Urban solid waste management is among the most critical responsibilities of any modern state. Yet success in this area remains elusive across much of the world, and India is no exception. While governments frequently focus on technologies, treatment facilities, and infrastructure, the most fundamental aspect of waste management often receives insufficient attention: waste is generated by people and can only be managed effectively through their active participation.

The case of Kerala illustrates this challenge. The state generates over 11,000 tonnes of solid waste every day. Yet the infrastructure available for scientific processing and disposal remains limited. A significant quantity of waste, particularly mixed and residual waste finds its way beyond the state’s borders for further processing or disposal. This problem is not simply one of insufficient facilities, although that is a major part of it; it reflects a broader difficulty in creating a system that seamlessly integrates households, local governments, private actors, and public institutions into a coherent framework.

A common misconception is that waste management can be solved primarily through mechanisation and large-scale infrastructure. Machines undoubtedly have an important role. Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs), treatment plants, collection vehicles, incinerators, and scientific landfills are necessary components of any modern waste management system. However, waste begins its journey long before it reaches such facilities. It begins in households, shops, offices, and institutions. If waste is not segregated at source, even the most advanced infrastructure struggles to perform efficiently. After all, the viability of these facilities relies entirely on the steady supply of source-segregated waste.

Waste management is therefore not merely a technical problem but a deeply social one. It involves citizens, local governments, public agencies, and private enterprises. It concerns both the rights and responsibilities of individuals, the actions of institutions at various levels, and collective outcomes. The effectiveness of any system depends on the willingness of individuals to segregate waste at source, reduce waste generation, and cooperate with local authorities, which are the primary administrative units responsible for managing solid waste. Without such civic participation, infrastructure alone cannot succeed.

This social dimension also explains why waste management differs from ordinary market activities. In a typical market transaction, two parties voluntarily exchange goods or services. Waste, however, creates consequences for people who are not directly involved in its generation. A plastic bag discarded in a public space may belong to nobody, yet its effects are borne by everybody through pollution, waterlogging, and environmental degradation. Economists describe such situations as externalities, but the practical implication is straightforward: market incentives alone cannot adequately govern waste. An approach based primarily on the economic aspects of waste management has significant limitations.

For this reason, waste management should not be viewed primarily as a profit-generating activity driven by private players and their interests. Opportunities for revenue generation certainly exist through recycling, recovery, and resource extraction. Yet the central objective of waste management is the creation of public value that safeguards public health and society, rather than ensuring profit for those involved in it. When waste management is approached solely through a market lens, important social and environmental considerations are easily neglected. The management of waste is fundamentally an administrative and civic responsibility involving common resources and public participation.

Decentralisation and Kerala

The possibility of effective solid waste management in a densely populated country like India depends heavily on the decentralisation of waste management mechanisms. By this, we also mean the decentralisation of local administration into layered Local Self-Government (LSG) units: wards, grama panchayats, block panchayats, district panchayats, municipalities, and municipal corporations.

Such a division of administration and representation helps promote participatory planning from the grassroots, as has been happening in Kerala since the launch of the People’s Planning Campaign in 1996. Village-level plans discussed at ward-level meetings of all voters are forwarded to higher levels for approval every six months. This mechanism immediately links administrative responsibility such as that of a municipal health inspector or secretary to political representation through the local ward councilor or standing committee chairman on issues that deserve urgent attention.

Solid waste management issues in each locality require the close participation and attention of administration at these lower levels. In India, people in positions of power are generally disinclined to give attention to waste for two primary reasons:

1. The all-pervasive caste system has historically branded waste handling as a lower-status occupation.
2. Safety and protective equipment remain highly inadequate in most Local Self-Government units, making waste management a hazardous task.

If Kerala has been able to achieve relatively better solid waste management outcomes at a basic level since 2020—specifically through source segregation at households and institutions, and the collection of non-biodegradable waste (NBDW) by the Haritha Karma Sena (HKS) from households, shops, and institutions—it is primarily because the state has fully operationalised its 941 grama panchayats, 14 district panchayats, 152 block panchayats, 87 municipalities, and 6 municipal corporations following the implementation of the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments from 1996 onwards.

In the coming years, other states in India should follow suit, given the complex ecological implications of poor waste management in both urban centres and villages. For instance, in Kerala, the recurring floods of recent years (2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021) have compelled the state administration to think seriously about solid waste management as a vital preventive measure, given the state’s vast network of water bodies and its long monsoon season, during which plastic waste clogging water bodies and urban drainage systems can significantly aggravate flooding.

Gandhi and Decentralised Governance

Gandhi’s ideas about society and its relationship with local governance need to be explored further to understand Kerala’s approach to solid waste management. “My Waste is My Responsibility” (Ente Malinyam Ente Utharavadithwam) and “We Are the Change” (Nammalanu Mattam) are two distinctly Gandhian-sounding slogans used by the Kerala Local Self-Government Department in its solid waste management campaigns.

For Gandhi, the decentralisation of administration formed part of a broader effort to mitigate the coercive power of the state and ensure representation for everyone; Sarvodaya, in Gandhian terms. As is well known, Gandhi was deeply influenced by John Ruskin’s Unto This Last. The political and philosophical dimensions of prioritising the last person in society in terms of justice and equality were later elaborated in a profound manner by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice.

Gandhi ultimately saw the world as an “ever-expanding circle” of villages rather than an arena of nations fighting one another with increasingly sophisticated weapons over market-driven interests disguised as national interests under capitalism, state socialism, or fascism. To address the problems of centralised production and complex, profit-driven machinery, he stressed the decentralised village or small community as the basic unit of society, irrespective of the immediate economic losses or inconvenience that such an approach might entail.

Haritha Karma Sena as a Gandhian Alternative

The work undertaken by the Haritha Karma Sena in Kerala has generally been regarded as a capital-intensive urban function. However, its involvement makes the system far more labour-intensive, while distributing the benefits of waste management more equitably, as workers are compensated from the value created through their labour. This represents a distinctly Gandhian approach to a social responsibility, particularly because waste management is a socio-environmental obligation whose benefits extend far beyond Kerala and India.

Their involvement makes solid waste management genuinely decentralised at multiple levels. First, their participation makes the process labour-intensive and reduces the likelihood of future dumping. Dump-yard clearance, on the other hand, is a highly capital-intensive activity, as witnessed in Brahmapuram, Kochi, and elsewhere, where decentralisation had long been neglected before it was finally adopted.

Another important contribution of the Haritha Karma Sena to the waste management sector is the decentralisation of governance, income generation, and administration across genders. It also serves as a mitigating force against the historical stigma attached to waste handling in India, particularly within caste-based social structures. The process of visiting households every month to collect source-segregated waste is itself a form of public education that fosters a new ecological consciousness among citizens.

Gandhi believed that power should be shared in such a way that any monopoly over wealth constituted a social wrong; hence his concept of trusteeship. The collection, processing, and consequent reduction of waste through the systematic involvement of the Haritha Karma Sena represent an alternative understanding of both the economy and the community in a society that is rapidly moving in a capitalist direction, where private capital already exercises considerable influence.

Generally, the benefits of urban solid waste management accrue to capital-intensive companies and to a very small section of poor people willing to work under unfavourable conditions. The involvement of the Haritha Karma Sena has transformed waste management into an area in which ordinary people can participate and contribute. As a result, waste management becomes a more transparent process. The financial benefits generated through waste management increasingly reach relatively poorer sections of society, thereby expanding the scope for the democratisation of wealth.

The Haritha Karma Sena and the municipal administration have become trustees of the wealth generated while creating a social good, rather than parties seeking to exploit it for private gain. However, a great deal of conscious effort is still required to fully realise this ideal.

Kerala’s Past Failed Experiences with Centralised Waste Management

The two most prominent failed experiments in centralised waste management in Kerala; Brahmapuram in Kochi and Vilappilsala in Thiruvananthapuram illustrate what happens when Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) lack self-sufficiency. At these dumping sites, unsegregated urban solid waste from various municipalities and towns was piled up indiscriminately.

The facilities failed to function because the fundamental principle of waste management that individual participation through source segregation is paramount was overlooked in favour of the belief that machines and capital-intensive technologies could remediate large dumpsites.

In Brahmapuram, a village used by the Kochi Municipal Corporation, six neighbouring municipalities sent their unsegregated waste to a single dumpsite. A catastrophic fire that lasted twelve days caused widespread toxic pollution across the city. The subsequent land reclamation took nearly two years, during which around 550,000 tonnes of mixed solid waste had to be biomined and removed. Following the disaster, each municipality in the district was instructed to manage its own solid waste within its jurisdiction to the greatest extent possible.

Similarly, at Vilappilsala panchayat, urban waste from Thiruvananthapuram city was dumped for years instead of requiring individuals and institutions to segregate their waste at source. This led to sustained public protests that eventually forced the closure of the facility. In both cases, waste management practices ran directly contrary to the Gandhian principle of village self-sufficiency, whereby production, consumption, and waste are managed by the people themselves to the maximum extent possible. Recognising the shift towards a Haritha Karma Sena-based urban waste management system, the state government aptly titled its comprehensive 2021 status report The State of Decentralised Solid Waste Management in Kerala.

Part 2 Follows.

Courtesy: The AIDEM

The post Waste, Responsibility and Decentralisation: A Gandhian Perspective on Solid Waste Management in Kerala (Part 1) appeared first on SabrangIndia.