‘E-waste’ estimates 
The term ‘ E- waste’ is an informal popular name for electronic products nearing the end of their useful life. The electronic goods like computers, TVs, VCRs, Wires or cables, etc. have to be disposed after they become old or damaged or stop functioning. In India, solid waste management along with emergence of e- waste has become a complicated task. The total waste generated by obsolete and broken down electronic and electrical equipment was estimated to be 1,46,000 tonnes for the year 2005 which is expected to cross 8,00,000 tonnes by 2012.
According to ta Greenpeace Report in 2007, India generated 380,000 tonnes of e-waste.   Only 3% of the waste made up to the authorized recyclers facilities. According to the article ‘E-waste management: As a Challenge to Public Health in India’ by Monika and Jugal Kishore, published in the “Indian Journal of Community Medicine” (December 31, 2009, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov), one of the reasons for this is that India has become a dumping ground for developed nations.

Toxic components 
E-toxic components in computers could be summarized as circuit boards containing heavy metals like lead and cadmium or batteries with cadmium, cathode ray tubes with lead oxide and barium or brominated flame retardants are hazardous. In the article ‘Environmentally Sound Options for E-wastes Management’ by Ramachandra TV and Saira Varghese K (“Envis Journal of Human Settlements”, March 2004, ces.iisc.ernet.in), an in depth study on contamination of water, air and land and the health hazards is presented.

Management and disposal
The waste produced due to unused electric goods is rising. The developed nations tried to get rid of their waste by disposing to the developing countries. This sparked outrage and led to the drafting and  of strategic plans and regulations at the Basel Convention.   The Convention secretariat at Geneva, Switzerland, facilitates the proper way for  implementation of the Convention and related agreements.

It also provides assistance and guidelines  on legal and technical issues, gathers statistical data and conducts training on the proper management of hazardous waste. The main aims of the Convention are to reduce and control transboundary movements of hazardous wastes, prevention and minimization of generation and transfer of latest technologies of management which are eco – friendly.

Mechanism 
An efficient mechanism for recycling the e-waste should be developed. In India, 95% of the waste is managed by unorganized sector mainly ‘ kabadiwalas’ , scrap dealers and dismantlers using dangerous methods to recover metals. The Global E-waste Monitor estimates 44.7 million tonnes (mt) was generated in 2016 with China, US and Japan leading producers and India stood fourth. As the danger of e- waste increases, efficient ways of collection and disposal mechanism should be developed.

Collection centers at major points in cities and towns should be started. Also, the manufacturers of goods may provide discounts on new products and collect waste goods so that they can recycle at their factories. Special locations to burn or dismantle electronic goods must be made available so that the health of people and environment remain unaffected. Proper planning is necessary to tackle e-waste and its growing menace.

—
*The writer from everywhere and anywhere, is a supporter of clean environment

Courtesy: https://counterview.org/
 

The post Lack of planning: India’s 95% of e-waste is managed by unorganized sector, mainly ‘kabadiwalas’ appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Ragpickers collect recyclables from a dump yard in New Delhi. By 2050, India will be generating 450 million tonnes of garbage annually and ragpickers–who work without any job security, dignity or safety gear, exposed to health hazards, harassment and abuse on the streets–will have to be an important part of its waste management plans.

 
As soon as passengers start getting off the train, ragpickers jump in and start scrounging for waste material and leftovers–samosas, biscuits, plastic bottle, wraps and so on. They are a part of India’s massive reserve of ragpickers–their numbers are estimated between 1.5 million and 4 million; Delhi itself has over 500,000.
 
Ragpickers sustain themselves by collecting, sorting and segregating waste and then trading it. In doing so, they help clean up a significant proportion of the 62 million tonnes of waste generated annually in India.
 
Given that rag-picking is a totally informal sector it is hard to quantify how much waste is collected in this manner, but there are rough indicators: Only 75-80% of the waste generated in India is collected by municipal bodies. And more than 90% of India does not have a proper waste disposal system.
 
A lot of garbage clearing thus is the done informally, by ragpickers who work without any job security, salary or dignity. Not just that, they are regularly exposed to cuts, infection, respiratory diseases and tuberculosis apart from poverty, humiliation, harassment, and sexual abuse on the streets, as IndiaSpend investigations found.
 
“This informal sector has saved the country. They are doing a good job and I have decided to recognise their efforts. We will grant (a) national award,” former environment minister Prakash Javadekar had declared in 2015 at an event on waste management in New Delhi.
 
It was declared that a cash prize of Rs 150,000 ($2,330) would be given to three ragpickers and three associations involved in innovative waste management. More than a year later there is no information available about the scheme.
 
India’s waste crisis is set to spiral–450 million tonnes by 2050
 
The environment minister has stated that India will, in another couple of decades, generate nearly thrice the waste it currently does–“165 million tonnes by 2030 and 450 million tonnes by 2050”. Only 22-28% of the waste now collected is processed or treated.
 
The problem is particularly acute in cities. Per capita waste generation rate in Indian cities ranges between 200 and 870 grams a day and is rising. Between 2001 and 2011, growing urban population and increase in per capita waste generation has resulted in a 50% increase in the rubbish in Indian cities. The government traced this to changing consumption patterns and consumer behaviour.
 
Why rag-picking is a free but critical civic service
 
Ragpickers actually complement the work of civic bodies, Shashi Bhushan Pandit, who runs the All India Kabadi Mazdoor Mahasangh, pointed out in this March 2016 interview.
 
“According to the law under which a municipality is set up, it places dustbins according to the size of the population. It is assumed that the generator of the waste will drop it in the bin. After that, it is the responsibility of the municipality to collect it from there (the transfer station) and treat it at the landfill,” Pandit said. “However, it is not the responsibility of the municipality to pick up the garbage from the source. That’s why the informal sector has filled this gap.”
 
Papiya Sarkar, senior programme officer (chemicals and health), Toxics Link, a New-Delhi based environmental NGO, classifies waste pickers into four categories: Those who carry sacks and collect anything of resale value from open drains and bins; the kabadi or bhangar men on bicycles who collect from households and then segregate glass, paper, and bottles from plastics; those who ride tricycles and collect almost 50 kg of waste each day and travel long distances to sell them, and finally, those who work for scrap dealers.
 
The occupation exposes these workers to toxins, the International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health shows. They have little or no access to protective gear.
 
Treated with contempt, suspicion on the streets
 
Darkness Under the Lamps was a study undertaken by Harsh Mander and V Manikandan in 2011 at the Centre for Equity Studies in Madanpur Khadar, an urban village in south Delhi where many ragpickers live. They complained that they were treated “with suspicion and derision, because of their extreme poverty, vocation of rag-picking, minority faith and suspicions that they are from Bangladesh by the middle-class community living around (sic)”. The children of ragpickers often carry on with the same occupation and are rarely educated.
 
The government treats them no differently. Pandit has demanded inclusive rights, health benefits, safety gear and social security for ragpickers because they provide services that benefit the environment. “In Bogota, Columbia, every ragpicker is paid $2 per day by the municipality. In Brazil, they have made sure that only the ragpicker can pick the waste (from the source). Why can’t India do it?” he asked.
 
Ragpickers are destitute migrants, mostly from poor states
 
In September 2016, with the support of the Kachra Kamgar Union, we visited a ragpickers’ colony near Vasant Kunj, close to the Delhi airport. More than 250 families here depend on rag-picking to earn a living.
 
The men leave their homes early morning with their waste carts. A few of them work where the municipal corporation deposits waste, some scour the roads and others go to specific neighbourhoods looking for kabadi from homes.
 
Each ragpicker has a different story to tell, but they all suffered acute destitution once. Ranjit is a landless labourer from Bihar who came to Delhi seeking employment. Kundan once grazed cattle for a Chhatarpur farm in south Delhi. Another man washed toilets at the Delhi airport before settling down at the ragpickers’ colony.
 
Chandrika, who was a bonded labourer in Bihar and earned 1.5 kg of vegetables for a month’s work, came to Delhi in 1985 when she was very young. “Only the destitute get into this work. Some of us are contracted into it by moneylenders who dump several people in a single room and pay them a pittance for their work. Then there are traders who employ ragpickers,” she said.
 
Most ragpickers in this colony, however, work independently. Several men we spoke to agreed that they had tried their hand at other things but came back to rag-picking because it paid better. Migrants here also help their kin to move to Delhi and join the trade. This meant that most people in the basti (neighbourhood) came from two states: Bihar and West Bengal.
 
The women we met do not go out for picking, but are expected to sort waste at home. Even eight- or 10-year-old children join their parents in sorting waste.
 
“If you work 12-14 hours a day, you can make a living. But rates have gone down significantly. A sack of rag that fetched us Rs 300 five years ago now gets us no more than Rs 175-200. See how much rice and vegetables cost now–it is impossible to survive,” complained Kundan.
 
Police harassment is a common complaint. Young boys are picked up on false allegations and beaten up in police stations, said the residents. Sometimes they pick up mobile phones or other lost or stolen goods and then get arrested for committing a crime. However, in this colony, residents said the union ensures that they are not harassed much.
 
“Yes, we deal with garbage, but we want to live in a clean space”
 
Hair and plastic fetch the best rates but sorting waste is a difficult and hazardous job. “We open sacks and there are soiled sanitary napkins in newspapers, human excreta in polythene, shards of glass, syringes or nails. We cut ourselves, develop rashes and infection. Rotten food makes us sick. But we have no pension, no recognition, no medical facilities,” said a ragpicker.
 
When the main earner in a family falls very sick, he or she is packed off to the village to recover. The government hospitals, they alleged, do not want to treat them and they have to opt for expensive private dispensaries.
 
When waste is disposed in India, it is done with little concern for those who will be handling it later. For example, both soiled diapers and sanitary napkins need to be treated as medical waste: According to the Bio-Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1998 any waste with faecal, blood, body fluid must be treated separately. But usually these are thrown into a common dust bin.
 
The colony, built on forest land, has no concrete houses–landowners will not allow any permanent construction. Only a third of the households had a ration card. There is no personal or public toilet in the colony, and no electric metres have been installed.
 
We asked a few women hailing from Uttar Pradesh for the one thing they would ask from the government. Disposal bins for the waste leftover from sorting, they said. Without bins, this waste simply piles up in their homes and lanes.
 
“Give us that and access to water. We buy two buckets of water every other day and pay Rs 1,000-2,000 a month to the one person who has a hand pump. If we can get a tanker, we could bathe properly. Yes we deal with garbage, but we want to be able to live in a space that is clean,” the women said.
 
A more detailed discussion and case study of urban poverty in Delhi can be found in the “India Exclusion Report 2016” due to be released on May 12, 2017, by Centre for Equity Studies and Yoda Press.
 
(Bose and Bhattacharya are senior researchers with Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

The post Why Ragpickers, Unrecognised And Unpaid, Are Critical For Waste Management In India appeared first on SabrangIndia.

“Kolkata Solid Waste Management Improvement Project has achieved 60-80 per cent (depending on site) segregation of waste at its source, with further waste segregation occurring at transfer stations,” a media release said on the occasion of international summit of Mayors of millions plus cities of which Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and New Delhi are its members from India.

“Forward looking, the project aims to eradicate open dumping and burning of waste and to limit the concentration of methane gas generated in landfill sites,” it said.

Kolkata is the only Indian city to receive the prestigious award. It received the award during the C40 Mayors Summit held in Mexico City.

“In our country, only Kolkata metropolitan has got this award,” Dilip Yadav, chairman of the Uttarpara Municipality, told PTI over phone from Mexico City after receiving the prestigious award from C40 Chair and Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes.

“This motivates us for more performance for the sustainability of this project,” he said.

“Our motto is participation of the common people. Being chairman, I have visited 50,000 house and have made our people aware about the benefits of solid waste management,” he said.

“The project involved 100 per cent door to door collection of solid waste, segregation and recycling by way of compositing which is sold in the market,” Onkar Singh-Meena, Secretary Municipal Affairs and CEO of Kolkata Municipal Development Authority said.

“One significant aspect of this project is that ragpickers are part of it,” said Meena, who is head of the Kolkata delegation to the Mayors Summit.

Other cities that won the award are Addis Adaba, Copenhagen, Curitiba, Sydney and Malborne, Paris, Portland, Seoul Shenzhen, and Yokohama.

“On behalf of C40, I want to congratulate all the winning cities for their commitment to their citizens and their dedication to tackling climate change,” said outgoing C40 Chair and Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes.

“Throughout my tenure as C40 Chair, I have been increasingly impressed by the calibre of the C40 Cities Award winners, and I look forward to seeing other mayors around the world adapting and implementing these models in their own cities,” he said.

“The C40 Cities Awards recognise the best and boldest work being done by mayors to fight climate change and protect people from risks,” said C40 President of the Board and UN.

Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change Michael R Bloomberg.

“The winning projects show that great progress is being made on every continent, and they serve as an inspiration to other cities. They also show how cities can help the world meet the ambitious goals set a year ago in Paris,” he said.

Courtesy: Janta Ka Reporter
 

The post Kolkata receives best cities award for tackling climate change appeared first on SabrangIndia.