Journal of Ecosystem & Ecography
Open Access

Solid Waste Management; Environment; Rivers; Ecosystem

When economies go after indiscriminate market-based growth and the people go after a consumerist culture, the apparent side-effect is ‘unmanageable waste generation’. There was a time that this was considered as a phenomenon of the West; and later of the cities of the fast emerging economies; and currently it is everywhere including the villages in India. The villages in general and those on the periphery of cities and towns in particular are at the frontline as far as indiscriminate and unmanageable waste generation is concerned. The concern is that at the end of the day, all the garbage falls on the lap of the Gram Panchayat (GP) to clean it up [1].

The domestic waste generated in rural households of India is increasingly becoming an issue of serious concern. It is of the order of 0.3 to 0.4 Million Metric Tons Per Day (MTPD), as reported by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS), Government of India. Though, solid waste generated in rural areas is predominantly organic and biodegradable, it is becoming a major problem as the waste generated is not segregated in-situ. Inconsiderate littering causes poor environmental sanitation resulting in unhealthy quality of living. As per WHO, unscientific waste management increases the risk of proliferation of several diseases especially in developing economies where delivery infrastructure is not robust.

Sustainable Goal Numbers 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), 15 (Life on Land); all calls out for sustainable management of waste. Management of solid waste shares an indispensable sharing with all these mentioned SDGs.

In Uttarakhand, challenges related to Solid Waste Management (SWM) are multipronged. The state is placed in an extremely fragile ecological zone. About 86 per cent of area is mountainous. These mountains are young and disaster prone and frequented visited by lake bursts, flash floods, landslides, earth quakes etc., causing enormous damage of human life and property. Even minor changes in ecological balance are capable of triggering huge disasters. Non-scientific and non-systematic disposal of waste in the valleys, roadside, rivers is in these mountains is an open invitation to disasters.

Furthermore, two of the holiest rivers of India, The Ganges and Yamuna and their tributaries originate from the state. These rivers are also lifeline of northern heartland of India. Due to continuous disposal of waste, these have become highly polluted and at many places their water has even become unfit for human consumption.

In the realm of waste generation, state as a whole (urban and rural) was generating approximately 3010 metric tons of solid waste every day in 2011. It is projected to go up to 4881 MTPD in 2021 and 9355 MTPD in 2041. Of this, urban areas generate around 996 MTPD of MSW (Annual report CPCB, 2014-15). Villages generate about 880 MTPD and rest 1135 MTPD is generated by tourists visiting state every year particularly during the summer months (Urban Development Directorate, Govt of Uttarakhand 2017).

A survey conducted by the Uttarakhand Environment Protection and Pollution Control Board (UEPPCB) in 2016-17, shows that a whopping 272.22 tonnes per day plastic waste is being generated constituting about 17 per cent of the total waste. It is projected to increase to 457.63 tonnes in 2041. SP Subuddhi, UEPPCB Member Secretary, said, “Current percentage of plastic waste is already alarming. And if we continue to excessively use the plastic like today, then the plastic content would be nearly doubled by next 23 years.” It is going to pose severe implications for the hill state.

On the other hand, present SWM system in the state is highly in-sufficient and fragile. This has been revealed in a written reply submitted in the Rajya Sabha on March 8, 2019 by the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs. The reply based on data available till January 31, 2018 indicates that there are 912 municipal wards (in 92 urban local bodies) in the state, of which only 3 percent (29 wards) have the facility of 100 percent segregation of waste at source. Furthermore, there are 21 per cent wards (715) that still do not have 100 per cent door-to-door collection of solid waste. Only 20 percent of the urban waste generated is treated.

Two recent orders by the courts (SC slapping a fine of Rs. 3 lakh on Uttarakhand for not having a solid waste management policy and Nainital HC ordering the Dehradun Municipal Corporation to clear the city of garbage in a time-bound manner) further accentuate the dismal state of affairs in Uttarakhand as far as waste disposal is concerned. Last year, six cities from Uttarakhand were included in the Swachh Survekshan ranking. None of them figured in the 100 most cleanest cities of the country.

At 395 rank, Haldwani- Kathgodam was the dirtiest, while Roorkee (218 rank) was the cleanest in the state. The provisional capital city of Dehradun was ranked 316 and the much-frequented hill town of Nainital was placed at the 330th spot. A glaring incidence of total dis-respect for environment in urban waste disposal came to light in Uttarkashi (Rishabh Shrivastava; 2019). This town generates about 7-9 tons of waste per day (UEPPCB, 2017). Earlier, it was being dumped in a local water stream named Tekhla but soon the High Court intervened and the dumping in Tekhla stream was banned. Thereafter the Uttarkashi Nagar Palika Parishad started using RamlilaMaidan (Ground) for dumping the waste. Recently, it was caught by local press and the community dumping 30 trucks of waste in river Bhagirathi being considered as another source (other being Alaknanda river) of Holy Ganges.

Rudraprayag, a small Himalayan town, having a population of 9,313 (Census 2011) was also in news due to the same reason, the only difference was that the river changed. The Rudraprayag Municipality was caught illegally dumping the solid waste in the Alaknanda river (Hindustan Times 2018). Prior to this, in November 2018, an expedition team of CISF conducted a clean-up drive in areas close to Rudraprayag, where non-degradable plastic was rotting since last many years (Times of India, 2018). This was mostly because lots of tourists visited or passed by the area

Incidentally, almost all the discussion about the waste management is cantered around urban bodies. What about the waste generated in villages and over 30 million tourists visiting state every year? Statistics given earlier have revealed that more than two thirds of waste in the state is being generated by these two entities. Under the given circumstances, it is assumed that almost all of it is being disposed- off on roadside, valleys, rivers and other similar places causing colossal damage to environment and ecosystem of state. Furthermore, state is not even talking about it.

‘Sanitation and street cleaning’ is one of the basic functions of a GP, and they should make arrangements for attending to it. The Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) Gramin requires every GP to put in place a functional waste management system. Most of the State governments also encourage the GPs to chalk out a plan for SWM and practically start managing solid waste in a scientifically acceptable manner.

Recently Rural Development Minister of J & K, Mr. Abdul Haq Khan along with his staff had gone to Chennai to study the Solid Waste Management programme being implemented in rural areas of Tamil Nadu. Daily Excelsior had carried a detailed news article on this issue on March 10th 2017. During his meeting with Tamil Nadu’s Rural Development Minister Mr. S P Velumani, Mr. Abdul Haq Khan was informed about different rural development schemes being implemented in Tamil Nadu. J&K’s Minister was informed that Govt of Tamil Nadu managed to implement several projects of solid and liquid waste management through MGNREGA which are conventional way of disposing garbage and very economical, effective and eco-friendly. The Minister was taken on a tour to few villages where such waste management projects were being implemented.

Besides Tamil Nadu, at the moment there are a few SWM units in Kerala and West Bengal and in one or two GPs in Gujarat and Rajasthan that are understood being managed successfully. Uttarakhand too has a success story in management of waste being generated by tourists [2].

The move was started by Forest Dept. in their quest to get Valley of Flower National Park recognised as World Heritage Site. But the 13 km trek leading to Hemkund Sahib and Valley of Flower was littered by plastic bottles, food wrappers and remains of raincoats made of thin polythene, thrown by pilgrims and tourists. It roped in a non-profit at Bhyundar, the only village on the route, to collect plastic strewn on the pathway. In about three months, the non-profit Eco Development Committee (EDC) Bhyundar, had 4,000 sacks full of plastic waste, all brought to Govindghat on mules. The next year, it had 14,000 sacks. But all this waste stayed in Govindghat because the forest department had not yet formed a system to dispose it. In fact, the collection was as high as a three-storey building. In 2003, the forest department sent the waste to Dehradun, where it was segregated and then sent to Delhi for recycling. But transporting so much of waste was troublesome and expensive. The forest department collaborated with the municipal authorities in Srinagar town in 2004 to use its compactor machine that can compress plastic and make transportation easy. But after four years, the machine broke down and the forest department had to again take up the cumbersome task of transporting big, uncompressed sacks to Dehradun. In 2010, the authorities at Joshimath tehsil allowed the use of their compactor machine. But it was overworked and the authorities refused to compress waste the next year. By this time a waste dealer from Dehradun came to their rescue and started buying and transporting all the waste at his cost [3].

To lend a helping hand to EDC Bhyundar, the forest department made efforts to create a similar non-profit in Govindghat. EDC Govindghat was created in 2004. Till now, the two units have disposed of 587 tonnes of waste. Most of the fund is generated by charging registration fee from mule owners, and dandis and kandis. Dandis take people up to the hills in palanquins and kandis carry tourists load in baskets. With increase in tourism, the numbers of mules, dandies and

kandis have also increased, improving EDCs’ collection. In 2003, EDC Bhyundar had collected Rs. 10.4 lakhs. This rose to Rs. 29.6 lakhs in 2011. EDC Govindghat, which had collected Rs. 6.5 lakhs in its first year, raised Rs. 17.2 lakhs in 2011. The non-profits also tax shop and restaurant owners on the path. The amount is used to hire sweepers and manage waste disposal [4].

The initiative has proved a big source of employment. EDC Bhyundar hires youngsters to provide information to visitors to the Valley of Flowers National Park. They are also trained to work as guides, accountants, cashiers and computer operators at both the EDCs.

This success story and Tamil Nadu experience generates the idea of dovetailing NREGA and solid waste disposal in rural areas of Uttarakhand. The basic idea of launching MG-NREGS was to create jobs within the village so that migration of people from rural to urban areas would stop. Another aspect of this scheme was to create sustainable assets for the village like drains, retaining walls, link roads etc. If some of the MGNREGA funds could be diverted towards solid waste management, the GPs could make villages clean and garbage free and make organic manure in the process. The heaps of garbage and wet waste are lying scattered in our villages, our chocked water bodies due to accumulation of polythene will vanish. At present there is no system to manage it. We are all mute spectators as we have no clear policy for solid waste management in rural areas. The assets and clean environment created in this process are going to be owned by the villagers. It is high time for the State to create necessary policy and strategy apparatus for SWM in rural areas and by tourists [5].

Making towns and villages zero waste, hundred percent resource recovery and promoting sustainable and zero waste tourism must find a place in the waste management vision and strategy of the state Government. Without this, the ULBs and villages will continue to dispose of waste in rivers, polluting environment, damaging ecosystem and violating law of land [6].

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my Professor for his support and encouragement.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they are no conflict of interest.

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