Transcript ENVIRONMENTAL LAW FOR URBAN MANAGEMENT

ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
FOR URBAN MANAGEMENT
Almitra H Patel,
Member, Supreme Court Committee
for SWM in Class 1 Cities
50 Kothnur, Bagalur Rd, Bangalore
560077
[email protected]
WASTE IS WEALTH
Since Vedic times, food wastes
returned to the soil for sustainable
farming. The plastic yug and urea
subsidies have destroyed this cycle.
Villages around cities suffer horrific
waste dumps, dogs, flies, smoke &
stench but feel helpless to protest.
WHY A PIL FOR SWM ?
Bangalore began dumping its waste
randomly on its beautiful outskirts for
want of official waste-disposal sites.
Capt Velu and I found this the case all
over India, during our 100-city Clean
India Campaigns by road in 1994 + 95.
WP 888/96 in SUPREME COURT
Filed against every State and U.T. +
GoI, CPCB, 10 worst and 4 best cities.
1998 SC 8-member Committee formed
and Interim Report presented to 400
municipal officials, on all aspects.
1999 Final Report approved by all 300
Class 1 Cities in “mini-referendum”
2000 MSW Mgt & Handling Rules
MSW Rules 2000
Apply to all ULBs, pop over 20,000
Mandatory to set up waste processing
and disposal facilities by 31.12.2003
Supreme Court will soon send case to
every State High Court for monitoring
ULBs’ compliance with these Rules.
Citizens can approach the Amicus for
redressal of city’s non-performance.
Key Recommendations
Keep Wet and Dry wastes unmixed
at source until collected at fixed time.
Daily doorstep collection of wet waste
for Composting. Landfill only rejects.
Dry wastes left to informal recyclers.
City must not mix any debris (malba),
drain silt or road dust in garbage
collection. Use 2nd shift trip if reqd.
THE BEST WAY TO KEEP
STREETS CLEAN IS NOT
TO DIRTY THEM:
AIM FOR BIN-LESS CITIES
Calcutta uses its normal handcarts & staff
at no extra charge to citizens.
80% cooperation in residential areas.
Nasik loads directly from homes into tipper
trucks, to handle waste once only.
Most cities use 4-6-bucket handcarts.
EXISTING MPL ACTS
ARE GOOD ENOUGH
No additional legislation is reqd, as
SR Rao showed with Additional
Cleaning Charges in Surat, or Mumbai
does for Apartments: wet-waste only.
Bangalore’s official policy is for wetdry collection in separate bins in cart
SCHOOL KIDS CLEANED
UP COORG DISTRICT
They bring all thin-plastic waste from
home to school one day a week.
A waste-buyer visits schools weekly.
Funds are collected class-wise and
Used at end of term for Eco-Clubs.
Parents cooperate wonderfully !
RECYCLING of DRY
WASTES NEEDS HELP
SEWA Ahmedabad is best, all-India
SNDT Pune has rag-pickers’ Union
PCMC provides waste-sorting and
storage space, + eqpt at dump to
recycle plastic by Mahila Sangha
Mumbai gives PET collection space
ENCOURAGE RECYCLING
THRU PROACTIVE POLICIES
Provide waste-sorting & storing spaces.
Promote eco-parks with quality power and
soft loans for pollution control eqpt,
to bring recyclers into the mainstream.
Change PWD codes and specifications to
include beneficial new technologies like
waste-plastic-modified bitumen roads
and fly-ash use in bricks, embankments
and highways.
START by CLEANING SLUMS
A City is only as clean
as its Dirtiest Areas.
Slums are the easiest to clean
and the most cooperative.
Mumbai uses ‘take-away bins’
in Slum Adoption Schemes.
B’lore has trucks stop at gate.
MINIMISE WASTES !
Mumbai ALMs reduce wastes by 90%
Spraying Delhi’s dalao with bioculture
reduced monthly clearance trips from
30 to just 6 ! Savings pay for treatment
Campus-composting services are “in”.
Require this for all large public spaces
Hotel wastes go to Food Banks or pigs
COMMERCIAL AREAS
COOPERATE THE LEAST
Charge them “Polluter-Pays” user
fees and modify the cleaning hours.
Require each ground-flr shop/office
to keep its frontage-width clean
including pavement + drain.
New By-laws may be needed for this.
DEBRIS MANAGEMENT
Dumped on streets or vacant plots at night
May need new Bylaws for Fines after Notice
or walls around vacant plots (Rajkot) or
clearance on payment (Chennai, Ghaziabad).
Collect volume-based deposit on Plan-Sanction
Start Debris Hot-line to link buyers & producers.
Bldg materials must move on-site below 1st slab
or confiscate & collect separately for city’s use.
PLAN for CLEAN CITIES
when adding Wards or planning Layouts:
Parking and washing space for handcarts
Dry-Waste sorting and storage spaces
Parking for take-away trucks at markets
Hospital-waste-management sites / space
Debris exchanges,waste-for-fuel or feed.
ZONING PLANS :
Move livestock out to planned zones
before adding or developing new areas
Plan dispersed space for Hawking Zones
Zones for migrant construction labour,
and plan for those who will stay back.
Affordable –Housing Zoning for slum-free
cities, with sites-and-services.
REGULATIONS FOR
CLEAN CITIES :
Sale Deeds to have clauses for :
Not mixing wet and dry wastes
Rainwater-harvesting, groundwater recharge
Common toilets+ water in pvt societies
& temporary toilets during construction
Cleanliness of frontages till road centre
if any ground-floor offices or shops.
SPECIAL ROLE OF
DEVLPMT AUTHORITIES
Avoid unserved Twilight Zones:
Waste clearance from Day One by DA
or private agents, with user fees and
Polluter-Pays for trade-wastes.
AVOID unsustainable NGO Pilot projects
that seek capital + operating funds !
Give area to ULB when 50% occupied.
SITES FOR WASTE MGT
MSW Rules Sch III 1. asks Development
Authorities to identify and hand over
sites to ULB;State UD Dept to coordinate.
Don’t just look for “available” Revenue land.
Identify the most suitable site, then
lease, buy or acquire it at market rates.
Waste - processing +
disposal sites lie mostly
out side ULB limits & always
face NIMBY resistance
So there must always be advance
involvement of local residents in an
advisory committee, plus ‘Polluter Pays’
compensation to the host Panchayat or
Ward by the ULB or State by way of
better infrastructure, facilities, payment.
NEVER start open-dumping
of waste in a ‘proposed’
waste - processing site !
No matter how desperate the need for
space, do it right or not at all.
Ground - water can be polluted in one
downpour, and take 15 years to clean up.
Waste stabilisation in windrows
is quick, easy & inexpensive (Pune,Blr)
using EM. Powerpoint available.
Urgently declare the
mandatory Buffer Zones of
No-New-Development around
existing and identified wasteprocessing + disposal sites.
When new homes, schools and industries
spring up around such once - ideal sites,
protests for shifting of the compost plant
begin even before it can come up,
supported by the unplanned-builder lobby.
Proceed aggressively to
compost all city wastes
and thus meet India’s annual shortfall of
6 million tons of organic manures to
* drought-proof our dry-land agriculture,
* reclaim our degraded soils,
* revegetate mining overburdens,
* reduce pollution of peri-urban areas.
State Agriculture and
Fertiliser Ministries should
prepare a joint Action Plan
to ensure locally available and affordable city
compost use along with chemical fertilizers.
Combined use ensures three times better
uptake of urea by crops and prevents nitrate
pollution of ground-water by unbalanced overuse of urea or Nitrogenous fertilisers
Such Integrated Plant Nutrient Management
( IPNM ) gives excellent yields without
depleting soil quality over time.
Avoid seeking “free”
Waste-To-Energy (WTE)
options which never work
33 feasibility reports + 17 MOUs over 5
years = not a single working WTE plant,
several scams, 2 convictions and a
pretence at pelletisation.
There are no “free” BOOT schemes.
The public pays the hidden penalties for
quality, quantity & counter-guarantees
WTE costs 13 times
more for waste
processing and 3-9
times more for power!
e.g. Lucknow’s Rs 65 crores for 125 tons a
day and an impossible 5 MW, with 15 cr
subsidy from MNES.
A 125 tpd compost plant costs 5crore.
One MW conventional power costs 4-6
crores for thermal or hydel energy
ENGINEERED LANDFILLS
Specified in MSW Rules for all, to prevent
leachate from undigested waste or rainfall on
wastes from entering ground-water.
A good one at Pune costs Rs 2 cr for 600tpd for
2-3 yrs life. There is also one at Nasik.
Fully lined landfills are not really reqd for v v
small towns or in very dry areas.
??? May seek case-by-case exemption from
SPCB for these locations, taking care to
collect domestic haz-wastes separately.
ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM
FOR CLEAN CITIES
Running a city efficiently and keeping
it clean every day requires exceptional
skills, commitment and dedication at all
levels.
Administrative reforms can help create
an improved working climate for this.
Train tomorrow’s City Managers
today, for tomorrow’s urban
problems and solutions.
Use the skills of our Navaratna City
Managers (India’s unsung heroes) as
trainers in our IAS Academies.
Both IAS + Public Service Commission
curricula need full-scale courses on
waste mgt. Also training programs in
SWM issues for new Corporators.
Appoint City Managers on
2-3-year fixed-term contracts
to ensure peak results.
Cities, like Companies need annual, threeyear and ten-year plans and a Performor-Perish work culture.
‘Frequent transfers’ at whim at a day’s
notice play havoc with effective
planning, execution and morale, and the
cost of failed long-term planning is
incalculable.
Replace a culture of mistrust
with a culture of faith
Each person assigned any responsibility
should automatically have some financial
authority to go with the respective post, eg
1 Day’s salary as automatic discretionary imprest
allowance for Class 3 staff,
1 Wk’s pay to Cl. 2 staff for ‘stitch-in-time’ action
1 Month’s salary as imprest for Class 1 officers
Delegation of fiscal powers will make a
huge difference to grievance redressal,
on-road efficiency, productivity & costs.
The interests of the few must
never over-ride the interests
of the many : Be up - front
about Labor Reform
The poorest always suffer the most from
uncleaned cities & creeping privatisation
thru recruitment freezes while cities grow.
Triple the job openings in SWM by
exempting waste mgt services from the
Contract Labour Act, and privatise as much
% of city area as staff shortage %. Eg A.P.
Strengthen city finances
Allow City Managers and/or elected bodies
their 74th Amendment autonomy to raise
resources in their respective ways without requiring State Govt assent for this.
Index all items of city income
annually to the cost-of-living index
to stay in tune with reality.
This avoids the populist deferment of
needed increases till after elections.
All political parties can act in the
name of such blanket rules.
Promote public-pvt partnership
Ensure credible payment mechanisms thru
fool-proof payment guarantees through
Banks. If payments, agreements or grants
are delayed, parties will simply run away.
Avoid unrealistic demands for wasteprocessors to bear waste-transport costs
or pay royalties. Hygienic waste
processing and disposal is a social cost,
easily met by more disciplined wastecollection that excludes debris and silt.
Enforce Producer
Responsibility
Cities are banning Paan Paraag etc.
Similarly require take-back schemes, esp
of wasteful or hard-to-recycle packaging.
Require take-back of PET bottles at
producers’ cost, not cities’ and citizens’.
New industries here must conform to their
home-country environmental standards.