Key points of HCFI Expert Round Table

31^st July, 2021, 11am-12pm

• Solid waste commonly includes trash, garbage consisting of everyday items. Municipal solid waste includes highly decomposable items like foods, trash, old appliances, paper, glass etc.
• The volume of waste generation in India has been increasing rapidly over the last few years.
• The 2014 Planning Commission report by the Task Force on waste to energy estimates that urban India will generate around 2,76,342 tonnes per day of waste by 2021, 4,50,132 tonnes per day by 2031 and 11,95,000 tonnes per day by 2050.
• Waste management rules in India include the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016, Construction and Demolition Waste Management Rules 2016, Plastic Waste Management Rules 2016 and amendments, Biomedical Waste Management Rules 2016, Hazardous and Other Wastes (Management and Transboundary Movement) rules 2016 and e-Waste Management Rules 2016.
• With a rapid growth in population, the annual waste generation is expected to increase by 70%, from 2.01 billion in 2016 to 3.40 billion tonnes in 2050.
• Growth of the urban population directly leads to increase in waste generation. The rapidly increasing population generates solid waste that is much more than that can be effectively handled by the urban local bodies (ULBs).
• Maharashtra generates the highest amount of solid waste at 22,080 MT per day, while Sikkim generates the lowest at 89 MT per day.
• Among the UTs, Delhi generates the highest amount of solid waste at 10,500 MT per day.
• Overall, Daman and Diu is the lowest waste generator in India.
• Improper management of solid waste is a risk to the environment and public health because of unsafe disposal, which produces dangerous gases and leachates, microbial decomposition, climate conditions.
• ULBs are entrusted with the responsibility to keep the cities and towns clean. But they are unable to do so because of inadequate infrastructure, poor institutional capacity, financial constraints and lack of political will.
• All available landfill sites in India are already exhausted.
• Though there are several legislations and policies to regulate waste disposal, they have failed to achieve their objectives due to lack of awareness amongst the stakeholders as well as poor enforcement by the regulatory authorities.
• Solid waste can be categorised into three: Biodegradable waste or organic waste, recyclable waste and inert waste (dirt etc.) The percentage of wet biodegradable waste is high (52%) followed by the inert and non-biodegradable waste (31%); recyclable waste constitutes 17% of total waste.
• The Municipal Solid Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules 2000 were modified and notified as Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016.
• These rules are applicable to; (i) Every urban local body (Mega city to Panchayat level), (ii) outgrowths in urban agglomerations, (iii) census towns as declared by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, (iv) notified areas, (v) notified industrial townships, (vi) areas under the control of Indian Railways, (vii) airports/ airbases, (viii) Ports and harbours, (ix) defence establishments, (x) special economic zones, (xi) State and Central government organisations, (xii) places of pilgrims, (xiii) religious and historical importance as may be notified by respective State government from time to time and (xiv) every domestic, institutional, commercial and any other non residential solid waste generator situated in the areas.
• Every household is a waste generator; street vendors, event organisers, RWAs and market associations, Gated Communities, Hotels, restaurants, malls, offices and institutions etc. are also considered waste generators.
• Section 4 of the Rules has clearly defined the roles and duties of waste generators and authorities. To describe a few, it is the duty of waste generators to segregate waste and hand over the segregated waste to the authorised waste collectors.
• Environment ministry has to constitute a Central Monitoring Committee’ to monitor waste management every year; Ministry of Urban development has to frame a national policy on solid waste management, provide technical guidelines, financial support, training to local bodies, etc.
• CPCB shall coordinate with SPCBs/PCCs for monitoring and Annual Reports, formulation of standards, review new technologies, prepare guidelines for buffer zones restricting from residential, commercial and construction activities areas; and inter-state movement of waste.
• Manufacturers/Brand owners shall facilitate collect back wastes of their products and provide pouch for packaging sanitary wastes, etc.
• Industry (cement, power plant, etc.) shall use Refuse-derived fuel (RDF) within 100 km.
• A key aspect of efficient solid waste management is waste segregation. Dry waste should be sent for recycling and reuse, while wet waste from the kitchen can be used for composting.
• It is mandatory for waste generators to segregate their waste in color coded bins (blue for dry waste and green for wet waste) for proper recovery, reuse and recycling.
• The 2016 solid waste management rules also mandate door to door collection of segregated waste; waste generators are required to pay a “user fee” to the waste collectors.
• Around 96% of wards across India have achieved 100% door to door waste collection as of January 2020.
• Recycling is the process of transforming segregated solid waste or raw material for producing new product. Reusable and recyclable waste comprises ~20% of total waste.
• The recyclable material is usually collected by ragpickers and kabariwalas, which reduces the volume of solid waste and also saves costs of collection, transportation and disposal.
• Setting up facilities with adequate space for sorting of recyclable materials is the responsibility of local authorities.
• The rules prohibit waste generators from throwing, burning solid waste in open public spaces, in drains or water bodies. There is a provision for “spot fine” for littering and nonsegregation.
• The processing technologies used in India are composting, recycling, refuse-derived fuel, incineration, pyrolysis, waste-to-wealth and waste-to-energy.
• Non-recyclable waste with calorific value of ≥1500 K/cal/kg shall not be disposed of on landfills and shall only be utilized for generating energy (waste to energy plants) either or through refuse derived fuel or by giving away as feed stock for preparing refuse derived fuel. High calorific wastes shall be used for co-processing in cement or thermal power plants.
• There is a time frame for the implementation of the solid waste management rules: Landfill Identification (1 year), Procurement of waste processing facilities (2 years),  Ensure segregation of waste (2 years), Cities up to 1 million population (2 years), Million plus cities (3 years), Setting up sanitary landfills (3 years),  and Bioremediation/capping of old landfills (5 years).
• The waste pickers do not have legal status and protection and are not capable of enforcing systems in waste collection and segregation.
• Institutional and financial issues must be addressed on priority.
• Citizen participation needs to be promoted; community awareness and change in attitudes towards solid waste and their disposal can improve the system in India.
• On the basis of the solid waste management Rules, the Delhi government has notified the Solid Waste Management By-laws in 2018, which also have provision for user fee including penalties for violation of the By-laws.
• Delhi has five local bodies: New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), Delhi Cantonment Board (DCB), North Delhi Municipal Corporation, South Delhi Municipal Corporation and the East Delhi Municipal Corporation.
• Delhi has a population of around 2 crores. East Delhi has a very high population density. Delhi also has heterogenous pattern of settlements.
• Solid waste management is done at the ward level, zone and then local body.
• Major activities in solid waste management include segregation, primary collection, secondary storage, secondary transportation, processing and finally disposal. Processing can be decentralised waste processing, centralized waste processing (composting, waste to energy) etc.
• Twin bin system has been started in Delhi. After collection, the waste is taken to the decentralised or processing facility or the landfill. All garbage collection vehicles have GPS and they are monitored with daily reporting. IEC activities towards behavior change are ongoing.
• Day sweeping is also a part of solid waste management; 80% is manual and the remaining 20% is done mechanically.
• There are 20 composting plants in Delhi for processing of wet waste. Aerobic composting takes 15 days in these plants.
• There are 10 biomethanation plants in Delhi with capacity of 5 tonnes each. Here, the wet waste is converted to biogas, which is then used for electricity generation.
• An integrated facility is being developed in East Delhi in collaboration with NTPC, which will have waste to energy plant, biomethanation plant, inert waste processing unit. By 2023, Delhi will be able to process 100% of solid waste.
• An integrated facility already exists at Narela Bawana plant. Ghazipur plant is based on RDF.
• Delhi has four existing landfills: Ghazipur, Okhla, Bhalaswa and Narela Bawana. Three have exhausted their capacity in 2002. Remediation of landfill was started in 2009. But not much work has been done on this. Following an order of NGT in 2019, remediation work has started in these three landfills. Dry waste like plastic is sent to waste to energy plants; soil type waste is used for roadside filling and filling of low lying areas.
• Challenges that are coming up are enforcement of segregation at source despite Bhagidari workshops; decentralised waste processing due to non availability of suitable and sufficient land, uncontrolled and unplanned development without civic infrastructure, multiple agencies, procedure of environmental clearance is cumbersome and NIMBY syndrome.
• Every individual has to fulfil his responsibility to solid waste management to make it a success.
• Concept of waste management can be added in the school curriculum to educate the children. Schools should have small units of solid waste management in their campus.
• There is a need to study small corporations / bodies who are doing good work in solid waste management for their innovative ideas (concept of positive deviance).
• Cooperative societies should be encouraged to have these micro waste management units, totally sponsored by the government.
• Perishable waste should be managed at the source itself, but it is not happening.

Participants

Dr Anil Kumar

Mr Pradeep Khandelwal

Dr Ashok Gupta

Dr Arun Jamkar

Dr DR Rai

Dr SK Mittal

Dr KK Kalra

Dr Jayakrishnan Alapet

Mr Neeraj Tyagi

Dr Renu Chopra

Ms Ira Gupta

Dr S Sharma

(Based on presentations by Dr Anil Kumar, Director HCFI, Ex-Director Environment Dept., Delhi Govt. & Mr Pradeep Khandelwal, Retd. Chief Engineer, East Delhi Municipal Corporation)