Citizens’ Involvement Essential for Efficient Waste Management in Cities
By Mugdha Ghaisas*
With the city
population growing there is an increasing pressure on the existing
infrastructure like housing, health, transportation etc. which fails to cater
to the demand, demanding an increase in the infrastructural capacity of the
city. Along with these infrastructural deficiencies, the growing cities face
much more serious problems in terms of waste management and sanitation
facilities. In India, the onus of waste management lies with the local bodies
as per the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments. In spite of coming up with
various waste management plans, the local bodies are not able to address the
problem efficiently; two of the reasons being: lack of citizens' participation
and a centralised waste management plan by the urban local bodies.
The 73rd and 74th
amendment are meant to facilitate a decentralised governance structure
empowering the local bodies to improve service delivery and programme
implementation at the local level. It is necessary that the local governments
understand the objective of this transfer of powers and adopt to further
decentralisation and participatory approach by involving the citizens to
address various concerns like waste management and making them accountable for
the waste they generate, in order to meet the desired results.
Waste generators
should be made to own the responsibility of managing the waste they produce,
this is the only way to minimise the waste to be taken out of the city and at
the same time making the citizens realise and minimise the amount of waste they
produce. An effective system of decentralised processing of waste needs to be
set up in the cities under the guidance of waste management experts keeping in
mind the geographical and climatic condition of the city. The existing
governance structure can be used optimally with the Councillor playing a major
role by initiating this participatory process with the help of Resident
Associations in his/her ward for monitoring and for ensuring that the guidelines
issued are adhered to by the citizens.
The Municipalities
and Municipal Corporations are to play a major role in incentivizing the
individual property owners, housing societies and commercial complexes to
process their waste at the source by incorporating bio-methanation or
vermicomposting at the site, by making provisions like giving them rebate in
their property tax as few other local bodies have done. Also, the urban local
bodies can explore the possibilities of decentralised waste-to-energy plants within
the city limits and use the energy generated from the same for street lighting.
Cities like Pune and Solapur have been able to set up waste-to-energy plants which
produce electricity using bio-methanation technology, with slurry being used to
make organic compost and sold as a fertilizer. Countries like Sweden have less
than one percent of their waste in landfills, almost fifty percent is recycled
and the rest fifty percent converted to energy (Plante). Indian cities
should aim for a similar situation while stressing on decentralized processing
plants. Also, a push by the urban local bodies under the context of Smart City
Mission, for similar ‘green’ waste management techniques would open
opportunities for entrepreneurs to invest in the Research and Development and
explore the area of ‘waste management’ as a ‘business opportunity’.
With the
increasing urban-rural continuum and migration, it is the need of the hour that
the elected representatives of the urban local bodies initiate a citizen-led
participatory process to address the waste management issue, with the urban
local bodies focusing on capacity building and coming out with clear guidelines
with respect to penalties and its collection mechanism in case of violation and
incentives for decentralised processing. Citizens should be viewed as starting
point in the waste management systems as they are the waste generators. Unless
until citizens adopt the philosophy of minimum generation, reuse, recycle and
then process whatever possible at source before sending to landfill, a stark
change in the present scenario would be difficult. Large scale impactful
awareness programmes are important in order to impart this philosophy and boot active
citizens’ participation. Clean Chennai an initiative by Corporation of Chennai
has used videos and social media effectively in their awareness drive along
with a website giving status of waste management in city like detailing the
vermicomposting units, bio-methanation plants etc. in the city, enlightening
the citizens about the issue and integrating them in the process.
Till citizens
remain external to the waste management system, it would be difficult for them
to understand the gravity of the problem. Only their involvement, active
participation and making them accountable would help in dealing with the solid
waste management issue; with technology and best practices around the world
reengineered according to the needs of different Indian cities.
*Mugdha Ghaisas is a intern at CPPR. The views expressed by the author is personal.
Featured Image source: unep.org
Reference
Babele, P.
(2015). How Solapur Converted Garbege into Electricity. New Delhi:
India Today. Retrieved from
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/solapur-converted-garbage-into-electricity/1/442470.html
Pallavi, A.
(2014, March 31). Lessons Frrom Two Cities. Retrieved from Down to
Earth: http://www.downtoearth.org.in/coverage/lessons-from-two-cities-43741
Plante, C.
(n.d.). Here's how less than one percent of Sweden's waste ends up in
landfills. Retrieved from The Verge:
http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/6/8560971/sweden-waste-to-energy-wte-recycling
Comments