Discussion on Solutions to Waste Management in India and Elsewhere

Participants (In the order of appearance. As of 12/05/2012, 2 PM EST):

            , and Nuggehalli Vasuki (CEO (retired), DSWA).

Link to the original thread on WTERT's partner D-Waste's LinkedIn group.

The report "Observations from India's Crisis" will be published soon as a PDF, DOC on wtert.org and also as a BLOG POST in this Blog

Direction: The discussion is quickly moving in the direction of discussing the best technologies for waste management in India.

Context: It started in a thread requesting help regarding a report on India's waste management crisis - by Mr. Annepu.

Initiation: The discussion was initiated by Dr. Themelis's support to the original query as a reply to a comment made by Dr. Mahwar.

Featured: Professor Nickolas Themelis's Comment On Waste Reduction:

There is no question that SOME of the waste generated in U.S. and Canada could be reduced. Both countries generate over 50% more tons per capita than Japan and other more advance nations in northern Europe. 

But these nations still incinerate about 0.3 tons per capita, rather than landfill it.

Analogy Worth a Special Mention: 

The situation with waste management is somewhat like that with public health: Good diet and exercise, vitamins, preventive medicine, all contribute to better health and less sickness. Despite all that, there will be some sick people who need to go to hospitals. It is obvious that advocating against hospitals or opposing new ones will not improve public health. 

It is the same situation with urban waste management: There all kinds of means for reduction, recycling, composting but ALL human experience has shown that at the end there remains a substantial fraction that has to go to either "incinerators with energy recovery or to sanitary landfills. Environmental organizations who oppose these two means on principle, in effect are perpetuating traditional landfilling. Regrettably, the Sierra Club is spending a lot of donated money doing just that.

Other Comments

On the use of word "Crisis" for the waste management situation in India

Dr. Mahwar's comment:

What do you mean by crises in waste management? Are there any crises of waste management in India or any where in the world in your knowledge?

Prof. Themelis's response (edited):

The use of word "crisis" is apt. For example, refer to the detailed report for just one place, Bangalore, in the New York Times. (India's Plague, Trash, Drowns Its Garden City During Strike)

Asit Nema's response (edited):

I could not agree more with you on the term 'Crisis'! Indeed we have a full blown crisis here (example Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram-Vilappilsala and many other cities) as over the last 12 - 15 years, all interventions attempted across the country have been driven by the desire to convert 'waste-to-wealth' and 'waste-to-energy' but ironically they have resulted in 'waste-of-wealth' and 'waste-of-energy'! 

Renee Gratton's comment:

I am not entirely surprised at the state of waste management in India, (however) your report had me gasping at the effects this brings. (report will be published soon on wtert.org and this blog)

Advice to Thiruvananthapuram might not help alleviate the city's looming solid waste crisis

This post is a response to an article published by FirstPost.com with the title "Thiruvananthapuram sinks in its own waste as rulers look for shortcuts" on October 16, 2012.

Public protests - The Hindu

This critique is not about the conceptual or factual validity of the article but it is to distinguish between the short-term and long-term priorities and solutions for the city. In the absence of such a distinction, various stakeholders with the same goal of solving the crisis and with correct models will end up debating ideals and fighting within each other, finally doing no good to the city.

While depicting the situation as: 

When the residents of Vilappilsaala said "no more garbage" to their neighbourhood, the corporation, which is used to an archaic collect-transport-dump routine, didn’t know what to do. They just stopped garbage collection and it started piling up everywhere. The city is putrid today. 

FirstPost suggests a 4-step approach (edited for brevity)

1. Ask the city residents to mandatorily separate waste at source. Once recyclables and organic matter are removed, only about 20 per cent needs to be dumped in a sanitary landfill. 

2. Once the source-segregation is made mandatory, the city corporation can collect both the recyclables door-to-door (women-run self help groups have been doing this). Engage scrap dealers to whom the materials can be sold.

3. The bio-degradable materials can be collected door-to-door and used in compost facilities at several locations in the city.

4. The remaining 20% of waste need to be disposed off in landfills.

Thiruvananthapuram - Deccan Chronicle

The 4-step advise can be followed if the City can get over the current crisis. For whatever reason, if it fails to do so, the crisis will continue like in Campania, Italy. In that case, Firstpost's advise will provide some relief but not real solutions. Therefore, it is irrelevant to the article's subject line. Let me explain how:
The subject line and the article speak about the imminent solid waste crisis in Thiruvananthapuram, but the solution suggested is not a process but a future state that should be achieved. To achieve such a state, the suggested components should evolve together with gradually increasing infrastructure, changing social habits and the city's institutional and financial abilities. Such a change cannot be brought in with sudden interventions in a short span of time.