Aafrin Kidwai 
Picture for representational purposes only.
Post the COVID-19 lockdown, cities across India have been generating significantly lesser quantities of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW). That’s the good news. The bad news, however, is the steep rise in the quantity of hazardous waste at the household level. In addition to quarantined families, large amounts of waste generated by households with COVID-positive cases has led to a piquant situation for municipal authorities with limited resources.
In this backdrop, the Green Dream Foundation & Smart Cities India Expo held a webinar on waste segregation during Covid-19. Ashish Sachdeva, Founder President – Green Dream Foundation underlined how the driving factor behind waste segregation has changed since the COVID-19 pandemic began. “In pre-COVID times, waste segregation was driven by the goal of environmental sustainability. This has changed. We now need to segregate waste in order to break the chain of transmission, protect human health and save lives. Every household is potentially generating hazardous waste, namely masks and gloves, and this needs to be managed effectively,” said Sachdeva.
So how are civic authorities addressing this? Here are some of the strategies used by three municipalities that participated in the webinar:
KK Yadav, Municipal Commissioner, Municipal Corporation Chandigarh
“A lot of things have changed after the Covid-19 pandemic. Earlier, there were three categories of municipal waste: dry, wet and hazardous. Post-Covid, we also have to deal with hazardous household quarantine waste. Currently, in Chandigarh, there are a total of 957 houses in quarantine with 2200 people and 1.2 tonnes of BMW is generated each day, which is collected at the door-to-door level. We have a team with six vehicles dedicated to this task. To ensure the safety of waste collectors, they are provided proper training and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). The hazardous waste is disposed of in incinerators.
One of our biggest accomplishments in this period is a reduction in the total quantity of waste collection, specifically wet waste. In pre-COVID Chandigarh, 30,000 homes were already composting their wet-waste. Recently, we have given composting bins to many more households and asked them to practise composting. Thankfully, Chandigarh’s citizens are very aware and bulk waste generators are also following norms. Currently, dry waste is not being recycled since could be infected. JP Group is managing it well so far.”
Subbiah Sivadubramanian, Municipal Commissioner, Trichy Municipal Corporation
“Trichy has shown great success in arresting the spread of the coronavirus. Residents are segregating their waste into two categories: wet and dry. Trichy has stopped waste collection from commercial establishments to reduce the burden on the municipality. There are 31 micro-compost centres in Trichy where wet waste is converted into bio-manure and is sold to farmers at Rs 1. Biomining has also been started.
Following the coronavirus pandemic, waste is collected in yellow bags from the 2300 houses in quarantine (including positive cases). The civic body has its own vehicles for door-to-door collection and workers are provided with PPE. They first disinfect the waste, segregate the hazardous dry waste (including masks, gloves, diapers and sanitary napkins) and take it for deep burial since there are some issues with the incinerator. Hospital waste is managed by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, which has its own centralized treatment plant.
Admittedly, the capacity of available incinerators has to be increased since it cannot be used for large quantities of potentially hazardous waste that we are now collecting. Non-bio-degradable waste including diapers and sanitary napkins pose a huge problem and require amendments as well as the stringent implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility Rules at the central level. Makers of gloves and masks have to also step forward and provide infrastructure to dispose of this waste.”
Eliyas Pathan, HoD, Solid Waste & Drainage Dept, Surat Municipal Corporation
“With a population of 5 million, Surat has four COVID hospitals whose BMW is taken to a centralised facility. The city has been divided into seven zones with ten COVID centres. Since the lockdown began, the quantity of MSW generated in Surat has decreased. The city has 30 containment clusters covering 1,66,000 houses with more than 7 lakh houses. Door to door waste collection is being carried out from these households which are responsible for segregating their own waste in yellow bags. Mask and syringe or other medical waste is taken for incineration and large-capacity incinerators have been purchased by the authorities already. Yellow bags are used for disposing of BMW and red bags are for discarded PPEs and other potentially infected waste. These are collected by the operator and treated at a centralised biomedical facility in Surat as per the CPCB Guidelines and waste management rules 2016.
We are aware that if not treated properly, hazardous waste can potentially contaminate other waste and are studying this closely.”
A lot of citizens have been supporting municipalities in their SWM efforts. Ranu Kalra, AAO, Grand Omaxe – Noida, shared how her housing complex with over 5000 residents is managing its waste through proper segregation and composting. “Our residents were already segregating its waste into three categories – wet, dry and domestic hazardous (not to be included masks and gloves) which made our task simpler post-COVID. Residents have now been asked to cut-up their masks and wrap them in newspapers for disposal. They are put in separate bags which our own housekeeping staff does not touch. Our team has been given PPE suits and trained in the correct protocols to collect potentially hazardous waste. Waste collectors authorised by NOIDA authorities are supporting us as well.”
Ms Kalra said her complex was distributing reusable cotton masks to its staff which was disinfected daily. A point underscored by Ashish Sachdeva who said residents need to reduce the quantity of waste generation through reuse and recycling. “Waste management solutions should be environmentally sustainable so that we don’t create a new problem while solving another,” Sachdeva emphasized.
