GOVERNANCE ISSUES IN SWM

1. GOVERNANCE ISSUES IN SWM Almitra H Patel Member, Supreme Court Committee for Solid Waste Management in Class 1 Cities in India almitrapatel@rediffmail.com www.almitrapatel.com

2. CORRUPTION IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IN SWM Doable low-cost technologies are ignored in favour of costliest options, in choice of both equipment and processing options. Buffer Zone is a statutory must around waste-processing and disposal sites. It is often not declared or arbitrarily reduced, to help land speculators to buy cheap, force closure of site and sell at inflated value. Compensate farmers falling in Buffer Zones.

3. STRICT MONITORING OF WASTE - MANAGEMENT SITES IS A MUST Compost plants awarded to private parties are not monitored, often on purpose. City pays them (and someone shares?) ‘Tipping Fees’ to allow open-dumping waste transported by ULB to ULB’s own land given on long lease at trivial cost. Tipping fees abroad are for return on massive capital investment in private land

4. OPEN DUMPING OF MIXED WASTE INTO QUARRIES IS DISASTROUS Leachate formed in anaerobic waste enters ground-water under pressure of 40ft head and cannot be captured for treated in unlined quarry-pits. That is why EU now bans all below-ground landfills and allows only land-hills where leachate will flow out at ground level for observation and capture. Fill quarries with debris first, then can manage waste-stabilising above it later.

5. BIOREACTOR LANDFILLS ARE AGAINST MSW RULES Only inert waste and pre- post- composting rejects are allowed in landfills. India’s first attempt at it is now an open dump in a lined hole because of admin problems. Soil cover on open-dumped waste makes both unusable and un-recoverable, besides destroying a hill or field somewhere. Bio-mining will be useless with soil mixed in organic fraction after sieving.

6. EXISTING OPEN DUMPS MUST BE IMPROVED AND REMEDIATED Abandoning existing sites is not an option, it favours land-speculators. Bio-mining is the best option. It removes all material down to near-ground-level, leaving 15% rejects & no methane-generating waste. At Gorai, 1 hectare of 12 meter height was cleared in 4 months for Rs 10 lacs, recovering land worth Rs 600/sft or Rs 28 crores/hectare

7. BIOMINING OPTIONS Loosen top 6” of waste with cultivator,hand- pick out large wastes, heap into windrows. Add biocultures or old compost and turn as for fresh waste. Sieve out organic fraction. Malegaon’s Balwan garbage sorter leaves almost no waste behind: gives clean plastics, clean fine organics, clean sand / gravel. Can start work at many points around dump.

8. DON’T CAP UNLINED OPEN DUMPS Landfill gases seep out from sides with disastrous results on health of electronics & nearby residents, as seen at Mindspace Complex at Malad, Mumbai. Methane capture is max 55% even in best lined landfills. Plateau above 30o slope is only 1/3 rd area of base which biomining can give. Indian bio-mining needs carbon-credit recog- nition like forced air landfill mining.

9. MUNICIPAL WASTE TO POWER IS A SCAM Thermodynamically unviable on low-calorie Indian waste,so burn technology disapproved by SAARC. 2 plants secretly used paddy-husk or ground-nut hulls. 33 non-starter MoUs. Biometh is okay. Even large-scale conversion of hotel waste to CBG Compressed BioGas at 10% below LPG is now viable with subsidy cap Biometh good for slaughter-wastes too.

10. USE BIOGAS FOR HEAT, NOT POWER 75% energy is lost if heat energy is used to make steam to make electricity ! Compost is waste-to-energy too, as it can halve the use of fossil-fuel-based chemical fertilisers at no extra cost. IPNM= Integrated Plant Nutrient Mgt uses city compost along w chem-fert: less water needed for crops; strong roots = less pesti- cide; better fruit yield,colour,flavour,shelf-life

11. Paddy, 6 wks after transplanting. Left plot replaced 1/2 chemical fert with city compost at no extra cost

12. NEVER OUTSOURCE OVER 50% COLLECTION & TRANSPORT Ensure healthy competition, avoid both union pressure and monopolistic private practices. Ramky is a disaster in Aurangabad Never give Collection+Transport & Process- ing+Disposal to same party without stringent city & 3rd-party monitoring. A2Z is a scam in Kanpur. Shows 400 tpd recd but actuals are 40 tpd. Regular complaints in press, DTE etc. Blacklist such Co’s so others do not suffer.

13. CLUSTERS ARE WORST OPTION ! They will be nobody’s baby,just like Common Effluent Treatment Plants. Substandard waste will reach it, like Akbar’s milk hundi. Small & Medium Towns now have advantage of manageable quantities of waste and many can easily become no-outside-dump cities with unmixed discards & decentralised SWM. Villages resisting outside waste will force this

14. Two biobins 6’x3’x 2.5’ high can take 40 kg wet waste in 300 Kochi apts.Waste is added daily, with bioculture or 5% old compost and turned daily with a three-prong fork. Compost ready in 1 month. See www.cleancity.in 45 tpd mgt onsite in Kochi alone.

15. Plastic in mixed waste is a major problem in composting and needs very costly machinery to remove

16. BEST Door ToDoor COLLECTION IS PRIMARY cum SECONDARY In Nasik, Madikeri etc a tractor stops every few houses to collect waste. In Suryapet, wet- dry wastes are transported clearly separate to waste-processing point. Ideal for Small/Med Towns. Further dry-waste separation is done outside vehicle at sorting and baling point. Pushcarts + bins allow full sorting at doorstep

17. BENEFITS OF DECENTRALISED SWM Savings in transport labour, diesel, repairs can pay for biobins on homes & waived cess. Good onsite compost for residents and city. Fewer traffic jams, carbon emissions, no pollution of distant unmonitored spaces. Plan for dry waste sorting spaces DWSS in every Ward to accept ALL dry wastes, selling recyclables and baling low-value unwanteds.

18. OPTIONS FOR UNWANTED PLASTICS Shred low-value plastics, laminates for ‘Plastic Roads’ which should be mandatory within all ULB limits for far better road life. P2F Plastics To Fuel will soon become viable. Useful as AFR=Alternate Fuel Resources in cement kilns to replace coal. Densify for use. Only PVC releases dioxins when burnt, phase out then ban short-life applications.

19. MSW Rules only require BIOLOGICAL STABILISING of wet waste. E.g. in windrows, with 4-6 weekly turnings. Compost plant is not required. Only needs parking-lot discipline, with sincere officer to ensure waste is unloaded in rows. Use wastewater for composting, not virgin groundwater if avoidable. Give stabilised waste to farmers to get space.

21. COMPACTORS ARE TOTALLY UNSUITABLE FOR 2dy TRANSPORT Compacting dry waste makes it unsortable and unusable for the recycling trade Compacted wet waste is mostly incompress-ible and turns anaerobic and smelly Matching vehicle design for primary-to- secondary waste transfer remains a challenge and leads to compactor use only because they can be loaded at ground level. Decentralised SWM avoids this need.

22. ADMINISTRATIVE & POLITICAL WILL is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY FOR SUCCESSFUL SWM Technology is never the problem, solutions at all scales of operation are available. Payment-by-weight encourages mixing of debris and silt into household waste, making all unusable. So pay by household served, or by volume-adjusted wt of max 0.5 ton per cubic meter of vehicle capacity.

23. BEGIN AWARENESS TRG IN ULB Awareness for PKs / SKs and their maistrys / supervisors on SEPARATE TRANSPORT of dry waste, pure wet waste, mixed-wet waste. Citizens cooperate fast whhen they see this. Give new councillors & MLAs a good SWM briefing to help them take sound decisions. Give maistrys upwards imprest = 1 day’s pay for rapid response in the field.