Aafrin Kidwai 
It was a lively exchange of ideas on solid waste and waste-water management during an eSummit organized by Smart Cities India Expo 2020 and Green Dream Foundation, on June 4.
The first track on Solid Waste Management during COVID-19 saw an esteemed line-up of industry experts. Moderated by Ashish Sachdeva, Founder & President, Green Dream Foundation, here are some of the important takeaways from the panel discussion:
Anil Kumar Bansal, Director, IPE Global Ltd. pointed out how recently developed habits of waste segregation may be changing during the pandemic. “A third new category of waste that has emerged in homes is that of household hazardous waste such as gloves and masks. It must be segregated at source, and collected accordingly.”
Dr. Suneel Pandey, Senior Fellow and Director, Environment & Waste Management Division, TERI focussed on how recycling facilities that are closed during the lockdown have impacted the waste management cycle. “The International Solid Waste Association has demanded that recycling facilities must be declared essential services. According to WHO, the coronavirus will be with us for a very long time, so waste from containment zones must be handled systematically. Hazardous waste like masks and gloves must be cut and destroyed to avoid reuse, waste must be sanitised and quarantined for 3 days, and transport vehicles must be periodically sanitised. We must also remember to Reduce, Reuse & Recycle.”
Discussing the impact of COVID-19 on waste collection, Masood Mallick, Joint Managing Director, Ramky Enviro Engineers Ltd. shared some of the challenges faced during the early days of lockdown, including biomedical waste collection capacity constraints and collection of waste from COVID-19 affected residential areas. “As nursing homes and small clinics- which are responsible for about 30% of hazardous biomedical waste, shut shop during the lockdown, our overall amount of waste interestingly remained the same. For COVID-19 affected waste collection, we employed the same operational process as for biomedical waste.”
Mr. Chetan Baregar, Founding Member, Recykal explained the acronym SMART for waste management. ”We have come up with the system of- Segregate, Modulize, Assess, Recycle, Trace. One of the trends emerging during COVID-19 is increased use of plastic- single use and not recycling. We need to think of plastic as ‘raddi,’ which we can recycle and not have it in our dustbins after single use. Every household can be motivated to segregate waste using these 3 ways- organisational motivation, social pressure and kids (school-led motivation programs have worked wonderfully). We can track the success of these modules and implement strategies accordingly for further progress in solid management.”
A full recording of the webinar is available here:
https://www.facebook.com/smartcityindia/videos/2338980233063134/
