This story is from September 4, 2017

No landfill, more returns if you sort waste

No landfill, more returns if you sort waste
Every day, Rs 40.8 lakh is being spent to ferry and dump the waste at the Ghazipur landfill alone. TOI Photo
NEW DELHI: The massive volume of garbage that toppled down at Ghazipur last week had cost the East Delhi Municipal Corporation up to Rs 1,800 per tonne to be put there — paid to private contractors as tipping fee. Every day, Rs 40.8 lakh is being spent to ferry and dump the waste at the Ghazipur landfill alone. There is a higher price involved in the form of cost of land and the adverse health impact of air and groundwater pollution.
Ironically, these are expenses that can actually be avoided.
The solid-waste management rules of 2016 clearly specify implementing a decentralised waste management system so that only a minute portion of the daily waste generated by the city ends up in landfills. “The solution is to segregate waste because around 50% of municipal waste is compostable and another 30% consists of recyclables,” explained Shyamala Mani, professor at National Institute of Urban Affairs. “This takes care of 80% of the solid waste.”
The current centralised system only benefits the private concessionaires and incentivises transporting garbage to landfills. A World Bank report determined that primary collection by a municipal body accounts for 25-40% and transportation, 15-25% of the total cost of managing waste, leaving little to meet disposal costs after factoring in salary costs. Centre for Science and Environment, in its ‘Not in My Backyard’ report last year, pointed out how these high costs are built into Delhi’s existing system because the private contractor is paid for how much waste he collects and transports. So the more he transports, the more he gets paid. Why would they then be keen on segregation?
Mani said that that waste management has to be decentralised, with the dhalaos utilised as material recovery facilities and parks and gardens employed for composting. “Urban local bodies have to implement this on a war footing so that the amount of waste reaching landfills is very small,” she said. “Besides, there should be a heavy penalty on residents who do not segregate waste.”
Another expert, Swati Sambyal, programme manager (waste) at the Centre for Science and Environment, pointed out how the 2,100 or more dhalaos in the city could be converted into processing centres. “That, however, would need aggressive campaigning and working with RWAs, NGOs and local self-help groups, among others,” said Sambyal.
Shashi Bhushan Pandit of the All India Kabadi Mazdoor Mahasangh added that a decentralised system would also take care of ragpickers. “These people suffer burn injuries due to methane fires at landfills or contract diseases and skin infections,” he said. “They can be employed at material recovery centres. Why isn’t the government involving them?”

In most parts of US and EU, bringing waste to landfills attracts a tax. In Sweden and Norway, such levies are so high that landfilling is almost non-existent. There are also examples in the Philippines and Thailand that the capital could follow. NIUA conjectured that if an area generated around 25 tonnes of wet, compostable waste per day, 150 tonnes of compost could be produced every month. Add to this the 7-10 tonne of dry waste that could be sold or converted into useful products. These together could earn the local body up to Rs 25 lakh per month.
But Delhi is nowhere close to being weaned off landfilling. Experts, therefore, are not surprised that villagers at Rani Khera are up against any move to create a landfill there. They are well aware of the dangers, as were the villagers of Mangar and Mandur in Bengaluru and Anakapalle in Andhra Pradesh when they took the civic authorities there to court for proposing landfills near their homes.
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