This story is from June 29, 2022

Why bridging this skill gap is a big battle won against plastic

The carbon molecules strung together as polymers, better known as plastics, are resilient. Some can take decades, others like plastic bags, can take centuries to degrade.This longevity is why plastic needs to be reused and recycled.
Why bridging this skill gap is a big battle won against plastic
Representative image
Gurgaon: The carbon molecules strung together as polymers, better known as plastics, are resilient. Some can take decades, others like plastic bags, can take centuries to degrade.
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This longevity is why plastic needs to be reused and recycled. What stands in its way is the waste management system — one that requires segregation at the source and training of collectors to ensure that the bulk of plastic waste doesn’t end up in landfills or is dumped into waters.

The countrywide ban on 19 single-use plastic (SUP) items comes into effect on July 1, but this does not include other more common SUPs like PET bottles and chips wrappers. These will continue to litter the landfills, experts say, urging an overhaul of the waste management process in India.
Little supervision
Waste segregation stands on the shoulders of waste collectors who are part of India’s vast informal sector.
The Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, mandate that urban local bodies must register waste pickers and recognise them as municipal workers with a clear role, but that hasn’t happened on the ground.
“The workers are not integrated with the work of civic bodies, and municipal corporations aren’t held accountable. That’s why plastic waste is not handled properly and it ends up in landfill sites where it is burnt to produce harmful gaseous,” said Shashi Bhushan, secretary of the All India Kabadi Mazdoor Mahasangh.

“The waste pickers mostly live in slum clusters in every city. They are the backbone of the waste segregation process but they are still not integrated in the process of waste management,” agreed Sonia Garga, project director at Saahas Zero Waste, an NGO working to provide end-to-end waste management services based on the principles of circular economy.
According to officials, only 1 lakh waste pickers all over the country have been integrated into the ecosystem of the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0 initiative, launched in October last year. More has to be done, they concede.
“Our aim is to integrate this informal sector into mainstream waste management. Currently, urban local bodies are in the process of engaging them in door-to-door collection of waste operations of Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) and waste processing facilities,” said Roopa Mishra, joint secretary and mission director, Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban.
The Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) too said it was a “slow” process of integration, but it was working to address the issue.
“As it is an informal sector, the integration system is slow, but we have integrated several ragpickers into the solid waste,” said Vijaypal Yadav, deputy municipal commissioner, MCG.
Experts also pointed out that waste pickers have little knowledge about plastic segregation. “Plastic waste also does not get them much value, they hardly pick wrappers and multi-layered plastics, which are everywhere and often choke the drains. We have been giving some of them training but we are still a long way from the target,” Garg said.
Those working in the sector echoed this view.
Kadir Hussain, a 45-year-old waste picker, lives in a slum near Sector 85 of Gurgaon. He and his family members pick up waste every night and segregate it into the morning. They then deposit it to the collection centre in Sector 87, earning around Rs 250 to Rs 300 every day.
When asked if he ever got training from the city authorities, he said: “No one from the government ever reached out… I pick everything that is of value.”
Kadim, 42, told TOI he got some training — like differentiating between dry and wet waste — from the firm that manages waste in Gurgaon. “But we hardly separate plastic waste like wrappers, decorative items and packaging as they are not recyclable,” he added.
Segregation at source
Roopa Mishra of the Swachh Bharat Mission said the objective is to ensure 100% segregation and collection of plastic waste at source. “The desired outcome is to significantly reduce the consumption of SUPs, maximise the collection and recycling of dry waste and minimise the disposal of plastics in landfills,” she added.
According to SBM data, door-to-door collection of waste has rapidly increased — from 53% in 2017 to 97% in 202 — and these facilities are provided in 90% wards in Delhi-NCR.
But residents in Gurgaon say this ends up as mixed waste by the time it reaches the landfill. “Even if the residents segregate waste, it has been noticed often that waste collectors mix it later on, defeating the purpose of the entire effort,” said Ruchika Sethi, founder of a city-based citizens’ group.
A survey by the solid waste management concessionaire Ecogreen also found that only 36% of the households in the city segregate their waste.
Efforts to streamline
NGOs say they are trying to help define the process of waste management.
For instance, the NGO Indian Pollution Control Management (IPCA) launched a project in 2001 to involve the community in the waste management process.
“The objective is to motivate community participation in qualitative segregation of waste to increase the recycling rate and enable composting to reduce pressure on landfills or informal dumpsites,” said Ashish Jain, director, IPCA.
There are also examples to go by. Indore, which has topped the Swachh Bharat ranking for the cleanest city for years, has streamlined its waste management process.
“A responsible and responsive public, and an army of safai mitras, are key allies in this city’s cleanliness drive. We have compartments in all our vehicles which are deployed from house-to-house collection. It has six compartments such as wet, glass, plastic, sanitary, medical, domestic, hazardous and inorganic. We have also been able to integrate our waste pickers into the system. They have been trained to educate the residents about the segregation process," said Jadav Warsi, the Swachh Bharat Mission’s project consultant for Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC).
Officials of the Swachh Bharat Mission said they are trying to push for a behavioural change, especially since the ban on SUPs will be in effect this week.
“Noida organised a ‘Plastic Heist’ across major markets, Chandigarh is popularising the usage of bins and eco-friendly bags, Visakhapatnam has mobilised young volunteers to act as ‘plastic quads’ to prevent the use of SUPs and states such as Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Assam and others are bringing the vision of clean and garbage free religious festivals to life through various initiatives,” Mishra said.
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