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Waste Management - A Social Problem
Modern life-style with its emphasis on consumption and disposal has brought in its wake the acute problem of Solid Waste Management across the globe. The problem is aggravated due to pressure on land space on our planet. The urban solid waste consists of different materials – wet and dry. In a typical composition of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), it is estimated that plastic waste constitutes only 5-6 per cent.
Composition of Municipal Solid Waste in Mumbai – Click here
Plastics are quite often, probably due to their bright colour and visibility, criticized for contributing to the waste problem, although, in reality plastics constitute a very miniscule percentage of urban solid waste both in volume and weight. Instead of singling out any one material our effort should be to streamline waste management system right from source reduction to collection, sorting, re-usage and recycling and finally disposal and incineration wherever applicable.
The Potential Of Recycled Plastics – A Second Life
Plastics’ recycling takes place on a significant scale in India. As much as 60 per cent of both industrial and urban plastic waste is recycled. Plastic wastes have immense economic value. Almost all the plastic waste is converted into co-products and by-products. Most of it is mechanically recycled into products like containers, footwear, boards, partitions, profiles, pipes and other building and construction materials. Waste plastics are also recycled into lumber/wood products like rails, fencings, posts, benches, water pots, monofilaments etc. Plastic beverage bottle is being recycled into synthetic fibre for clothing and bedding applications.
Plastics are 100 per cent recyclable by various means. Technology is being continuously upgraded to improve the process of recycling, quality of recyclate and the quality and performance of the end products. Raw materials have a high value and are a precious resource, so to conserve both money and the environment the industry makes every effort to recover as much as possible.
It is often reported that burning of plastic bags releases toxic and carcinogenic elements into the environment while the truth is that plastic bags are made from polyethylenes which have basic building blocks of carbon and hydrogen. Burning of such bags provides only harmless carbon dioxide and water which are part of the natural atmospheric cycle.
Reclamation
The majority of municipal waste is still used as landfill, due to the very high cost of facilities for the sorting, separation and recycling of waste. As plastics are stable, both physically and chemically they in turn provide stability to the tips. This provides a safe and solid foundation upon which to build; thereby releasing land for development. However, as far as plastic waste is concerned, recycling and re-use is the answer or incineration at the end of it all.
Conserving The Environment
The plastics industry is concerned that it should take appropriate care of resources and the environment. The advantages of plastics over other raw materials are apparent from the beginning of their life cycle. Research shows that it often takes less energy to make products in plastics, and although most plastics depend on oil, coal or gas they are responsible for only a small fraction of the national consumption of these fuels. In addition, as plastics are lighter and easier to store and transport, energy savings are made. As well as developments in the recycling of plastics, there have been interesting advances in the production of degradable plastics for products that need only a limited life.
The Future
Plastics recycling are in the growth phase as the whole industry is still relatively young. A further development in recycling, which is being researched, is the recovery of the individual chemical components of plastics for re-use as chemicals, or for the manufacture of new plastics. ICPE is committed to encouraging industry to exploit the potential of plastics for recycling. It recognizes that many of the measures that could be taken to increase recycling ventures are inhibited by both cost and practicalities. The ICPE proposes to hold seminars on recycling issues, to ensure innovation and development within the plastics industry.
Plastic recycling industry in Indian is of tremendous economic importance. Besides providing gainful employment to thousands of skilled and unskilled people it provides cheap inputs for industry and also cheap, affordable consumer products for the middle class and poorer sections of the society.
A Source Of Energy
Material recovery is by no means the only way to recycle plastics. Incineration is another option that also helps recover their thermal content, providing an alternative source of energy. An average typical value for polymers found commonly in house hold waste is 38 mega joules per kilogram (MJ/kg), which compares favourably to the equivalent value of 31 MJ/kg for coal. This represents a valuable resource raising the overall calorific value of domestic waste which can then be recovered through controlled combustion and re-used in the form of heat and steam to power electricity generators. This method is being put to use in Japan, the UK and in some of the European countries. However, it will take a long time before India could adopt the technology.
Segregation of recyclable waste at source
In all parts of the country, people by and large do salvage re-usable or saleable material from waste and sell it for a price, e.g. newspaper, glass bottles, empty tins, plastic bags, old clothes etc., and to that extent such reusable / recyclable waste material is not thrown out for disposal. However, a lot of recyclable dry waste such as waste paper, plastic, broken glass, metal, packaging material etc., is not segregated and is thrown on the streets along with domestic / trade / institutional waste. Such waste is picked up to some extent by poor rag picker for their livelihood. At times they empty the dustbins and spread the contents around for effective sorting and collection. By throwing such recyclable material on the streets or into a common dustbin, the quality of recyclable material deteriorates as it gets soiled by wet waste, which often contains contaminated and hazardous waste.
Segregation of recyclable waste at source is thus not seriously practised by households and establishments, who throw such waste on the streets or in the municipal bins unsegregated. At least 15% of the total waste can conveniently be segregated at source for recycling, which is being thrown on the streets in absence of the practice of segregation of waste at source. Part of this waste is picked up by rag-pickers in a soiled condition and sold to middle men at a low price, who in turn pass on the material to the recycling industry at a higher price after cleaning or segregation and the waste that remains uncollected finds its way to the dumping grounds
“Landfilling” practices
By and large, crude dumping of waste is done in the country without following the principles of sanitary landfilling. As negligible segregation of waste at source takes place, all waste including hospital infectious waste generally finds its way to the disposal site. Quite often industrial hazardous waste is also deposited at dump sites meant for domestic waste.
The waste deposited at the dump site is generally neither spread nor compacted on a regular basis. It is also not covered with inert material. Thus, very unhygienic conditions prevail on the dump sites
Segregation of recyclable waste
It is essential to save the recyclable waste material from going to the waste processing and disposal sites and using up landfill space. Profitable use of such material could be made by salvaging it at source for recycling. This will save national resource and also save the cost and efforts to dispose of such waste. This can be done by forming a habit of keeping recyclable waste material separate from food waste and other bio-degradable wastes, in a separate bag or bin at the source of waste generation, by having a two-bin system for storage of waste at homes, shops and establishments where the domestic food waste (cooked and uncooked) goes into the Municipal system and recyclable waste can be handed over to the waste collectors (rag-pickers) at the door step.
The following measures may be taken by the local bodies towards the segregation of recyclable waste:
The local body may mobilize NGO’s or co-operatives to take up the work of organizing street rag-pickers and convert them to door-step “waste collectors” by motivating them to stop picking up soiled and contaminated solid waste from the streets, bins or disposal sites and instead improve their lot by collecting recyclable clean material from the doorstep on daily basis. The local bodies may, considering the important role of rag pickers in reducing the waste and the cost to the local body in transportation of such waste, even consider extending financial help to NGO’s and co-operatives in providing some tools and equipment to the rag pickers for efficient performance of their work in the informal sector.
The Local Bodies may actively associate resident associations, trade & industry associations, CBO’s and NGO’s in creating awareness among the people to segregate recyclable material at source and hand it over to a designated identified waste collector. The local body may give priority to the source segregation of recyclable waste by shops and establishments and later concentrate on segregation at the household level.
The upgraded rag-pickers on becoming door-step waste-collectors, may be given an identity card by the NGO’s organizing them so that they may have acceptability in society. The local body may notify such an arrangement made by he NGO’s and advise the people to cooperate.
This arrangment could be made on “no payment on either side basis” or people may negotiate payment to such waste collectors for the doorstep service provided to sustain their efforts.
(Based on the recommendations made by the committee constituted by the Honble. supreme court of India, in 1999.)
ICPE Initiative
ICPE engaged itself to implement the recommendations of the committee, and associated itself with some NGO’s and the local bodies in helping the collection, segregation and diverting the segregated dry wasye to recycling process and thus stoping their way to the landfills. Experimental Waste Management System was initiated at some wards of Mumbai following the above guideline.
Waste Management System at BrihnMumbai Municipal Corporation :
In Mumbai, constant effort is being made to separate the Dry and Wet waste at the source itself, so that the Dry wastes could be further segregated into different types of wastes and could be sent for recycling, resulting in lesser load to the landfill, sites.
There is an increasing activity among various Local Self Government Councils to treat the wet waste also through vermiculture or similar process, to generate compost which can be used as fertilizers.
ICPE along with some NGO’s have joined hands with BMC in some Wards of Mumbai to propagate the Proper Solid Waste Management culture among the citizens.
Though it is a uphill task, at least in some areas of different wards, (like in ‘A’ and ‘D’ Wards) of Mumbai, the results are evident.
Here is a brief description of the work being practised:
For a brief photographic description, click below :-
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‘A’ – Ward ( Cuffe Parade Area) :
1. BMC has given a secured area and a shed for segregation of dry waste.
2. BMC has also provided 2 nos. 1 tonner vans with drivers, free of cost, to move in the locality for 8 hours to collect dry wastes from households.
3. BMC has given Identity badges to the rag pickers who have been identified by the NGO’s.
4. Some rag pickers accompany the BMC vans and collect dry wastes from door steps of the households/society buildings and bring those to the BMC allotted sheds for segregation.
5. The dry wastes are product-wise segregated into : paper, plastics, metal and others. Obviously, within each product, there are different categories e.g. in metal, there would be iron, aluminium foil etc. In plastics, there would be PE, PP films, polystyrene cups, HDPE solid items / caps etc.
6. These segregated dry wastes are stored in the secured sheds for disposal.
7. When sufficient quantity of scrap is accumulated, scrap dealers come to these sheds, weigh the scraps and pay the ragpickers / co-ordinator the cost of the scraps, and collect the dry waste. Generally, this collection takes place once in a week. (In some places, where the sheds are not well secured, rag pickers dispose off their segregated wastes every alternate day, or even daily to the recycles / traders)
8. The wet wastes are collected by separate BMC vans from the household localities – directly to the landfills.
In some societies, local self government council or the societies themselves are collecting the wet wastes also for composting, resulting into zero garbage concept. However, this is not yet widely practised in general.
ICPE has provided collection bins, hand gloves, aprons, masks, etc. to the rag pickers, and promotional literature to the society members. ICPE also interacted with BMC, NGO’s and others for co-ordiation of the activities apart from providing training to ragpickers and conducting awareness programmes to the general public, school children, members of the housing societies etc.
ICPE provided dedicated co-ordinators to the NGO’s for effective monitering of the pilot projects in the initial stage.
BMC as well as the concerned localities are happy with the activities carried out at ‘A’ and ‘D’ Ward.
Activity has now been extended to some other wards also.
Compacting Project
at Mumbai Central Station, Western Railway
One of its key objectives of ICPE is to work together with civic authorities and other Govt. Departments in facilitating collection and recycling of plastic waste through technological inputs.
Indian Railways are a large source of plastic waste in the form of PET bottles (drinking water), food packaging, tumblers and cups etc. Part of the waste is collected and sold to recyclers; large amount of waste gets strewn on the rails or littered inside and outside the coaches. Plastics are light in weight but rather voluminous and any attempts of collection of the waste get hampered because of difficulty in transporting the voluminous waste. ICPE have devised a compactor that can be used to reduce this volume by compacting so that transportation becomes relatively easier.
In October 2001, ICPE set up a compactor machine made at a cost of about Rs 1.75 lakhs with a capacity of 6 – 8 bales of PET bottles per hour at the Mumbai Central station. Western Railway has provided space and power for keeping and running of the compactor at Mumbai Central.
The compactor has been operating at the Mumbai Central since October with good success. The two contract workers on the job collect bottles from various parts of the station; bring the bottles to the storage bins at the compaction site. The caps, labels are then removed manually from each bottle since these are made from other type of plastic material and can interfere in the PET plastic recycling process. With this, the bottles are ready for compaction. At the moment the collection rate is around 1000 – 1500 bottles a day. The compacted bales are taken away by the recycler appointed by ICPE and transported to the recycling units. One tempo load roughly equals 250 kgs. of baled bottles. (About 10,000 bottles).
As in any other pilot projects, there are problems to be sorted out such as raising public awareness, coordination with a number of agencies but the central idea that there is a solution to used PET bottles seems to be catching on.
According to Western Railway authorities, 2000 PET bottles are collected or found littered daily on the station. Based on the success of this project, the Railway authorities are considering to install such compactors at other railway stations too, as it solves the problem of disposing voluminous waste. ICPE will be coordinating in such future projects.
Mr. K. G. Ramanathan – President , Governing Council ICPE – stated “ Bottles are either strewn around or used for undesirable purposes by urchins and other elements. High transport costs make the disposal difficult. The compactor has been specifically designed to facilitate crushing and baling of the bottles so that they can be easily sent for recycling into materials such as cushions, bedding, boxes, trays strappings etc.”
Presently discussions are in progress with railway officials and other PET bottle end-users such as Mineral water bottling companies to upgrade the technology and examine the replication of the project at other stations.