As the country gears up for the Swachh Survekshan ranking and Bengaluru’s garbage menace becomes a topic of conversation, not just among citizens but in the legislature session too, Almitra Patel, member of the Supreme Court Committee for Solid Waste Management, and national expert, Swachh Bharat Mission, says the solution is simple — mixed waste should never go to landfills.
In conversation with the editorial staff of the TNIE, she says corruption, lack of will and focus in the wrong direction are the root cause of all the problems. The least citizens can do is segregate and manage their wet waste and demand that Bruhat Benglauru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) strictly follows Solid Waste Management Rules 2016.
Excerpts:
What exactly is the problem with garbage management?
Garbage was never a problem from Vedic times, and till the 1970s, the only waste that came out of homes was kitchen waste (wet waste), highly valued by farmers. Since the 1980s, when plastics came in and people started throwing out non-biodegradables with biodegradables, mixed waste became a problem that cannot be handled.
What is the solution?
The solutions are very clearly spelt out in the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016. There are eight points listing the Duties of Waste Generators (citizens) in Rule 5, and 37 points listing the Duties and Responsibilities of Local Authorities (like BBMP) in Rule 15.
Why is it not being done?
The major problem in waste management today, especially in Bengaluru, is the lack of will to do the right thing. There is countrywide corruption which is keeping India dirty. There is more focus on expensive equipment purchase, instead of simple daily supervision for compliance. The government’s focus is wrong.
What should be done?
It is a matter of will. Recently, in Maharashtra, an officer who was posted as Additional Commissioner, Solid Waste, in an 18-lakh population city, ensured in 18 months that zero waste goes to the landfill, and at no extra cost to the municipality. He ruthlessly ensured no collection of mixed waste. This is what Bengaluru and other cities need to do. There is no excuse for mixed waste going to any landfill anywhere in the country. Also, if wet and dry waste are collected on different days, chances of mixing are minimal.
What about transporting garbage?
The problem is countrywide. We are following colonial practices -- Britishers weighed collected wet waste for better monitoring. But this works the other way in case of mixed waste. Here you are incentivising the maximising of waste. No contractor will voluntarily help reduce waste going to landfills to zero, and get paid nothing. So the whole system of payment by weight is at the root of what bad practices.
Is there no solution to this?
The same collection and transport contract can be tweaked, and payment done based on households. Suppose there are 1,000 houses giving a tonne of waste a day, instead of paying Rs 6,000 a tonne, you pay Rs 6,000 for 1,000 households. This can be done for new and existing contracts, with annual 5 per cent increase, or as per contract terms. Corruption and the wrong incentivisation of collection and transport is the problem.
What about vacant sites turning into dump yards?
Vacant sites have to be monitored. Penalise adjoining apartments or all those throwing waste, if it doesn’t stop after warnings. Urban local bodies have so many weapons in their hands, if they choose to use them for enforcement. There will always be about 5% of any population who, out of defiance or to seek attention, will do the wrong things.
What to do with wet waste?
Wet waste is biodegradable. It can be food or garden waste or anything that can be composted. Biomethanation (biogas) is a solution that can be implemented even on a small scale. Home composting or burying wet waste around trees is another.
With reference to the recent Mitaganahlli issue, is there business potential in waste management?
There is no excuse for 300 trucks of mixed waste going daily to Mitaganahalli for years. We can set a target to reduce mixed waste by 2 per cent every week. If each collection route reduces its mixed waste pickup by just 2 per cent each week, in a year’s time it will be down to zero. Once waste is segregated, wet waste goes for composting and different solutions come up. For dry waste management, the country has many waste pickers, waste buyers, aggregators and recyclers, in which up to 2 per cent of urban populations are informally involved.
If clean, recyclable dry waste increases, jobs will also increase. No contractor would want to burn fuel to transport waste to Mitganahalli, Mandur, Bidadi or Ramanagara, when they can go three streets away to the nearest waste buyer. That saves fuel and money, including for all taxpayers. Pollution and traffic will also reduce if wet and dry waste management is decentralised.
But waste in the neighbourhood is a concern…
People need to understand that food waste exposed to air will not produce smelly leachate or methane. If waste is airless, it is a problem. If you take a rotten tomato and keep it on a window sill for a week, it will turn into powder in the sun.
If you put it in a plastic bag, it will end up being stinky. Without air, its decomposition generates leachate and methane gas.
How can existing waste be managed in landfills?
Today, waste taken to a dump site is mostly levelled and compacted, making it airless. Instead, while unloading waste, wind-rows can be created which are about 2 metres high and 3 metres wide. This improves exposure of waste to air and reduces the volume of waste, as carbon turns to carbon-dioxide and hydrogen to water. Food waste has around 70 per cent moisture which evaporates as wind-rows heat up.
What’s wrong with garbage management in Bengaluru?
The terrible thing is we are looking at quarry pits to dump garbage. This permanently and irreversibly pollutes groundwater. Just as deep divers face increasing water pressure as they go deeper, the same happens with leachate. The liquid in wet waste in deep quarry pits is forced through cracks deep down with increased pressure. That is why globally, it is forbidden to put any waste in fractured limestone areas.
Is BBMP doing enough in terms of waste management?
BBMP does not want to prevent what is happening. It is looking for a cure, like setting up costly STPs wherever villagers complain about pollution. That does not solve the problem. If you visit Kannur lake, which was once beautiful, you can see black leachate pouring in, which is preventable.
Why is there not much effort to treat leachate?
In 2015, there were several quarry pits at Belahalli where garbage was dumped, which led to black water filling adjacent pits. A woman from Mumbai treated these with biocultures and aeration, and within two weeks the dark pools became stink free and light brown. She did it for almost a year but the government agency, which had the contract, refused to pay her without huge bribes.
She never got paid and left. Now we are where we are. Officials saw for themselves the success of bio-treatment of leachate contaminated water. But nobody is interested in a low-cost solution. It is much more attractive to put up a Rs 300-crore STP than buy biocultures and treat leachate. At a closed Bagalur site, you can actually see and hear methane bubbling into leachate wells, which are never emptied as intended. Wet waste must be stopped from going to landfills to stop leachate formation.
Can you tell us about bio-mining?
Bio-mining is a structured waste management process that separates old mixed waste into usable components. Compost mixed with fine soil, known as bio-earth, is used for forestry and non-food crops. Coarser fractions are used for infrastructure like embankments or road sub-grades, while light plastics are blown out and recycled into low-value products. Large, non-recyclable items become Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF), which should be incinerated in cement plants. The process begins with bio-remediation, where waste is excavated, aerated and dried so as to permit screening through different sieves. Bio-mining can reclaim valuable land for permanent waste processing or for parks. Many solutions also exist for treating leachate or sewage-tainted waters with bio-cultures.
What are health hazards of unattended garbage heaps?
Unattended waste heaps become breeding grounds for flies and mosquitoes, leading to the spread of insect-borne diseases and epidemics. Flies carry harmful bacteria, contaminating food and surfaces, while mosquitoes are responsible for diseases like dengue and malaria. The science is clear — poor waste management directly contributes to public health risks.
Do you think the government is prioritising garbage issue and its health risks?
No, the government’s priority is: “How can I make money out of this or that activity, this or that purchase or contract?” There was a solid waste management committee in Bengaluru that I was a member of. The corporation did not like our advice and despite being appointed by the state, the committee was dismantled via email by the Joint Commissioner, who lacked the authority to do so.
What was it the committee recommended?
The committee had flagged how frequent transfers in the waste management body left no room for expertise or continuity. While waste management rules specify what to do, they failed to explain how to do it.
A proposed solution was a solid waste management body led by a waste management expert with a five-year tenure. Instead, the government made the Joint Commissioner its CEO, enabling unchecked spending and keeping control in the hands of those benefiting from the system.
What is the role of citizens in reducing waste?
It starts at home. Everyone should begin by keeping food waste and dry waste separate. In apartments and gated communities, residents should collectively compost wet waste in their compound. Every citizen can fulfil duty by segregating waste properly. In every eatery, and at weddings and parties, people should follow waste segregation rules.
Since when did you started working on waste management and how have things changed since?
I retired from my family business in 1991 and got involved in waste management since then. The situation is only getting worse as urban populations increase, plus per capita waste volume rises. Additionally, the demand for convenient packaging is growing.
Indore is considered a successful model for waste management, and officials and politicians also visit the city to study it. If they can, why can’t we?
Ask them if Indore allowed even a single commissioner to enter its dumping ground. Not a single commissioner has been permitted to enter. However, some who have gone behind the site have shared photographs of lots of dry waste, including RDF, hidden under soil cover. Activists have also visited all the nearby cement plants, asking if they have received any non-recyclable items. None of them have received any, or the expected quantities.