Opinion - Editorials   

Awash with waste

Solid waste management in urban India has become an intractable problem in recent years and, if anything, its gravity has been underestimated. The city of Kochi had to shut its schools and government offices for a day, as mountains of accumulated waste were removed from the streets to a makeshift dumping ground. This extraordinary operation had to be conducted with police protection and on the strength of court orders. Residents of many localities, representing Kerala̵ 7;s socially conscious and assertive citizen sector, were protesting efforts to dump the few hundred tonnes of municipal waste virtually in their backyard. Kochi’s garbage problem is symptomatic of the failure of the national effort at scientific waste management. Had State governments earnestly implemented the Municipal Solid Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, notified by the Central government in September 2000 under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, the consequences of rising consumption and changing lifestyles would not be so unmanageable. The MSW Rules stipulated that by December 2003 the States should ensure that cities and big towns brought down the quantity of waste through source segregation and green methods like composting; improvement to existing landfills; identification of new sites for landfills; and creation of infrastructure to dispose of waste scientifically. There is hardly a city in India that can claim full compliance. The best results they can show are expensive contracts with transporters to remove waste from the street to the suburbs. This strategy shifts the big problem out of metro-sight and creates new problems elsewhere.

Many citizen-sector initiatives have demonstrated that waste reduction can be achieved through simple, low-cost methods. However, even where such social capital is available, the municipal bodies and State governments have not come forward to help community organisations set up composting and waste sorting centres. The four big metros, which account for a fifth of the estimated 100,000 tonnes of trash generated nationally in a day, are prominent laggards. This course is clearly unsustainable. Robust consumption at a time of high growth is generating mountains of waste. Without strong laws on the use of non-toxic chemicals in manufacturing, eco-friendly packaging, and ‘take back’ mechanisms for aerosol cans and non-biodegradable plastics, and strict enforcement of such laws, the waste management problem is bound to get even more serious. The Kochi experience, including the dramatised response, underscores the need for every State to look at waste management in mission mode.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Concern over liquidity
Awash with waste
Should we allow U.P. to hijack Indian politics?
The long term damage to Kerala’s health
Long road to employment guarantee
Pollution threatens Himalayan glaciers
Britain has lost art of socialising the young
Corrections and clarifications
Jail for Sanjay
Unwanted media hype
Congratulations!

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu