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 Western-style 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 non-biodegradable 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 post-producer 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-and-dirty 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 Eco-Mark, 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 take-back 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 take-back lotteries will cost little and gain huge publicity. Have fun !

All suggestions and comments are welcome. almitrapatel@rediffmail.com Thank you! All suggestions and comments are welcome. almitrapatel@rediffmail.com