO’s who are provided with covered space for sorting, and are paid on daily basis.
• Awareness campaigns which involves the high officials leveraging social media by posting photos of themselves in their home kitchens with separate bins for wet and dry waste.
• Religious leaders of different communities can be approached and urged to convey to their followers the importance of keeping wet and dry wastes unmixed and to avoid the use of one-time-use plastics.
• Groups like the Lions and Rotary can be roped in to spread the good word. Schools, with the cooperation of teachers, can be required to get pledges signed by all students and their parents.
• Such campaigns to engage with the community are successful only when the doorstep collection teams cooperate and strictly refuse taking mixed waste.
• The pending grievances of waste collectors with respect to promotions, filling vacancies, provident fund issues and minor repairs of primary collection vehicles, etc. were resolved to ensure their buy-in for the campaign.
• Micro-planning of collection vehicle routes manned by municipal staff, and tracking their punctuality and performance, is also key to citizen cooperation.

Other steps needed:

• To ensure that the waste goes through different streams of recycling and resource recovery as stated in the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016.
• State governments should provide financial support to ULBs to improve their waste management system under various schemes and programs.
• Initiatives like Smart Cities Mission, AMRUT should provide significant funding to improve civic services infrastructure.
• Waste to energy is a key component of SWM. Installation of waste-to-compost and bio-methanation plants would reduce the load of landfill sites
• There is a need to encourage research and development so as to reinvent waste management system in India.
• The focus should be on recycling and recovering from waste and not landfill. Further, it is important to encourage recycling of e-waste so that the problem of e-waste
• Public- Private Partnership models for waste management should be encouraged.
• Construction and demolition waste should be stored, separately disposed off, as per the Construction and Demolition Waste Management Rules, 2016.
• Responsibilities of Generators have been introduced to segregate waste in to three streams, Wet (Biodegradable), Dry (Plastic, Paper, metal, wood, etc.) and domestic hazardous wastes (diapers, napkins, empty containers of cleaning agents, mosquito repellents, etc.) and handover segregated wastes to authorized rag-pickers or waste collectors or local bodies.
• Sensitization of citizens as well as government authorities, community participation, involvement of NGOs. Littering should be prohibited.
• International Best practices should be emulated. South Korea is one of the few countries to separate and recycle food waste. It has also launched landfill recovery projects such as the Nanjido recovery project which have successfully transformed hazardous waste sites into sustainable ecological attractions.

Conclusion:

Municipal solid waste management (MSWM) is one of the major environmental problems of Indian cities. A Decentralized management of solid waste can help mitigate the problem to a great extent. The need of the hour is scientific, sustainable and environment friendly management of wastes.

Case Study: Vellore city in Tamil Nadu, with a population of five lakh, has been a trailblazer in decentralised management of solid waste and sending no waste to landfills. More recently, it has earned the remarkable distinction of getting all its residents to separate their wet waste from dry waste, which makes the task of solid waste management so much easier for the municipal corporation.

Vellore generates 160 tonnes of solid waste per day, excluding waste from bulk generators. It all began with a PIL in the National Green Tribunal in 2015 seeking closure of the eight-acre dumpsite on a tank bund in Saduperi, a few kilometres away from Vellore. The site had been used for dumping mixed waste since 1991.

Vellore Municipal Corporation (VMC) responded to the challenge by building 42 sheds for micro composting centres (MCCs) across its 60 wards. Each MCC (with a capacity ranging from 1.5 to 5 tonnes) was provided enclosed sheds containing numerous open-brickwork tanks (5 ft deep, 5-6 ft wide and 7-10 ft long) for composting wet waste: The tanks are filled in rotation, over a starter bed of dry leaves, with one-foot layers of hand-sorted wet waste plus a layer of cow dung-slurry as a compost starter, and allowed to mature for 30-60 days.