1. MINIMISE POLLUTING WASTES FOR SAFE RECYCLING
Mrs Almitra H Patel, Member
Supreme Court Committee for
Solid Waste Management

2. COMMON POLLUTANTS Mercury in tube-lights and fluorescents
Lead in paints, also cadmium, mercury
Short-life PVC : burning  dioxins
Thermocole: bulky, hard to recycle
Plastic bin-liners for food wastes
High phosphate in detergents : promotes
growth of algae and water weeds which
choke lakes, ponds and rivers

3. MERCURY IN TUBELIGHTS 20 – 40 mg mercury in 1 tubelight = 4000
times daily safe exposure limit for humans.
It is released within 8 hrs of wastepickers
breaking off aluminium caps on footpaths.
In EU and USA, fluorescents with over 5 mg
mercury must go to Hazardous Waste
landfills, not with municipal waste.

4. PROBLEMS OF TUBELIGHTS
In India, Haz-Waste Rules apply only over 50 mg mercury content.
Fluorescents ARE E-waste but not covered in India’s new e-Waste Rules.
Tubelights in city waste also puncture
expensive tyres of garbage trucks & JCBs.
Responsible collection and recycling is a COST, as glass price is v low & recyclers very far away.

5. SOLUTIONS for TUBELIGHTS
Low-mercury tubelights are now imported.
Lower the duties on these, tax high-Hg more.
Create enough low-Hg demand within India :
*Govt, Rly, defence, PSUs to buy only low-Hg
*Give Consents only if low-Hg lighting used
*Incentivise take-back and safe recycling
*Enforce mercury-content labelling, for choice

6. DANGERS OF LEAD IN ENV.
Lead in the environment lowers the IQ of children and affects the health of all.
So Lead was removed from petrol, but not
from paints for decorative & commercial use.
Public is unaware of heavy-metal content in
paints / toys they buy, & their risks to kids.

7. SOLUTIONS for PAINTS
Global limits for lead in paint are 600 ppm, in USA 90 ppm.
India’s 1000 ppm BIS is VOLUNTARY : NO COMPLIANCE.
2010 tests show upto 126,600 ppm in India ! MNC
paint Co.s make low-lead paints of same shades
abroad, but sell high-lead paints to us. WHY ???
It costs only 10% more to make safe paints with
600 ppm lead content, so BIS Std shd be MANDATORY.
Mandatory Lead-content Labelling of paints & toys
will allow the public to choose safe products.

8. SOLUTIONS for PVC Dioxin forms when PVC is burnt, as most
Indian waste is, on street-corners or dumps.
This “poison plastic” is 40% chlorine
Has been phased out in many cities, companies and even countries.
India needs Rules under EP Act to phase out PVC from use-and-throw packaging and short-life items like stationery, toys and footwear.

9. SOLUTIONS for BIN LINERS
MSW Rules require food wastes to be free of plastics so they can be composted.
Dry-wet segregation is defeated if plastic bags are used for lining garbage bins.
Fully-compostable plastic bags (ISO 17088) are available in India. All bin-liners SOLD should be compulsorily of such plastic.

10. SOLUTIONS for NON-RECYCLED NUISANCE POLYMERS
EPS = Expanded Polystyrene / Styrofoam /
Thermocole, has more bad points than good.
Its wide use creates huge volumes of bulky
waste unwanted by waste-pickers, though it
is technically recyclable, even into fuel oil.
Instead, use easily-recycled packaging like
folded-cardboard, papier-mache (e.g. egg-
trays), bubble-wrap, soluble foam-pellets...

11. SOLUTIONS for HIGH-PHOSPHATE DETERGENTS
Since 1960s, high phosphate detergents
cause heavy growth of algae & waterweeds.
Dying, they sink, remove oxygen from water.
So fish cannot survive this ‘eutrophication’.
Lake Erie was saved by limiting phos-phorus in US and Canada detergents to 8.7% in and 2.2% in 1973.

12. IT IS EASY TO MAKE LOW-PHOSPHORUS DETERGENTS
80% detergents in India are produced by MNC
controlled firms who know how to make them
low-phos. They do this in N America & Europe
WHERE LAWS REQUIRE THIS, but not in India
and Africa etc without such sensible laws.
India needs Mandatory Labelling of phosphorus
content for informed choice, plus Mandatory
Upper Limits for huge savings to tax-payers in
annual cost of weed-removal from water bodies.