1.
Design the value chain for Integrated Plastic Waste Management
A. Collection and Segregation: -
In India, waste produced by houses is usually transferred into communal bins. Street sweepings also find
its way to these community bins. These community waste bins are also used by other commercial
sectors near disposal bins along with the household waste except where some commercial complexes or
industrial units tie up with municipal authorities directly for the transfer of their waste to disposal site.
Awareness to enhance segregation:
Ecological awareness and citizen participation to segregate waste at source, door-to-door collection,
and disposal in appropriate collecting bin is the need of the hour. This awareness plays an important
role as it helps in increasing the efficiency of waste management process. This awareness in segregation
helps in handling solid waste leading to ultimate success.
However, in India, the present scenario reveals that there is almost no segregation of garbage at
source which leads to various environmental problems and it becomes very difficult to segregate
waste at transfer station or in landfill or treatment site. Also, due to lack of coordination among the
residents and lack of planning in cities in India, the residents throw garbage improperly. Apart from
this, the community bins are not located in the close vicinity and the number of employees is
not adequate as per population residing in that area.
Other challenge that Segregation process faces is that there is no organized and scientifically planned
segregation of MSW either at household level or at community bin. Sorting of waste is mostly
accomplished by unorganized sector and seldom practiced by waste producers. At times, the
effectiveness of segregation decreases as unorganized sector generally segregates those valuable
discarded constituents from waste stream which can guarantee comparatively higher economic return
in the recycling market. On a few occasions, due to improper handling the segregated constituents get
mixed up again during transportation and disposal.
In this project, while the waste pickers (Safaii Mitras) will be institutionalized with respective
governance mechanisms and procedures, special care should be taken to evaluate their learnings
through some questionnaires or verbal medium to ensure that the learnings are conveyed to
them in the most appropriate manner.
B. Recycle and Reuse: -
This includes activities like collecting those materials from the waste, which could be gainfully retrieved
and utilized for making new products. Since unsegregated waste is dumped at community bins, its
optimal recycling is not possible.
Thus, these issues should be dealt with by creating an awareness among the citizens at source itself. The
people should be educated to realize the importance of source segregation at generation
point as biodegradables, inert and recyclable material for proper waste management.
C. Transportation: -
In smaller towns trucks having 5–9 ton capacity are used without adequate cover system. Stationary
compactors, mobile compactors/closed tempos, and tarpaulin-covered vehicles are used in this
transportation of MSW. The maintenance of vehicles used in for transportation of waste is usually done
in workshop run by Urban Local Bodies but most of these workshops can do minor repairs only. No
wonder, in the event of breakdown of these vehicles, the overall collection, transportation, and disposal
efficiency reduces drastically. Only few transfer stations can be found in some metropolitan cities.
So regular maintenance of these vehicles should be done to avoid such situations which effect the
efficiency of the overall waste management system.
Suggestions: -
In most parts of India, sweeper and Safaii Mitras are still considered inferior class of citizens
despite several laws in place to bring dignity to their profession. To change people’s views and
perspective, awareness regarding this important service to community should be initiated and
manpower engaged in such activities should be given some good names which boosts their morale and
help in changing people’s views towards them.
Rules of SWM need to be taken in such a way that it considers the ground realities and allow time for
suitable processes and mechanisms to be developed. Unfortunately, role of Safaii Mitras in SWM has
not been adequately recognized till now, who are one of the important stakeholders of the SWM in
India. Their role needs to be accommodated in the proper system to upgrade and boost their morale.
However, Safaii Mitras are working for the unorganized sector, therefore proper organized sector for
reuse and recycling of waste needs to be put in place to generate more employment and revenue, apart
from reducing the load on transportation and landfill.
