How is India dealing with waste?

Garbage disaster

The problem of littering the planet is one of the key environmental topics of our time. Globalization, population growth, the widespread use of single-use packaging (glasses, bottles, bags) lead to the fact that the amount of garbage in the world is increasing. Several “garbage islands” have already formed in the oceans, which is reflected in the inhabitants of the seas and, ultimately, in the people themselves.

The main problem of "garbage islands" is that they are "ownerless" - no country is ready to take responsibility for them. In the case of “ground” garbage, the situation in this sense is simpler than with oceanic garbage: each country still has to clean up its territory. On the other hand, recycling and sorting measures are not always and everywhere applied, as there is still room for landfills.

This problem is especially relevant for India, the second most populous country in the world. According to the Ministry of Urban Development, 160,000 tons of garbage is produced in India's cities every day. A lot of money is spent on the destruction of garbage - for example, the municipality of the largest Indian metropolis of Mumbai alone spends 23 billion rupees (about 340 million USD) per year for this purpose.

One of the specific features of Indian waste management - that is, waste management systems - are huge landfills that are no longer growing so much in breadth, but upwards due to space savings. They become so high that airport services have to take this into account when planning flights. Landfills grow either within metropolitan areas or in rural areas near cities.

However, the main harm from landfills is not at all in this. Landfills consist of various types of waste: leftover food, plastic, paper, clothing, electronics, batteries, and so on. All this together forms an "explosive mixture". Harmful gases are released, especially if a fire occurs in a landfill; The decomposition products of different types of garbage are mixed, and an extremely poisonous leachate is obtained, which enters the water bodies. This poison infects crops, has a negative effect on flora and fauna, and eventually returns to the city dwellers, who gave birth to the very garbage. Residents of rural India in the telecast Satyamev Jayate (“Only truth prevails” is the motto of India) in an episode dedicated to the problem of solid waste threaten: “Yes, first we who live near landfills will die, but then you, the inhabitants of the cities, will die.” ".

If so much money is spent on the fight against garbage, then why do they bring such an unsatisfactory result?

Causes of the problem and proposed initiatives

The main problem is corruption (according to Transparency International, India scores only 38 out of 100 in the Corruption Perceptions Index; the highest score for a country with the least corruption is 100). The waste management business is run by the mafia. Some piece of state land is allocated for the landfill, and then a contractor is sought who will monitor the disposal of garbage in this area. The contractor can make a lot of money doing this, as the fee charged for each truckload of garbage depends on how heavy the load is being hauled. Often large stones end up in a landfill, only because they tried to make the load heavier. Thus, the deceptive scheme does not allow changing the system. It is not profitable for the people involved in this to sort garbage, get rid of landfills and try to dispose of waste for the benefit of society, since the more garbage, the more money in your pocket.

Fighting a corruption scheme is not a trivial task, but Indian enthusiasts still managed to propose and implement a number of projects that brought very interesting results. The main measure to combat the harmfulness of garbage (it still does not seem possible to stop the garbage flow itself) is sorting it, and sorting at the simplest level: separating “dry” and “raw” garbage. Raw garbage is food waste. Even if even this sorting is carried out, there will be much less harm from garbage, because the amount of leachate that is released from the landfill will be less. In addition, separately collected garbage is easier to process, it does not need to be sorted on site, and different methods are needed to process each type of garbage.

Another measure proposed by Indian scientists is not preventive, but contributes to the destruction of those mountains of garbage that have already accumulated. Such an experiment was carried out: the site of the landfill was first treated with bacteria , which recycled that part of the garbage that they could (remains of food, clothes - everything that can decompose). In addition, fly larvae, also involved in processing, helped here. Thus, the level of the landfill has significantly decreased: only the garbage that could be sent for recycling remained. The use of such technology is much cheaper than other methods, but it did not find the support of officials precisely because of its cheapness: they needed a much more expensive contract for understandable corruption reasons.

Another initiative was a plant for the recycling and use of biodegradable waste produced in catering establishments. Such garbage is crushed, then placed in a cistern and left to itself. As a result of decay, gas is released, which is then used in the same canteens for cooking, and the remainder turns into compost. Considering that 70% of all garbage in India is “raw” garbage, such a technology would help not only reduce the burden on the environment, but also provide an opportunity to make a profit. Everything rests, however, again on the unwillingness of the authorities to cooperate.

Among other initiatives for the processing of "raw", food waste, one can note a farm where the functions of bacteria and fly larvae from the first example are performed by a variety of animals : from cows to ducks. Some of the garbage simply serves as food for the farm animals, some of it becomes high-quality fertilizer.

There are also initiatives to recycle and use discarded plastic. So, in one of the states, a technology was invented for processing such waste into pavement , which in a number of aspects is not inferior to traditional asphalt and even surpasses it.

The other side of pollution control is social . In India, where the level of inequality is very high and the caste system is still officially abolished, there is a certain class of people who collect and sort garbage. These people, by virtue of their position, are considered "unclean", and society for the most part treats them with suspicion and disdain. An organization has been set up in the state of Maharashtra to improve the condition of such people and their working conditions. Thanks to the work of the organization, garbage collectors and sorters (mostly women) received official status, uniforms and career opportunities. The organization also conducts educational work aimed at raising awareness among the population about how to properly sort and dispose of garbage.

It can be concluded that there are not so few initiatives in the country, many of which could allow the government to save money on waste treatment or even make money on it, create jobs. However, the main problem faced by these initiatives is the lack of quality of public institutions, which India shares with many developing countries. If this problem can be solved, the process of clearing the country of already accumulated garbage and processing the garbage that has yet to be thrown out will be faster and easier.

We wish good luck to India and other countries and humanity as a whole in the fight against the pollution of our space!

The article was written by our friend Anna Bratinkova based on the materials of the program Satyamev Jayate .

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