JOIN USRagpickers can solve capital's garbage mess
Flies breed on waste dumped at the already saturated landfill sites and spread diseases in nearby areas. Waste remains uncollected from roadside dumps and even waste-to-energy plants pollute the air.
Things would be worse if it was not for the informal recycling sector – wastepickers and kabadiwalas.
In Delhi, over 1.5 lakh people recycle at least 2,000 tonnes of paper, plastic, metals and glass daily, according to NGO Chintan. A study by the NGO shows this group saves 3.6 more times greenhouse gases in Delhi, saving up to a crore to municipal corporations a day.
“Including wastepickers in waste management systems in Delhi will not only let the city comply with established rules and policies, it will also ensure stable, safe and secure livelihoods of a large section of the urban poor,” says Chintan’s manager (advocacy and outreach) Chitra Mukherjee.
Municipal waste guidelines were notified in 2000. Delhi’s Master Plan emphasises recycling waste, but the city still continues to fill the already saturated landfill sites.
The solution to the garbage mess is to encourage people through residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) to segregate wet waste from dry ones.
“The need of the hour is encouraging segregation at the source level. RWAs should then make compost from it,” says Mukherjee. “Incentives for local composting can help in encouraging segregation at the source level.”
Also, doorstep collection should only be done by wastepickers, say environmentalists.
“A registered association or group of wastepickers must be treated as ideal contractors for door-to-door collection. All municipal corporations should allow identified wastepickers to collect waste from doorstep. Service fees may be collected by them with receipt or by corporations and minimum wages be paid to them,” says Mukherjee.
According to Mohammed Nazir, a member of SafaiSena – a registered group of wastepickers and doorstep waste collectors, the city government should engage them in collection of waste. “Isse hamara rozgar surakshit hoga aur paryavaran surkashit hoga (it will secure our livelihood and save the environment),” he says.
“It will give us a social identity and a sense of belonging to the city. Also, we will be acknowledged for the contribution we are making in cleaning the city,” adds Nazir. “We will also be able to send our kids to schools.”
But the ragpickers are treated like the waste they handle, stigmatised by society. Their health suffers as they get allergies as well as humiliation at the hands of municipal authorities.
“We are not even spoken with nicely, let alone being respected by housekeepers,” says Reshma, who collects household garbage in Mayur Vihar. “We are called names if we asked for a raise,” she adds.
As per the Municipal Solid Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000, no recyclable dry waste may be dumped at landfills. Yet, both dry and wet waste are dumped there.
There is an urgent need for a space of 4,000 sqft for a Material Recovery Facility (MRF) to be allocated near landfills for segregation and sorting (non-mechanised value addition) to remove any recyclable waste.
Existing wastepickers on landfills can run these MRFs. Delhi needs one each in Ghazipur and Bhalaswa to solve the issue of overflowing garbage at landfill sites, says the NGO.
Another issue in proper waste management in the city is scarcity of space for segregation of garbage. Environmentalists say the Master Plan of Delhi does not ensure space for ward- and colony-level segregation or space to store waste and recycling depots.
Instead, the Master Plan, currently under review, bans junk shops, thus making illegal several hundred kabadis, who are a key to recycling. Corruption is also increasing as bribes are demanded to let them work.
“Space for waste segregation, composting and storage facility at colonies and municipal corporation-level are a must,” says Mukherjee.
Environmentalists say privatisation has affected the informal sector in the city. “Privatisation of waste management by assigning contracts to companies has taken place in Delhi for the past eight years. Neither has it cleaned the city nor shown a way to include the poor wastepickers. Instead, data shows it adversely impacts the informal sector because the latter lose access to their means of livelihood,” she adds.
Almost 80 per cent of recycling in Delhi is done by ragpickers, says Chintan. Sustaining this section of society that handles several hundred tonnes of waste every day and recyclable material requires the state government’s intervention, add environmentalists.
Chintan along with the Delhi Environment Department is developing a participatory solid waste management policy.
“It is based on a survey of 3,000 households and focuses on group discussions with over 100 stakeholders. We will present the results of the people’s key perceptions, demands and willingness soon, so that the government can implement a solid waste management policy in Delhi that works,” she adds.
The NGO has taken up solid waste collection and management projects with the Northern Railways, big hotel chains like the Taj Group and Oberoi, and malls like Select City Walk in Delhi. It works in partnership with SafaiSena, doorstep waste collectors, itinerant buyers, junk dealers and other recyclers based in the National Capital Region and collects solid waste from them, and sends them to the ‘material recovery facilities’ at different locations in Delhi.
The waste at these MRFs is segregated and then sent to authorised recyclers.