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DRY WASTE MANAGEMENT
Setting up Dry Waste Collection Centres (DWCC) across the city/town is key to recovery and managing dry waste. It also integrates the traditional role of the informal sector.
Very early on in our journey, we realized the need for a destination for the dry waste generated at home. This is additional to the regular kabadiwalla or scrap dealer at the corner of the street. Dry waste included lot more items than just cardboards, newspaper, glass bottles, milk covers etc.
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It includes all kinds of paper, plastic, glass, metal, mattress, shoes, electronic items, and a range of packaging material that gets generated due to retail consumption. The role of EPR in dry waste management is undeniable.
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The aspiration of achieving dry waste management is to achieve the role of a public utility function, feeding into a circular economy based on business principles while integrating and including the informal sector.
What is it?
Dry waste management is the setting up of the end to end process of collection, sorting, aggregation and sale of dry waste. It starts with the collection of source-segregated dry waste, sorting and grading of the various categories in secondary sorting collection centers, aggregating for sale of recyclables into the open market, or aggregating for take/buy back of non-recyclables by Producer Organizations of their branded litter.
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This should cater to all types of dry waste be it Paper, Plastic both recyclable and non-recyclable, metals, glass, bulky dry waste like thermocole, mattress, furniture, cloth.
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SWMRT conceived and conceptualized the setting up Dry Waste Collection Centers (DWCC) as an important first point interface that will create visibility, easy accessibility and therefore participation from the general public in segregating and sending all the dry waste to the DWCC.
SWMRT had detailed the DWCC layout and working and presented it to the BBMP officials, legal representatives at various forums including the Lok Adalat in 2010.
In 2012 the High Court has mandated BBMP to set up Dry Waste Collection centers in every ward. And today many of the wards in Bengaluru have these dry waste collection centers.
Dry Waste Collection Centre
It is a decentralised Collection Centre provided in all the residential neighbourhoods, commercial areas and market places which will be a destination for all dry waste collected by waste workers and also facilitate the buyback of Dry Waste, at a nominal price, either directly from the local residents or from the waste workers.
The number and size of centers to manage dry waste depends on the dry waste generated in the city/town/district. But is a MUST in every city/town/district as a local destination for all kinds on dry waste.
Waste Stream Management (expand)
Waste Stream Management is about setting up a Waste Management Protocol which starts with segregate at source, collection and transportation of each waste stream separately to end destination where either compost, recycle or managed disposal of each waste stream takes place.
In order to understand this, we studied every existing process and documented it. One of the most insightful information in the early days, came from the Vellore Srinivasan Model in CMC Vellore. Using adaptations of the various inputs, several pilots were facilitated and carried out with the support of solution and service providers. While some showed no scalability, many scalable models have now become a norm..
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What is it?
Waste stream management which starts with segregation at source, is the end to end process of separating each waste stream and dealing with it separately from the point of generation to the point of disposal.
The major streams of organic, dry and sanitary waste are easily identifiable. However, as the availability of segregated waste improves, the eco system for handling different types of waste improves and the number of waste streams that can be identified and dealt with, keeps increasing.
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The ability of the system to handle waste streams is an indicator of how well municipal solid waste is managed. The end goal of waste stream management is to achieve zero waste to landfill and to maximize resource recovery by establishing a circular economy of all waste streams
Why is it Important?
Visits were made to all the operating landfill sites and a status report with recommendations was prepared and presented to the Lok Adalat in 2010.
The report observes (link to the report) that of the 2400 tonnes per day that was sent into the 5 landfill processing sites around the city, about 1800 tonnes or 75% of it was being dumped and about 600 tonnes or 25% was supposedly being processed creating about 45 tonnes of compost and recovering about 1.5 tonnes of recyclables per day.
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How To Achieve It?
Having established without doubt that waste stream management is integral to good waste management, the next step was to identify enablers and drivers to achieve waste stream management.