Waste Management

With a spike in positive cases being reported across the country, India is working towards containment of COVID-19 on a war footing. The number of COVID-19 positive patients across India breached 22,000 mark with more than 700 deaths. (as on 23rd April, 21:30 PM) The National Health Profile of 2019 indicates that among the various major communicable diseases reported in 2018 across India, acute respiratory diseases had the highest share of cases. Experts suggest that people with medical conditions such as respiratory illness are at high risk of developing serious complications related to COVID-19. This suggests that our population is…

Sivaraman*, (name changed) a conservancy worker, was on regular duty last month, collecting garbage in Chrompet. Just as he was handling some 'household waste' collected from a clinic in the locality, a syringe pricked his finger. "I could not bend my finger as it seemed to have been numbed by some traces of anaesthetic still present. I reported it to my head and the doctor from the clinic was warned. They were asked to dispose of bio-medical waste according to the rules,” the worker said. This, however, is not a one-off incident in Chennai. Improper disposal of bio-medical waste is…

In the last couple of months, many apartment complexes in Bengaluru got notices from the state Pollution Control Board (KSPCB), asking them to pay a penalty of Rs 5 lakh, for discharging untreated sewage outside their premises. Many of these apartments were already running Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs), and these were functioning well as per routine lab tests that the apartments used to get done. So, the apartments wrote to KSPCB instead of paying up. But the Board did not respond to the residents’ concerns. Instead, it issued them a ‘show cause’ notice, mentioning that they hadn’t paid the fines…

It has been almost five months since ward marshals were appointed in the city to prevent public littering, but the piling up of garbage in places other than the designated ones raises questions about how effective the move has been. On its part, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) holds that violations have come down after marshals started patrolling the wards. The BBMP managed to convince the state government to appoint 232 marshals, to prevent random littering of streets, lakes, Indira canteens, landfills and other public spaces, at a cost of Rs 8.51 crore. Ward marshals were deployed from September,…

Translated by Madhusudhan Rao ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಎಲ್ಲರೂ ರಸ್ತೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿನ ಕಸದ ರಾಶಿಯನ್ನು ನೋಡಿ ಅಸಹ್ಯಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವವರೇ. ಬಿಬಿಎಂಪಿ ತ್ಯಾಜ್ಯವನ್ನು ವಿಲೇವಾರಿ ಮಾಡಿದ ನಂತರ ಎಲ್ಲರೂ ನೆಮ್ಮದಿಯ ನಿಟ್ಟುಸಿರು ಬಿಡುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಆದರೆ ಕಸ ಎಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ಹೋಗುತ್ತದೆ? ಸರ್ಕಾರ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಕಸದ ದುಃಸ್ಥಿತಿ ಸರಿಪಡಿಸಲು ಒಂದು ಧಿಡೀರ್ ಪರಿಹಾರ ಸೂಚಿಸಿದೆ - ದಿನಕ್ಕೆ ಒಟ್ಟು 2100 ಟನ್ ತ್ಯಾಜ್ಯವನ್ನು ನಿರ್ವಹಿಸುವ ಸಾಮರ್ಥ್ಯ ಹೊಂದಿರುವ ಐದು ಕಸದಿಂದ ವಿದ್ಯುತ್ ತಯಾರಿಸುವ (“ವೇಸ್ಟ್-ಟು-ಎನರ್ಜಿ” ಅಥವಾ ಡಬ್ಲ್ಯೂಟಿಈ / WtE) ಘಟಕಗಳು. ಅನೇಕರು ಅಂದುಕೊಳ್ಳಬಹುದು - ವಾಹ್, ಕಸದಿಂದ ವಿದ್ಯುತ್! ಎಂಥ ಅದ್ಭುತ ಪರಿಕಲ್ಪನೆ! ಒಂದೇ ಏಟಿಗೆ ಎರಡು ಹಕ್ಕಿ ಹೊಡೆದ ಹಾಗೆ! ಆದರೆ ಇದು ಖಂಡಿತ ತಪ್ಪು. ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಐದು ಕಾರಣಗಳು ಇಲ್ಲಿವೆ: ಭಾರತದಲ್ಲಿ ಉತ್ಪತ್ತಿಯಾಗುವ ತ್ಯಾಜ್ಯಕ್ಕೆ ಡಬ್ಲ್ಯುಟಿಈ ಘಟಕಗಳು ಸೂಕ್ತವಲ್ಲ “ಆದ್ರೆ ಸ್ವೀಡನ್, ಸಿಂಗಪುರ್ ಮತ್ತು ಜಪಾನ್ ಗಳಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಡಬ್ಲ್ಯುಟಿಈ ಘಟಕಗಳನ್ನು ವಾಟ್ಸಾಪ್ಪ್ ವಿಡಿಯೋನಲ್ಲಿ ನಾನು ನೋಡಿದೀನಿ - ಈ ದೇಶಗಳಂತೆಯೇ ಆಧುನಿಕ ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನವನ್ನು ನಾವೂ ಏಕೆ…

Kolkata proposes to introduce biomining for the first time in the city to tackle its Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management challenge and Mollar Bheri in the eastern part of the city will pave the way.  A portion of land in this shallow flat-bottom waste water-fed fishery, located within the East Kolkata Wetlands, was being used by Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) as a dumping ground. It was alleged that the Bidhan Nagar Municipal Corporation, the Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority (NDITA) and New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) -- all in the greater Kolkata region -- had been disposing of waste in…

As Dr Alby John Varghese, the 31-year-old Regional Deputy Commissioner (South) of Chennai Corporation took some time to rest, he was pleased to see the way things were being handled by his efficient team during the "Reuse and Reduce Sale." Citizens were called upon to donate various lightly-used items that were still in usable condition but which they no longer needed. We managed to steal some time from his schedule for a quick tête-à-tête and understand how he and his team pulled this off. How did you come up with the initiative? Alby John Varghese, IAS The concept of the…

Residents of Kasturba Nagar Association (ROKA), a RWA in Chennai, have streamlined their waste management using simple practices and in the third week of December, within three months of starting focused door-to-door collection, managed to hit the magic mark of 1 TPD (tonne per day) of organic kitchen waste collected for composting!! On an average, 800-850 kgs of wet waste is now being collected from four main roads in the neighbourhood, and sent to a municipal compost yard for processing.  Members of this RWA achieved this through a series of events and planning and sensitisation meetings. They hosted events such…

Near the city centre, the clock tower, is the gleaming ‘mobile lane’, home to around 40 shops selling all varieties of mobile phones and electronic accessories. This creates a new problem for the city’s waste management authorities -- managing the increasing amounts of e-waste being generated. Significantly, the state’s pollution control board does not have a dedicated database on e-waste as it does on solid waste or plastic waste (available on its website). The state with 13 districts has only seven registered e-waste dismantlers and recyclers. Authorisation for all these e-waste dismantlers and recyclers seems to have expired in 2018,…

Pushing a rickety tricycle and making multiple stops to collect waste from households is a Herculean task for conservancy workers. As the day progresses, the vehicle gets progressively heavier with heaps of garbage but the worker still pushes it, going door to door to collect the waste.   "Every part of my body aches, literally," said a conservancy worker, who has been in the job for over 15 years. The long term health effects of their work on these blue-collared workers include persistent shoulder and back pain.  But there is some good news for them.  This troublesome situation could soon become…