10 Commandments of a Robust Waste Management System

By Riya Saxena, Associate and Namrata Rajagopal, Consultant Asha Impact

India has a waste problem. The country is the 10th largest generator of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in the world[1], with 143,000 tons created every single day[2]. Yet, there are inefficient systems in place to deal with it. If we fail to deal with our own waste, there are multiple negative repercussions on society. In the past few months, the Asha Impact Trust has explored actionable policy levers through which we can tackle the waste menace in a scalable and sustainable manner. The investment team at Asha Impact has also made two equity investments in leading waste management companies in India. Combining these learnings, we have identified the following challenges that act as key bottlenecks causing inefficiencies in the waste value chain:

Generation

1. Segregation at source:There is no incentive or awareness amongst citizens to segregate at the source. Even if some citizens do separate, the municipal workers do not segregate either due to lack of infrastructure or due to lack of incentive.

Processing & Disposal

1. Incentive structure of contracts:Contractors earn a tipping fee based on the quantity of waste dumped into the landfill and are not incentivised to ensure segregation takes place. Hence, they often mix inert waste to increase the quantity of waste gathered.
2. Blind push towards waste to energy:Waste-to-energy technology is unsuitable for India because of the of the high percentage of low calorific value and often unsegregated waste. Incinerating recyclable waste could be polluting and destroys the livelihood of rag pickers. Burning unsegregated waste creates fly ash which is harmful to the environment and the WTE plants incur heavy Capex costs.
3. Breakdown of wet waste value chain:Wet waste can be managed either through bio methanation or composting. Currently, both technologies cannot function with co-mingled waste provided as the input. Compost from mixed waste is toxic leading to limited demand. Biogas plants dealing with unsegregated waste have low efficiency levels and unprofitable operations. The technology to reduce the volume of wet waste to be managed at a city level has not scaled. Biomethanation is viable only around commercial campus where large kitchens exit and composting has usually been done on a local level.

Government Policies

1. Implementation of policies:ULBs have not adopted by-laws to incentivise people to segregate waste or maintain proper disposal and processing systems. The EPR laws have also been loosely implemented with no strict penalties on non-compliance or clear guidelines on the extent to which companies should take responsibility for their products.

Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) Capacity

1. Capacity constraints:ULBs are not sufficiently equipped and knowledgeable to manage different waste streams. There is lack of technical know-how spatial planning, route planning and processes to manage waste efficiently, leading to centralised systems of waste management causing a strain on the landfills.
2. Resource constraints:Often, ULBs are not staffed adequately to manage waste and have limited control over the efficiency of the municipal worker’s field operations as many of them are contractual employees. There are no outcome parameters of KPIs set for them.
3. Financial constraints:More than 3/4thof a municipal’s budget is spent on salaries, collection and transportation instead of processing of waste. This leads to loss of valuable waste, which ends up in landfills.[3]

Source: Asha Impact Analysis

Based on a number of our discussions with experts and business leaders in the sector, we have identified the 10 commandments of a robust waste management system:

1. Teach people to segregate waste and follow up to make sure they have learnt it. The rest of the value chain depends on this one very crucial step.

To derive maximum value from the waste, it needs to be segregated from source itself. The community or municipal corporation need to determine the number of categories of waste to be used. The public then needs to be made aware about the importance of segregation. There are two methods of ensuring people make it a daily habit: carrot or stick approach. People can be incentivized through programs such as awards, competitions etc. The stick approach can be equally effective by fines, refusal to service, pay-as-you-throw approach etc. It takes time to teach a community to handle their waste in a correct manner hence feedback also needs to be provided.

2. Stop linking the incentives of a waste transporter with the amount of waste handled. Quality of waste matters,not quantity.

Currently, the metrics for transportation of waste is driven primarily by volume of waste handled. The contractor’s truck collects waste across the city and then dumps it into the centralized facility. The truck is weighed before the dumping and the contractor gets paid per kilogram of waste handled in the given month. This system is far from ideal as contractors attempt to increase the weight of the waste their transport without actually having to service more waste generators. They often mix inert waste or water to increase its weight. A check has to be put in place such that transporters only handle segregated waste and the incentive structure has to be linked accordingly.

3. The waste in your backyard should be handled there itself. Decentralized solutions are the way forward.

Waste generated should be handled at the source itself. Decentralized solutions allow citizen engagement around waste management. It reduces both the transportation cost incurred and the volume of waste to be handled at a city level. Every neighborhood can identify a waste system that best suits their own needs. Therefore, we should advocate for a decentralized approach to waste management.

4. All waste that can be, should be sent through circular economy. Incineration and landfills are last resort processing methods.

The key essence of the circular economy is that one man’s waste is another man’s raw material. Waste is a useful resource that we can reuse and put back into the economy. When we incinerate the waste or dump it into the landfill, that waste is of no value to us. We should therefore strive to achieve a zero-waste to landfill system where all the waste is recycled in some form or the other. Supporting a circular economy helps create jobs and sustains the livelihoods of those dependent on the waste ecosystem. It also reduces the amount of land we would require and caps the pollution caused by incineration and landfills.

5. The market for city compost has to be created through awareness campaigns and standardized non-toxic supply.

The most common method of dealing with wet waste is composting. By law, bulk generators are required to process their waste at source and composting is the preferred system. However, once compost is created there are no buyers. To create a sustainable practice of composting wet waste we need to fix these market failures. Firstly, the supply of compost needs to be corrected by using only segregated wet waste as the input. For the economics to make sense, compost from decentralized locations should be consolidated to one location and marketed under a brand name highlighting the quality of the waste. It takes a couple of years before farmers start to notice to benefits of compost, hence strong sustained awareness campaigns have to be run regarding the benefits of compost. Buyers for compost within the city need to be identified as well for e.g. municipal corporations can mandate that every garden in the city should purchase compost.

6. Business and economic motivations mostly align in the dry waste recycling industry. For the instances they don’t, EPR solutions should bridge the gap.

India has a robust dry waste recycling sector consisting of both informal and formal actors. For example, PET bottles in India have the highest recycling rate in the world because everyone part of the supply chain is able to earn an income. A rag-picker will only pick up those dry waste items that can be sold at a decent rate. By assigning end-of-life responsibility to manufacturers for the of products they place in the market, there are two key benefits: manufacturers will start to create products that can be recycled and unsustainable recycling operations will be supported. Therefore, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) should be enforced for dry waste that currently does not have a high recycling rate.

7. Waste-to-energy is a myth that should not be encouraged in India.

The process of generating energy in the form of electricity or heat from waste is called Waste-to-energy. This seems to be a panacea for the government’s problems, however the on-ground reality is different. The Indian waste is unsuitable for the technology deployed because it is unsegregated, of lower calorific value and high in moisture content. In fact, the Indian Solid Waste Association has ruled out waste-to-energy as a viable option for Asian countries. The informal sector loses access to recyclables hence it destroys their livelihoods. 20–30% of the output such a plant is fly ash which is difficult to dispose safely. The pollution levels often exceed safety level and the communities around get affected. Clearly, we need to wake up to the fact that waste-to-energy is not a quick fix for our waste management problems.

8. Rag-pickers are the backbone of the recycling industry. They should be given access to the waste regardless of the processing method deployed.

The livelihood of the informal sector depends on how well the waste is recycled. They are incentivized to ensure the smooth functioning of our waste systems. When waste facilities are contracted out to private players, sometimes rag-pickers are denied access to the waste. Such practices destroy their livelihoods hence should be stopped.

9. There is no one-size-fits-all solution in this space. Local factors need to be studied before designing any waste system.

Waste ecosystems vary on a neighborhood, city state and country level. We cannot assume that if incineration works well in Japan then it should be used in India. Before redesigning the existing system, local factors need to be studied thoroughly. For example, waste composition has to be analyzed to determine the appropriate processing methods and stakeholders need to be identified to secure their buy-in. A baseline study has to be deployed to understand all such factors. This could also act as the benchmark to quantify the results of the waste management system.

10. Policy will remain words on a page unless activities are monitored and defaulters are penalized.

Unfortunately, corrupt and illegal forces understood that waste has value before the public did. The waste ecosystem consists of so many players that it sometimes becomes hard to monitor. The government should use a combination of citizen engagement, technology and surprise checks to monitor the activities of their employees and contractors. Once caught violating the policy, such individuals should not be allowed to access the waste. For example, BMC gave an INR 139 Cr contract to MK Enterprises even after it was caught mixing debris in the waste. Change can only take place if we hold defaulters accountable.

Please send in your thoughts and comments to riya@ashaimpact.org.

[1]Swachhindia.ndtv.com- Top 10 Things to Know About India’s Waste Management Woes

[2]Ministry of Housing and Urban Development Annual Report 2017–18

[3]Indian Express- Cities at crossroads: Recycling begins at home