building resilience in cities by strengthening municipal
TRANSCRIPT
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Presentation by: John PaulDate: 17 June 2021
A better quality of life for all in an urbanizing world
Building resilience in cities by strengthening municipal solid waste management
Swati Singh Sambyal, UN-Habitat India
17 June, 2021
Cities and pandemic• COVID-19 has not only burdened the health
infrastructure of our cities but the pandemic has further amplified the challenges of waste management.
• Increased use of PPEs has created many tonnes of additional waste, much of it hazardous.
• But this also raises the need for our cities to have effective systems in place that are resource efficient, circular, and inclusive.
• By shifting to sustainable resource strategies, municipalities can immediately begin reducing the costs of their waste management and device steps that focus on rethinking and reinventing waste management.
Need to shift to sustainable resource systems?
• In most of our cities, waste management is based on disposal-based systems, relying on incineration and landfills to handle most of the waste stream, resulting in higher economic costs and environmental consequences.
• Need to plan a comprehensive waste management approach that focuses on waste prevention that encourages the redesign of resource life cycles so that all products are reused. The goal is to avoid sending trash to landfills, incinerators or the ocean.
• Such a system will enable- Effective waste reduction policies- Clean Manufacturing- Zero waste communities/programmes- Robust recovery infrastructure- Better incentives and more jobs- Empowered citizens
Reinvent Resource Hierarchy in cities
Source: Zero Waste Europe July 2020
Data inventorisation and waste characterisation prior to devising a robust waste management system
• Important to understand existing waste characterization and consumption patterns of high, middle and low income groups to prepare effective implementable strategy on zero waste systems for a city
UN-Habitat has conducted detailed waste characterisation studies for cities for effective action plans by utilising the WaCT
ROADMAP TO SUSTAINABLE WASTE SYSTEMS IN CITIES
1. Mainstream Segregation
• Every generator must segregate at source as per the SWM Rules, 2016 into wet (biodegradable), dry (non-biodegradable) and domestic hazardous waste.
• Segregation can’t be optional in our cities, has to be mandatory
• Price incentives should be promoted as a key driver of behavior. For instance, excessive generation of waste should be penalized ( South Korea, Sweden, Norway). Citizens collaborate when the system is designed for and with them.
• ULBs must push/incentivize segregation at source ( for instance in few cities, there is concession on property taxes for residents who segregate and compost; others do not collect waste for defaulters)
• A positive behavioral change towards source segregation of wet and dry waste is central to extracting the entire calorific value of wet waste, and recycling or extending the shelf-life of the dry waste that we discard.
In Mangaluru, residents get concession on property tax (50%) who compost at household level
2. Effective C&T
• C&T to support segregation not disposal, hence infrastructure has to be created to support end to end segregation.
• When done at scale, this allows for the creation of material banks within cities, replacing current linear resource extraction methods, providing a system for the future where resources can be kept, created and re-used in a circular mannerwithin cities themselves
• Ensure maximum route optimization and increased collection efficiencies, will help in saving resources such as fuel (eg: Surat, Indore, Nagpur)
• Enhance accountability and transparency: Develop Management Information System (MIS) on its website ( eg: Vijayawada), give details of
• waste collection on a daily basis
• percentage of segregated waste collected
• percentage of waste processed
Segregated D2D collection in Ambikapur in electric collection tippers
3. Setting up systems for resource recovery
• Change the infrastructure in line with the new paradigm to support maximum resource recovery
• A phase out plan for the heavily dependent disposal infrastructure such as landfills or incinerators instead shift the focus to resource recovery interventions
• Create decentralized infrastructure, wherever applicable to reduce costs on C&T, in long term over 50 per cent savings in municipal expenditure ( eg: Allapuzha)
• ULBs to encourage generator to treat wet waste at source and may consider creating systems for incentives for adoption of decentralized technologies such as biomethanisation, composting etc. (Vengurla, Panchgani, Ambikapur)
• Create market linkages for compost: Arrange a system to procure compost and give coupons that can be used in all Milk Booths/Grocery counters or similar outlets. On a trial basis, this model can be run in a few RWAs/societies in each local authority. (eg: Vadodara, Gujarat)
• Compost as a service in cities, wherein households can pay a monthly charge for a vendor to treat their wet waste ( eg: Bengaluru)
• ULBs to provide list of vendors and technologies on their website for adoption of decentralised treatment (eg: cities in Kerala)
PET recovery facility in Mangaluru
Contd…
• Tipping fee shall not only be related to the quantum of waste supplied to the concessionaire/operator but also to the efficient and regular collection of segregated waste. ( eg: Mysuru has tipping fee for processing, not collection)
• Landfill tax: In order to reduce dependence on land, and dis-incentivise dumping in land, aim to create a system of landfill tax
4. Engagement and awareness
• Social engineering to be prioritized to set up sustainable MSW resource systems
• Given the constant changing of demographics in many cities and towns today, greater emphasis must be placed on educating citizens and providing them with informative resources to guide engagement with the zero-waste plan.
• Local stakeholders such as Municipalities, NGOs, Voluntary organisations, Local Waste Entrepreneurs play a key role here
• Greater incentives and support should also be provided to local entrepreneurs, social enterprises and groups
5. Social integration and inclusion• Informal sector is crucial/critical to zero resource systems.
• Municipalities and private entities play a key role in mobilizing informal sector in cities
• How can one integrate?
✓ Integrate waste pickers into directly collecting waste at source, with a right over recyclables and a guarantee of regular access to waste ( incorporate this in city SWM byelaws)
✓ Secondly, a better option would be to associate with them as co-operatives our societies, municipalities could also support informal sector in establishing cooperatives or SMEs ( eg: Ambikapur model where SHGs managae resources in its 17 decentralized resource centres)
✓ Third, provide them with training to build their skills in upcycling interventions so that they can be integrated with several private run interventions
Are we really integrating informal sector in our cities?
6. Policy integration for promoting sustainable circular systems
• Systematic transition of India’s economy from a linear to a circular model calls for a strong policy roadmap, and coordination between various government layers involved in operationalising the roadmap. Bottom UP approach over Top DOWN.
• Also, various other rules issued by the national government, such as the Plastic Waste Management Rules, E-waste Management Rules, Construction and Demolition Waste Management Rules, Metals Recycling Policy, etc., must be aligned with the national zero resource systems roadmap.
• India needs to develop an industry specific roadmap, targeting industries that contribute heavily to environmental damage, while also offering the scope for significant improvements on adopting circular economy practices: transportation, food and agriculture, plastics, packaging, metals and minerals, cement, textiles, automobiles, electronics, and construction.
• For policies concerning SUP bans, plastics, more innovation and research to be invested in to have better alternatives in place
