Transcript Status of Recycling and Ecomark Legislation in India

Status of Recycling and
Ecomark Legislation in India
Almitra H. Patel
Member, Supreme Court
Committee for Solid Waste
Management in Class 1 Cities
in India
R’02 February 2002
Indians have forgotten their Eco
Heritage
Since millennia, Indians have composted
“wet” waste to return nutrients to the soil.
Stable-straw and food waste goes into
village pits and emptied the compost on the
land each monsoon. This maintained soil
vitality.
Now heavy subsidies for urea and chemical
fertilizer have slowly killed this practice.
Green Revolution and
Environmental Degradation
Farmers were prosperous before the
“green revolution”, which has slowly made
11.6 million hectares of our soils barren
and alkaline or saline.
City wastes, once largely biodegradable,
were carted to outlying farms for compost
heaps.
This is unviable now since plastics came
into use, because thin plastic carry-bags
affect germination and water-penetration
into soil.
Valuable Organic Manure is
wasted
City wastes end up open-dumped in
low-lying areas, along radial roads or
in storm-drains.
This is a national waste. India has a
shortfall of 6 million tons a year of
organic manures, which compost from
our largest cities can easily provide.
Composting in India
Bulk composting, first promoted in 1944,
failed miserably in 1979 when Westernstyle sorting-before-composting equipment
was tried.
Western waste has only 16-24% wet food
waste and is free-flowing. Indian waste is
50-80% wet waste, and is compact and
unsortable in bulk, with little left to recycle
after waste-pickers have searched for a
livelihood in the waste.
The solution
Only in the 90’s has composting of
mixed wastes, as-is, followed by
sieving, provided a viable solution .
Addition of either 5% cowdung slurry
or commercial biocultures speeds up
the process
Public Interest Litigation
Public Interest Litigation against open
dumping of garbage led to formation of a
Supreme Court Committee for Solid Waste
Management.
The Committee’s Report led to the Ministry
of Environment’s “Municipal Solid Waste
(Management & Handling) Rules 2000”.
Recommendations
Source-separation of “dry” & “wet”
waste
Doorstep collection of “wet” waste, for
Composting bio-degradables as the
first option
Recyclables left to the informal sector
Landfilling only compost rejects &
inerts.
MSW Rules
The Rules also direct cities to
“promote recycling or reuse of
segregated materials” and “ensure
community participation in waste
segregation”.
Indian Habits
Indians are resource-conserving and
frugal.
We sell newspapers, bottles and tins
to doorstep waste-buyers and re-use
a lot, discarding little.
We “progress”
We generate only 50-100 gms of nonbiodegradable waste per capita per day.
Sadly, this small ecological footprint is seen
as “backward” or under-developed.
So in our 35 cities of over 1-million
population, “dry” waste levels are
approaching Western levels of over 1kg
per capita per day.
Waste Pickers are us
Waste-picking at street bins and
dumps already supports about 1% of
large cities’ populations, and always
the neediest ones.
Source-separation will make cleaner
streams of ‘dry’ waste available for
processing.
Opportunities in Waste
With 65% of India’s billion-plus
humans living in urban areas, this
presents a golden opportunity for
suppliers
of
simple
low-cost
decentralized recycling processes
and equipment.
And those who seize the
opportunity
Vivendi has a long-term contract to
collect waste from 30% of Chennai
(Madras).
At Navi Mumbai (Near Bombay) a
Canadian composting bioculture is
being promoted.
… and others
Japan’s E M is now being tried in
Pune to compost mixed waste without
heap-turning.
Tetrapak has finally helped set up a
producer of hardboard, only from
post-producer waste.
But much remains to be done
PET bottles in the millions, for mineral
water, Coke or Pepsi are another
uncollected nuisance. Only postproducer waste is being recycled now.
“Recyclable” is meaningless unless
Recycling is actually done!
Multi-Nationals
It is a moral tragedy that Multi-National
Companies can get away with cheap-anddirty practices that their home countries
stopped tolerating over a decade ago.
Their lack of social conscience forces urban
India to pay, in filth or city taxes, for the
problems created by a one-time-use
culture.
A start
A new start-up in Pune plans to turn
PET, Tetra-paks and mixed plastic
wastes to hardboard, furniture or
shapes, and use post-consumer
waste as well.
But what about the recyclable wastes
of 280 million of us???
Thin Plastic Bags
Thin plastic carry-bags are the bane of
India.
They are uneconomical to collect and
recycle. A minimum-20-micron rule has not
helped.
So they lie around, clog drains & cause
floods.
Menace of Thin Plastic
Food-waste thrown out in thin plastic bags
attracts cows to uncleared street-bins.
These bags in their stomachs kill a few
cows. They are also a serious danger to
marine life.
Bangla Desh may already have a
countrywide ban in place on their
production and use.
A useful burial for bags
One recycler hopes to raise the street
price of thin carry-bags high enough
to gather them in for shredding and
blowing into hot-mix plants for
waterproof bitumen for greatly
improved road life.
Styrofoam
Styrofoam in the food industry is not
recycled yet and is an unsolved
menace. Its use in bulky packaging
for computers & consumer durables is
another burden.
How R’02 can help
. India urgently needs R’02 help with
packaging policy concepts and
dissemination of legal require-ments
like those of EU and North America’s
Eco-Mark
Voluntary compliance has not worked
with us.
Our voluntary Eco-Mark defined
criteria for 14 sectors: soaps,
detergents and paper in 1992,
Paints, oils, packaging & batteries in
1995….
But who cares?
The only Indian firm to seek an EcoMark, for its detergents, was made to
withdraw its application when it
teamed up with Proctor & Gamble !
This is a very short-sighted policy.
Eco-Goodwill
Indians are now highly aware of eco-issues,
and city dwellers are increasingly using the
courts to enforce responsible behaviour.
Multi-nationals, and their recycling partners,
who are the first to adopt effective takeback policies for post -consumer packaging
will earn enormous goodwill to improve
their brand image.
And some fun suggestions
Indians are crazy about cricket and
film-stars. PETcore-suggested takeback lotteries will cost little and gain
huge publicity. Have fun !
Thank you!
All suggestions and comments are
welcome.
[email protected]