Guilty of non-compliance

only one of 10 us metropolitan areas required to submit anti-pollution plans in 1999 have met the government's goals to crack down on smog into next millennium, the Environmental Protection Agency (epa) said recently. The 10 urban areas, that have violated the federal ozone standards, are mandated under the Clean Air Act to tell the pollution control body how they will reduce pollution and move from "non-attainment" status to meet federal standards by the middle of next decade.

Waste content

Solid waste can be of two types -- biodegradable or organic and non-biodegradable or non-organic. Whereas organic waste includes mainly kitchen waste, straw, hay, paper and animal excreta, non-organic waste includes ash, stone, cinders, plastic, rubber and ferrous and non-ferrous metals. The data collected by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) from 43 Indian cities indicates that, due to the common practice of using fresh vegetables and fruit, the waste content of garbage in India is highly organic. It varies between 40-50 per cent.

A Heap Of A Problem

Thirty two-year-old Mannoj Ahuja has been living in Janakpuri colony in west Delhi for the last eleven years. He is part of a group of residents who literally live in a lane overflowing with garbage. The stench of rotting wastes and stray dogs rummaging through them, their bodies sullied with muck, serves as a constant reminder of the helplessness of their situation.

Collection

The household waste is disposed of either via a door-to-door collection system, which is not so common, or in municipal facilities. Excluding posh residential and commercial colonies, most of the households, shops and other establishments throw waste as and when it is generated.

Transportation

After the garbage is collected, it needs to be transported to a safe disposal site. Here, too, there is no dearth of problems -- inadequate fleet, outdated vehicles, no monitoring of ehicle movement and lack of coordination between the primary collection and transport epartments. In fact, speaking of the municipalities' priorities, P S Dhaigude, deputy health officer, Pune Municipal Corporation, says: "Our priority is increase the number of vehicles."

Disposal

"We simply dispose waste in abandoned quarries and other areas," said Dhaigude, when asked about the waste disposal system in Mumbai. In the parlance of the municipal officials, disposal of waste means dumping.

Left picking wastes

They are seen almost everywhere, rummaging through heaps of garbage. The police harass them and the local people view them with suspicion. Hardly anyone understands the importance of their work. Ragpickers, in fact, do the municipalities a big favour by collecting recyclable wastes from the dump to sell it to the recycling industry.

Bogged Down

Why have municipalities failed? There is no dearth of ways and means to dispose of waste, yet many people in India live in and around pig stys. From time to time, studies have been carried out, and recommendations have been made to solve the problem of swm. Some of the shortcomings of the swm system in the country are:

Why Vatavaran?

What the municipalities must learn about waste management from an NGO

A Public Effort