Solid waste management is perhaps among the most overwhelming problems that Indian cities are grappling with today. But while the complexities around waste management in big cities are discussed widely, the challenges faced by smaller Indian cities and towns are even more complex due to limited scale, inadequate funding and institutional capacity constraints. Tier-1 and some Tier-2 cities have set up infrastructure and allocated resources for waste processing, but in general, small cities struggle to do so. As a result, waste processing in these cities is almost negligible, with only a few exceptions.
Chikkaballapura is a Tier-2 city located about 60 km from Bengaluru and has a population of approximately 72,000. The city generates about 28 tonnes per day (TPD) of solid waste. The Chikkaballapura City Municipal Council (CCMC) collects about 90% of the waste across its 31 wards covering about 17,000 households. Like other small cities, CCMC too was facing challenges in processing waste due to the factors mentioned above. This resulted in disposal of waste in a designated landfill located at about 8 km from the city.
To address this issue, the CCMC initiated the city-farmer partnership for SWM, with technical support from the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) and funding from Godrej Properties Limited. This decentralised city-farmer partnership approach, connecting ULBs with peri-urban farmers, addresses many of these problems. ULBs supply segregated wet waste and support the farmers in setting up composting pits on their farms. This also keeps waste away from landfills.
The volunteering farmers then carry out the composting process directly in their own farms, obtaining the resulting organic compost at no additional cost. The composting cycle takes about three months, and the yield is 30% of the original waste input.
CCMC has reported that it has supplied over 3,000 tonnes of segregated wet waste to around 230 farmers in 23 nearby villages. Farmers add cow dung slurry and other bio-cultures to the composting pits to aid decomposition and monitor the moisture and temperature weekly, over the composting cycle of two to three months.
Benefits of a decentralised system
Solid waste generated in Indian cities is typically 60% wet waste, 30% dry waste, and 10% inert waste (mostly soil, silt, and stones which cannot be recycled). Yields are low – 15% or less, and high production costs and poor-quality compost make it an unviable option for many ULBs to process waste, recover organic compost and sell the same at a profit.
Read more: Converting kitchen waste to compost: Why are our cities stumbling?
Even when they have attempted the same, ULBs have not considered farmers’ needs in their waste processing and composting strategies. As a result, chemical fertilisers remained the largely preferred choice for farmers, due to accessibility and cost-efficiency.
Typically, ULBs spend about Rs. 900 per tonne for processing the waste. Going by this rate, the decentralised model adopted by CCMC has saved them approximately INR 30 lakh in waste management costs. Additionally, farmers report an estimated INR 15,000 in annual savings on agriculture input cost.
This model has also reduced farmers’ reliance on chemical fertilisers by about 20 tonnes, lessening the environmental impact of using chemical fertilisers.
Role of community
A critical component of Chikkaballapura’s success has been its community engagement and information campaigns. For the city-farmer partnership model to succeed, maintaining a steady supply of segregated wet waste is essential, as farmers do not accept mixed waste. To ensure farmers receive only segregated wet waste, a large-scale campaign was launched to encourage behavioural change among residents.
Initially, there was resistance for waste segregation at source; however, once the campaign highlighted how the city’s waste would be utilised by farmers to reduce the use of chemical fertilisers and improve the soil health of Chikkaballapura, many residents started taking segregation seriously.
A series of Information, Education and Communication (IEC) activities have promoted the importance of waste segregation at the household level. These activities include volunteer-led door-to-door outreach, roadshows, street plays and awareness sessions in local schools and colleges. Messaging on waste collection vehicles, along with 100 wall paintings and banners throughout the city, reinforces the segregation message.
These efforts have enabled the CCMC to provide a consistent supply of 7-8 tonnes of wet waste per day, with the potential to increase this volume to 15 tonnes per day if 90% segregation at source can be achieved.
Outcomes of the new approach
This decentralised approach, where waste is composted in different villages by different farmers, has achieved a remarkable environmental impact, when one considers the kind of groundwater contamination and other pollution observed at centralised waste processing facilities.
25 soil samples tested before and after composting consistently showed positive results: pH neutralisation and increased organic carbon content. The baseline assessment revealed that the soil pH was below 6.5 (which is acidic) in most cases, but improved to a neutral level after composting, which is beneficial for plant growth.
Similarly, organic carbon content and other nutrients, initially below 1% increased to up to 1%. No pollutants were detected after the composting process. Additionally, 15 organic compost samples were tested for nutrients such as Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium and Organic Carbon, which met the standards specified by the Fertiliser Control Order, 1985.
The way forward
Indian cities have often tried to replicate the centralised waste processing model, which relies on tipping fees or subsidy-based operations. With only 20-30% of operations cost being recoverable, processing of waste is not financially viable; this causes large municipalities to pay a tipping fee to processing units per tonne of waste. Or, they subsidise operations through general funds.
However, this model is not feasible for small cities, as they lack the financial capacity to pay tipping fees or provide huge subsidies to operate waste processing facilities. Additionally, the model is also not sustainable in the long term as there is no incentive for waste reduction or segregation.
The city-farmer partnership model does not require heavy investments in machinery, vehicles and infrastructure, drawing instead upon community engagement and local partnerships. Indian cities with resource constraints could adopt this model at a lower cost, with active participation from NGOs and members of self-help groups.
While the city-farmer partnership model can be replicated in small and tier-2 cities, a one-size-fits-all approach is not feasible, as large cities generate significantly more waste—up to 250 times that of small cities. For instance, Bengaluru generates 6,000 tonnes of waste daily and would need 15-20 processing plants, each with a capacity to process 300-400 tonnes per day, distributed across the city. The feasibility of such a model depends on the geographical context and the financial capacity of each municipality.