CLEANING RURAL INDIA Almitra H Patel Member, Supreme Court Committee for Solid Waste Management in Class 1 Cities in India

India has recycled its plant nutrients since Vedic times Surplus Food went to the Needy Uncooked and Cooked waste to animals Leftovers, flowers + cowshed waste went to compost pits and back to the land. Until the 1960s, a clean rural India eagerly collected urban waste for composting. So Indian soils were rich in Carbon 2

In the 1960s, the Plastic Yug made mixed urban waste unusable Urea helped soils where Nitrogen was the Limiting Nutrient (shortage prevented growth) Massive urea subsidy killed composting habit (In SAARC, only India subsidises urea now) Today Indian soils need Carbon from ‘wet’ waste of both towns and villages to revitalise agriculture. 3

SO, KEEP PLASTICS OUT OF FOOD WASTE FOR COMPOSTING. HOW? Collect plastics and ‘dry’ waste once a week. Pay nominally for clean separate plastics Support informal kabadiwala collections thru transport or sorting and storage spaces Use weekly market 6 days a week for this ? For non-recyclables, instal mini plastics-to- fuel units for public use, like atta mills 4

MSW Rules say MINIMISE WASTE Corruption in city waste collection does not want to keep wastes unmixed and usable. STOP ‘Tipping Fee’ payment on mixed waste. Give only Support Price on Compost or Biogas STOP support of scams = ‘Burn’ options like Incineration, Pyrolysis, Gasification, Plasma for low-calorie Indian wastes. REWARD waste reduction efforts by citizens 5