Waste Management in the Time of Lockdown

Making Waste Managment More Resilient to Disruptions

Reduced industrial production, vehicular traffic, and construction sharply reduced pollution sources during lockdown.

But reports say that waste from households sharply increased. 

In the UK, there is a 300% increase in reported illegal dumping of waste in rural communities.
 

In some ways, COVID-19 is having an impact on waste management and negatively affecting the environment.

Nearly half the recycling facilities in the UK have reduced or stopped treatment. Industries that rely heavily on recycled materials are therefore the ones feeling the most pressure in terms of getting hold of resources.

Many countries are now in the process of transitioning to a future management system based on the “circular economy”, where the aim is to reuse and return all waste material to manufacturers as a resource. 

Circularity reduces the need to extract new resources, decreases the environmental impacts associated with mining, lowers costs and helps us to meet climate and environment targets. Current waste management systems will need to evolve to be resilient in the face of shocks like the current pandemic.

Crucial Tool to Safeguard Public Health - Waste management

A World Bank newsletter in Apr 2020 said : Waste management is an invaluable public health service, especially during the current coronavirus pandemic. Those of us privileged enough to have formal or informal waste management services right now are benefiting tremendously from avoiding the health risks of waste piling up.

Even when the Covid-19 crisis ends, waste management will remain a crucial tool to safeguard public health and provide livelihoods.

Contrast between High and Low Income Countries

Unfortunately, over 90% of waste is openly dumped or burned in low-income countries. Poorly managed waste is contaminating our water bodies, clogging drains and causing flooding, transmitting disease, increasing respiratory problems from burning, harming animals that consume waste unknowingly, and affecting economic development, such as through tourism. Greenhouse gasses from waste are also a key contributor to climate change. 

Upper-middle and high-income countries provide nearly universal waste collection, and more than one-third of waste is recovered through recycling and composting. Low-income countries collect about 48% of waste in cities, but only 26% in rural areas - and only 4% is recycled.

Cities Overwhelmed with Accumulated Waste during Lockdown

Delhi : With three municipal corporations in Delhi facing cash crunch and a large number of sanitation workers missing from work, city residents staying indoors amid the nationwide lockdown, fear dark days ahead on the cleanliness and sanitation front. Meanwhile, residents of various Delhi areas complained of garbage piles.

Meerut : जनता कर्फ्यू के बाद से मेरठ समेत एनसीआर में हवा की सेहत सुधरने लगी थी। लेकिन अब फिर से यह श्रेणी बहुत खराब की श्रेणी में आ गई है। कई कारणों में से एक है कि लॉकडाउन के दौरान कई जगहोंपर कूड़ा जलाया जा रहा है, जिसमें पॉलीथिन भी है।

Mathura : लॉकडाउन से पहले मथुरा में श्रद्धालुओं ने कुछ घाटों पर जाल लगाकर नालों का कूड़ा रोकने की कोशिश की, लेकिन जालों पर इकट्ठा हुआ कूड़ा न उठ पाने और पानी बढ़ जाने के कारण कूड़ा फिर यमुना में पहुंच गया। इस गंदगी को रोक पाने में नगर निगम नाकाम साबित हो रहा है।

Gaziabad : सामान्य दिनों की तुलना में लॉकडाउन के दौरान गाजियाबादःकी कॉलोनियों में अधिक कूड़ा निकल रहा है. लेकिन निगम कई कॉलोनियों में कूड़ा पूरा नहीं उठा पा रहा। 

Patiala : एक हफ्ते पहले का समाचार है कि पटियाला का एयर क्वाॅलिटी इंडेक्स दिल्ली से भी ज्यादा प्रदूषित रिकाॅर्ड किया गया है। पीएम 10 और 2.5 धूल, कंस्‍ट्रक्‍शन और कूड़ा व पराली जलाने से ज्यादा बढ़ता है।

A heap of garbage at Konka Road in Ranchi
in March 2020. Picture by Manob Chowdhary in Telegraph

Ranchi : The coronavirus pandemic and the resultant lockdown have hit Ranchi’s civic services. “No safai worker has collected garbage from my house for the past one week. The foul smell has become unbearable now", a resident said.

Goa : Garbage has been piling up along the popular coastal belt in Goa. 

Ahmedabad : Trash piled up in Ahmedabad as well.

Cities that made More Effort for Waste Management During Lockdown

Bengaluru : Having anticipated waste woes during the lockdown, residents of several localities in Bengaluru are relieved at garbage being disposed of promptly. “Workers are ensuring waste is collected regularly during the lockdown. The responsibility of proper segregation lies on us,” said member of a resident welfare association.

Kerala : The Government of Kerala directed that no waste removal procedures of local self-government bodies should be interrupted amid lockdown. Panchayat director has instructed all panchayats to monitor activities of Haritha Karma Sena and submit reports.

A consultant with the Haritha Kerala Mission said that decentralising waste management is the best solution for waste disposal. "Segregation of waste is key. Plastic, biodegradable, medical waste and other-non degradable waste have to be treated separately. As per our system, biodegradable waste has to be composted in compounds in the house or in the apartment complexes."

The pandemic has made the importance of decentralised waste management even clearer to Keralites. People spoken to said that they are already seeing a reduction in illegal waste dumping, and littering in public areas in Kerala since the lockdown. People have learnt to compost their waste, rather than throwing it in some other place.

Kochi : Despite all odds, including lack of transportation and lockdown restrictions, sanitation workers in Kochi turn up for work without fail to collect waste, disinfect public spaces and ensure the city is spic and span. "If we stop working, the city will start to stink. We don’t want the people to suffer", said one worker. 

Another worker in Kochi takes care of garbage disposal, unclogs drains, disinfects roads and streets besides trimming the overgrown weeds and the trees. He says even as sanitisation works are being carried out as part of preventive measures against Covid-19, the majority of work is also done keeping in mind the upcoming monsoon season.

Engaged in collecting trash and waste from homes for the past 28 years, a third worker today struggles to make ends meet, as payments have been pending from many homes, citing lockdown as a reason. “Work starts from 3:30am and goes on till all the trash and waste, brought to the collection point, is taken by the corporation. We wait till the truck arrives and loads our sacks,” he said.

“I’m sure that if we stop our work, Kochi will stink. One cannot dump waste on public roads and there is a limit to which the corporation can organise waste-collection," said a fourth worker. 

A fifth worker is the driver of the compactor vehicle which transports garbage. He rides 110 km everyday on his motorcycle, so that Kochi doesn’t reel under garbage issue. “Since we start early in the morning, riding a motorcycle is a risky thing. So, I preferred public transport to reach Kochi. However, due to the new circumstances, that is not possible. Staying away is not an option as a reluctance on my part can affect the waste movement here,” he says. Interestingly, he has been working continuously for the last 30 days. “Some people can’t make it to work. So, I do their job too,” he adds. 

Trichy : A study on sanitation workers in Coimbatore and Tiruchirappalli in April 2020, found that a large majority said that society will view sanitation workers with dignity after lockdown. “People have started to respect us solely for the work we do, the same work for which we were looked down for years,” said a sanitation worker from Tiruchirapalli.

Chandigarh : Even when Chandigarh is on lockdown and residents are confined to the walls of their houses because of the fear of coronavirus spread, the 2,500-strong brigade of door-to-door garbage collectors is doing their job relentlessly, without giving it a day’s skip. 

“It is the time to show the society that we, too, care for them. If we don’t pick the garbage during the curfew period, the piled up garbage will start spreading infections,” says the head of the door-to-door garbage collectors’ society.

Bhiwadi has a Long way to go to Improve Waste Managment

भिवाड़ी में गीला और सूखा कचरा को अलग-अलग करने से बच रही नगर परिषद पर एनजीटी ने कुछ माह पूर्व सख्ती दिखाते हुए विशेषकर डोर टू डोर कचरे का उठान और निस्तारण के पूर्ण इंतजामों की पुष्टि करने व ग्रीन वेस्ट से कंपोस्ट खाद बनाने के मिशन को सुनिश्चित करने के निर्देश दिए थे।

शहर से प्रतिदिन 35 से 40 टन कूड़ा निकलता है। जिसमें लगभग 15 से 20 टन केवल ग्रीन वेस्ट ही है। इसमें से केवल 5 टन गीला कचरा ही उपयोग में लाया जा रहा है। बाकी कूड़ा सूखे कचरे के साथ मिलकर प्रदूषण का बड़ा कारक बन रहा है।

Environmental Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) chairman Bhure Lal said that during his visit to Bhiwadi in Rajasthan on October 19, 2019, he found that officials had taken inadequate measures to curb burning of garbage. "A massive fire was observed at the dump yard in the RIICO industrial area. Locals complained that garbage is set on fire on a daily basis," he said.

Along the Sohna road, near Bhiwadi Management Association, heaps of plastic, synthetic waste and foam generated by industrial units were lying in the open and several sites were filled with ashes.

The EPCA said several fires have been started in the industrial areas of Khushkhera, Bhiwadi and Alwar and apprehended that with the onset of winter, more and more heaps of these industrial waste were likely to be burnt.

An online survey web page updated in Feb, 2020, had this to say about perceptions about Bhiwadi :

However, in one residential society - Utsav in Ashiana Village, composting of wet kitchen wastes from three blocks has continued without disruption, for 4.5 months in colony level drums. 

Additionally, some twenty households in this society continue to process their own kitchen wet wastes in small home composting units. 

Large Accidents at Dussehra celebrations have continued over the years..

Credit : Tribune

• Yesterday, the Dussehra celebrations triggered panic among scores of residents at the Dasehra ground in Sector 46 of chandigarh when the effigy of Ravana suddenly “blasted”.“All three effigies went up in flames abruptly. Some onlookers, who were standing, were so petrified with the ‘blast-like sound’ that they fell down. Several children started crying. The exit gate was congested and posed problems for those rushing out of the venue.” A DSP was the chief guest at the venue. 

• Also yesterday, Dussehra was celebrated at Dhuri railway crossing in Ludhiana (see above). People were seen roaming on the railway tracks to have a glimpse of the effigies unmindful of the lurking danger from speeding trains.

• Flouting the orders of the high court, the heritage conservation committee of nagpur was pressured by a BJP Minister this year to give permission to hold dussehra celebrations inside a monument of national importance. platforms were put up right next to the heritage structure and most other conditions for giving the permission were also flouted. 

• Early this year, a 1000 boys, aged 5-12 years, in a crammed room of a Kerala temple were subjected to smoke emanating from somewhere. Their parents had to get the polic to free them for a while so they could have a relief from the suffocating conditions. The children were part of a temple ritual which was to keep them away from their parents for a week. 

• 22 people died, and 30 were injured during a stampede on a railway overbridge in Mumbai at dussehra time in 2017. 

• Early in 2017, a fire broke out in Allahabad's Magh Mela. While no one died, all the belongings of the pilgrms got burnt. 

• In 2015, at the Kumbh Mela in Nashik, selfies were banned on days that people took ritual baths in the Godavari river. Organisers say they conducted a study that showed people took too long taking selfies. This slows down the flow of people, leading to pushing and panic.

• 33 people died when exiting from a dussehra celebration at Patna's gandhi maidan in 2014. The CM was the chief guest. A rumour that a live wire had fallen on the ground sparked a stampeded towards the only two exits that were open. The enquiry report of the incident mentioned that there were no lights at the exit gates or proper sound systems. There was no detailed crowd management plan for the event.

• In 2013, Dussehra celebrations in Ratangarh in Datia District of Madhya Pradesh were marred by the deaths of 115 people and scores injured. The enquiry reports of a retired justice, CBI (only ordered by the High Court because of a public interest litigation), and the human rights commission are not to-date in the public domain. There is only a mention of the retired justice's report being tabled in the assembly more than a year later with one havaldar being found guilty ! Some officials were suspended after the incident. Among those officials, atleast the collector of Datia district was reinstated in his post as the MP Government never followed up with a chargesheet. 

• There were only 10 policemen on duty to manage a crowd of pilgrims 1 lakh strong. Many press reports at the time recounted that police took bribes from tractor trolley operators to let them in into a no-traffic zone, in the midst of a single road choc-a-bloc with pilgrims headed over to a bridge over the Sindh river. When pilgrims protested, the police lathi-charged them, resulting in a crush. A rumour about the bridge they were on, collapsing, led to a stampede. 

• There were press reports with names of people who said the police threw bodies as well as live people off the bridge into the Sindh river (or some jumped by themselives), to bring down the official count of the dead. The bodies from sindh river were never reported to be recovered from the river although some people, who were alive, made it out. That is why it was suspected that the actual count of dead people in the tragedy was far greater. 

• There was no prior arrangement for primary medical aid and even drinking water, the Congress alleged, adding top district officials had not reached the spot even seven hours after the tragedy.

• Earlier in 2013, 37 people died at Allahabad railway station on their way home from the Kumbh Mela. Officials said some 30 million visited the site that day, considered the most auspicious day to bathe in the river.There was a crush as thousands waited to board trains home. Delayed trains had led to massive overcrowding and the collapse of a footbridge. Up to 100 million pilgrims and Hindu ascetics were expected to attend the two-month long Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest religious festival. It is held every 12 years in a temporary city covering an area larger than Athens, spread over a wide sandy river bank in Allahabad.

• More than 100 worshippers were killed in a stampede in January 2011 in Kerala, while 224 pilgrims died in September 2008 at a temple in Rajasthan. In 2008 also, 145 people died when a panicking crowd pushed people over a ravine near the Himalayan temple of Naina Devi.

• 57 people had died at Ratangarh in Datia District in MP in 2006 in dussehra celebrations when they were swept away in the river's waters. The enquiry report of that tragedy too was never made public by the same government of shiv raj chouhan. Projected as Modi's rival to the PM post in the run up to the 2014 elections, he surely is Modi's equal in some respects atleast !

• A fire swept through parts of the Shabri Kumbh Mela in Dangs, Gujarat, in early 2006, but was quickly brought under control by fire tenders stationed for the mela.  

• There are many many other incidents I can see on the net even in the last few years. The point is, few public gatherings in our country which are of a religious nature, are organized with any sense of safety for and services to, the pilgrims.