GOVERNANCE ISSUES IN
SWM
Almitra H Patel
Member, Supreme Court Committee
for Solid Waste Management in
Class 1 Cities in India
[email protected]
www.almitrapatel.com
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. 2
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
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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.
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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. Biomining will be useless with soil mixed in
organic fraction after sieving.
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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/hectare6
BIOMINING OPTIONS
Loosen top 6” of waste with cultivator,handpick 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.
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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 recognition like forced air landfill mining.
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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
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Biometh good for slaughter-wastes too.
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 pesticide; better fruit yield,colour,flavour,shelf-life
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Paddy, 6 wks after transplanting.
Left plot replaced 1/2 chemical fert
with city compost at no extra cost
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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 & Processing+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. 12
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
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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 threeprong fork. Compost
ready in 1 month.
See www.cleancity.in
45 tpd mgt onsite in
Kochi alone.
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Plastic in mixed waste is a major
problem in composting and needs
very costly machinery to remove
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BEST Door ToDoor COLLECTION
IS PRIMARY cum SECONDARY
In Nasik, Madikeri etc a tractor stops every
few houses to collect waste. In Suryapet, wetdry 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
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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.
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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.
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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.19
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COMPACTORS ARE TOTALLY
UNSUITABLE FOR 2dy TRANSPORT
Compacting dry waste makes it unsortable
and unusable for the recycling trade
Compacted wet waste is mostly incompressible and turns anaerobic and smelly
Matching vehicle design for primary-tosecondary waste transfer remains a challenge
and leads to compactor use only because
they can be loaded at ground level.
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Decentralised SWM avoids this need.
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.
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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.
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