Liquidation of solid wastes
THERE is a world-wide philosophy of solid waste managementbased on the principles of waste minimisation and recovery orrecycling. These values are creating a basis for joint venturesthat will bring together representatives of government, communities, private firms, institutes and international agencies,to address the crises of increasing refuse in the context of inadequate infrastructure.
Municipal solid waste management is gaining momentum. The initiative is taken by community-based organisations and large NGOS, and their general interest can be labelledas 'community-based environmental management'.Government departments, private sector firms and international agencies are providing funds, expertise and support foreducation and dissemination of knowledge.
Understanding of the practices and policies for recoveryand recycling in Asian cities is moving into a new phase.@pecific research and local projects in these cities now encompass attempts to understand city-wide patterns of recoveryand recycling, surveys of household and community attitudesand behaviours and projects for the welfare and advancementof waste-pickers.
The second, is applied research designed to improve interventions in environmental management or social welfare.This may provide the background information for the projectsto be undertaken. Also included in applied research is thework on designing particular techniques for recycling whichrequire social analysis.
A lot of work has been done in Bangalore, Bandung,Jakarta, Hanoi, Karachi, Pune, Hyderabad and Surabaya.There is now an overview of the networks for recovery, trading, and recycling of materials. Pilot surveys of households,waste workers and entrepreneurs have been done. Specificstudies of categories of "actors" such as waste pickers or itinerant waste buyers are complete. The thrust areas distinguishedare as follows:
Do householders, shopkeepers and office employees practice source separation ofwastes for trading?
Do they practice reuse or back-yard composting?
What materials are set aside and in what quantities?
To whom do they sell?
How satisfied are they with opportunities for tradingwastes or what problems do they encounter?
How willing would they be to work in organised recor recycling schemes or in assisting the transformation ofwaste pickers into becoming collectors of clean material?
The results of the pilot research work suggest thathousehold separation is active in Asian cities, but is threanedby general urban and societal changes like rising incomethat decrease the incentives for the sale of certain materialand the squeezing out of neighbourhood waste-buying shops.Even international trade developments such as the import ofhigh quality waste materials for recycling is a major impedingfactor.
The current projects for waste recycle take place alongsidethe 'traditional' behaviours of separation and trading. Some ofthe projects to encourage separation are geared to capturinghousehold organic wastes in a pure state for compostingvermicomposting, with the aim of reducing the burden oflection and disposal for the municipality. Some have evolvedfrom work with street children and very poor families whohave resorted to waste picking.
The new initiatives enhance 'informal' systems aad insome they run parallel to or aim to replace them. For instanceNGOS may ask schools to separate materials and to sell them todesignated buyers, thus attempting to bypass the existingpractices of cleaners and caretakers controlling the sale of thematerials.
The initiatives concerned with the workers in waste recyclesystems mainly aim to improve the status, earnings and working conditions of traditional workers like waste pickers. Thereare a surprising number of different types of social organisa tions involved in some way with waste separation or wastepicking in cities of India, Indonesia and the Philippines.
if it is difficult to obtain information about research work onthe many local initiatives related to the recovery and recyclingof urban wastes, to come across failed projects in order toexamine them is more tough. The failures simply disappearand lessons which could be learnt are rarely passed on to persons contemplating similar interventions.
It is important to note that there is no systematic evaluation of any of the research or the projects. Both research andprojects suffer from lack of continuity, as do so many community based projects. The researchers or development plannerswho conceive of the project and see it through the initial phases may move on to other work. The local institutions Or NGoscannot continue the project work or are diverted by moreurgent calls. In addition, there are usually no clear and established routes by which the results can influence municipal policies and attitudes for solid waste management.
Waste-picking is a practice which greatly attributes to resourcerecovery in poor countries. The pilot research on waste recovery in Asian cities suggests that more materials, of better quality, are brought to recycling through source separation (theleft-over resources do not become discarded wastes but arekept separate for sale) than through waste picking (recoverythat is accomplished by people picking out the materials frommixed municipal wastes). Yet, much more attention has beengiven to the activity of waste picking.
Persons interested in the welfare of pickers have sometimes argued that pickers should be 'integrated' into solidwaste management systems. The artument for integration ofpickers is interpreted as entailing the institutionalisation ofpicking through the registration of waste pickers with the cityauthorities to guarantee them access to wastes.
Casual, manual recovery of materials from mixed municipal garbage cannot be made truly healthy and socially acceptable. The provision of gloves and boots and access to sanitaryfacilities will nc+eliminate health risks unless all the equipment and infrastructure is kept in good order. Thus, provision of these facilities would need to be backed up with a greatdeal of education and monitoring. People who are seen topick out wastes from contaminated accumulations havealways been socially stigmatised. it is unlikely that the publicwill readily accept pickers as doing ecologically and economically valuable work, even if there are persuasive campaigns.
In cities with large numbers of poor people, to preventwaste picking can be a daunting task. Under these circumstances, it should be recognised that picking from open pileson city streets is preferable (in terms of health risks) to eitherpicking from containers or to dump picking.
There is sometimes a misunderstanding about projects toassist waste pickers. The projects that have shown real potential to substantially improve the health and the earnings ofwaste pickers are not those that institutionalise picking.Rather, in such projects, pickers are assisted in getting accessto clean wastes (for instance, from offices), or to work at transfer stalions or compost plants where they can use tools andhave accesss to washing facilities. The principle of picking11 close to source" is followed, when pickers are organised tocollect wastes "at the door" and they immediately sort thematerials into organics and inorganics.
Waste picking is a phenomenon that arises from theconjunction of absolute poverty with free or almost freeresources. For every picker who is assisted to move into thehigher ranks in waste recycle, there are likely to be other newrural arrivals who wish to take up the picking work. Thisphenomenon has long been observed in projects for streetchildren in developing countries. Picking is likely to declineonly in societies where better work for unskilled people isreadily available.
Social agencies both governmental and NGOS should continue to assist waste pickers in every possible way. In solidwaste management planning, however, the attention currentlybeing given to waste picking is likely to shift to understandingon how to promote source separation.
It is thus very important to be clear about waste pickers asstakeholders in waste recycling, where the intention is torecommend that picking be institutionalised or where theultimate goal is to reduce picking as a vehicle of resourcerecovery and enhance source separation. If the pickers' work istransformed to the handling of clean wastes, they should notthen be referred to as 'pickers'.
Since there are now many initiatives to address the workof pickers, it is important that the survey on attitudesinclude questions on whether the public and the municipalofficials are ready to accept new roles for former waste pickers.Opposition to pickers as a category of workers based on theassumption that they tend to be thieves and undesirables mayeven prompt community efforts in source separation.
The emergence of a world-wide philosophy of solid wastemanagement based on the four R's of reduce, reuse, recover,and recycle, is providing an impetus to community groupsand NGOS in cities of developing countries, in their efforts toencourage source separation and recycling or to help in theOrganisation of former waste pickers.