At the
beginning of my professional career, I used to work for a giant
Indian conglomerate. Those days, we did not have desk top computers
and mobile phones and therefore obviously no e-mails. All inter
office communications were made using pink coloured sheets of paper
called memos. Many a times, I would receive memos describing some
problems for which I was no way connected or concerned, yet would be
asked to initiate some action. I would be in a quandary about what
action I should take. I once explained this memo problem to a senior
of mine and solicited his advice. He thought for a second and told
me, “Sit on the memo and do nothing; the problem will disappear on
its own.” I followed his advice and bingo! My memo worries were
gone for ever.
It
appears to me that everyone concerned with my home city Pune's
garbage clearance system, seems to be following this old advice and
is preferring to sit on the problem instead of trying to solve it.
Unfortunately, unlike my corporate experience, the garbage problem,
instead of disappearing, is transforming itself into a Godzila, ready
to destroy the city's healthcare.
Before
independence and even after that, Pune was a sleepy little town known
as pensioner's paradise, with a population of around hundred
thousand. The city garbage was collected in garbage bins and then
transported to outside city limits and dumped. The arrangement was
quite satisfactory till 1962, when a major disaster struck Pune in
form of a flood caused by busting of a dam at Panshet. As Pune
recovered, it also started growing and spreading in all directions.
As new industries came in, population started growing by leaps and
bounds. The city corporation started dumping garbage in an open area
in a nearby village of Kothrud, near a hillock, well out of city
areas on western side, since 1965. A garbage reprocessing plant was
started here later.
As the
city population grew, the new housing projects started coming up in
once nearby village of Kothrud also, in the vicinity of Garbage
depot. The people who moved in the housing there started complaining
about the health hazards and foul smell, generated by the garbage
depot. In 1981, the State government allotted 43 acres of land in
verdant Uruli Devachi and provisioned another 120 acres of land in
Phursungi village in 2003 to meet the waste-disposal demands of
Pune’s indiscriminate urbanisation. In 1999, the Kothrud depot was
closed down and was shifted to the two villages progressively on the
eastern side of the city, Uruli Devachi and Phursungi.
Since
last two or three decades, garbage problem has bifurcated and blown
into two separate sub problems. First sub problem is the sorting of
the Garbage and second is its disposal. In the earlier days the city
garbage would consist of mainly wet garbage and some waste paper; all
organic and biodegradable waste. There was no plastic waste and no
one threw metal scrap in garbage, as it would fetch some value when
sold to scrap dealers. Now-a-days, the city garbage consists of wet
garbage, plastics and metal scrap such as cans used for drinks,
which are non bio degradable. This requires the garbage to be sorted
out before it is disposed off.
Rochem plant with residential buildings across the road
The
city Government, looking at large-scale industrial solution to the
waste disposal issue, commissioned two waste to energy plants. One
operated by Hanger- Biotech to process 1000 tons of mixed waste a
day. The second plant by Rochem Separation Systems (India) Private
Ltd, commissioned at a cost of about Rs 1.1 Billion for 700 tonnes of
garbage. These plants however cannot take any wet waste, nor can they
take objects like broken ceramics junk. They can burn tyres,
mattresses, shoes, etc. These plants require further sorting of
garbage, before it could be used to generate energy.
Hanger Biotech plant
In a
separate development, city authorities installed two vermicompost
plants at Ramtekdi and Hadapsar and 16 bio-gas plants spread across
the city. These plants obviously require only wet garbage, which
means sorting of garbage becomes important and even more crucial.
To
find a solution to the sorting of Garbage problem, city Government
authorised an organisation promoted by the waste pickers’ union in
Pune known by name of SwaCH.
They are supposed to provide door-to-door waste collection (DTDC)
and other allied waste management services. The scope of SWaCH
includes collection, resource recovery, trade and waste processing.
SWaCH seeks to provide decent livelihoods in the recycling industry.
Through its 2300 members, SWaCH services over 4,00,000 households
across 15 municipal administrative wards. SWaCH members collect
segregated (dry and wet) waste, right from citizens’ doorsteps and
deposit it at the designated garbage collection points. The wet waste
is either processed in the housing complex or is given to the pick-up
truck. The dry waste is further sorted into several categories and
recycled.
The
authorities have now purchased a machine that will make lives of
SwaaCH people easier. The Vibro Screening Machine should ensure that
ragpickers don’t have to get their hands dirty at the garbage dumps
as Swaach workers won’t have to rummage through garbage. The
machine, comprises of a scrubber, inclined conveyer belt and control
panels. It is designed for the segregation of waste under different
headers such as plastics, glass, rubber, etc. It can be used for
crushing biodegradable garbage and dumping it into vermicompost bins.
SWaCH lady workers- doing unimaginably dirty work
However
there is a limit to which SwaaCH can operate and City authorities
have been rightly insisting that citizens should segregate the wet
garbage and dry garbage at their end. This drive has met only
limited success as according to an estimate, out of total garbage of
1,700 tonnes, only around 950 tonnes are ostensibly segregated.
Because of this problem the two plants set up by Hanjer Biotech at
Uruli Devachi with a waste-treating capacity of 1,000 tonne, are
barely able to process only 200 tonne of waste. The Rochem
Separation Systems plant also is not able to work with full capacity
as there are no buyers for the generated electrical power.. In a
queer situation that smells of high corruption, City authorities have
allowed residential buildings to come up within 50 feet from the
garbage processing plant. The Maharashtra state electricity board
does not allow the plant to generate electricity, because it is
situated too close to residential buildings.
As
city authorities grapple with sorting problems, even larger problem
is shaping up as hapless villagers of Uruli and Phursungi, 16 km from
the city, are agitating and want to stop dumping of waste in their
villages because of health issues. They have decided to bar any
garbage truck from dumping on their land as trash is getting piled up
in the city. The villagers have been agitating over last several
years but neither the elected representatives nor the authorities
have bothered to sort out the problems.
The
city is now facing unprecedented garbage crisis for which people( for
non sorting of the garbage) and authorities both are equally
responsible. The only silver lining on the dark clouds is provided by
SwaCH, who are doing, what they were asked to do. Pune city's garbage
collection and disposal system is tottering, wobbling and would have
totally collapsed but for these people who are doing city's
unimaginably dirty work.
The
city has just won some respite, because of intervention of the chief
minister of Maharashtra state. But unless the city authorities come
out with some concrete plan to recycle the garbage and stop open
dumping, the crisis would be back in full force soon.
10th
January 2014
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