Niti Aayog – Centre For Policy Research Open Seminar Series  

“Conceptualising Zero-Waste in India under Swachh Bharat: Possibilities & Challenges”  

Monday, 29th June 2015, 15:00 – 16:30 hrs  Room 122 Niti Aayog, Sansad Marg, New Delhi 110001  

Date: 29.06.2015

Pathways to Zero Waste in India Ashish Chaturvedi Research Fellow Green Transformations Cluster and ESRC STEPS Centre

Global Material Consumption per Capita: range 1.5 to >50 t

19.1 8.5

4.6

2.8

1.1

1.1

Domestic Material Consumption (DMC) per capita, 2008

very low: < 5 t /cap

low: 5 - 9 t /cap

average: 9 - 13 t /cap

high: 13 - 20 t /cap

very high: 21 - 30 t /cap

extremly high: > 30 t /cap

1,9 3,1

4,0

4,1

11,0

12,5

14,3

14,4

14,5

14,1

21,8

42,3 51,3

28,1

16,5

14,3

7,0

7,1

10,2

10,3

7,9 16,6

5,7

19,0

10,4

Domestic Material Consumption

Source: http://www.unep.org

Where will resources come from in the future?

  Keep digging deeper and further on the planet

  Start rethinking about current consumption and production patterns

Transformation: From a Throw-Away to a Circular Economy

A circular economy is an alternative to a traditional linear economy (make, use, dispose) in which we keep resources in use for as long as possible, extract the maximum value from them whilst in use, then recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of each service life.

Source: http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/wrap-and-circular-economy

Circular Economy/ Zero Waste

  In open systems, it is impossible to close loops within a ward, city, state, country. –  Loops are generally closed across borders

  What do we talk about when we talk about Zero Waste? –  Waste minimization within a geography (village, city etc) –  Is that the most efficient solution?

  Zero waste might need to explicitly understand urban-peri-urban-rural linkages –  Biological nutrients entering and leaving a city

Circular Economy Gaining Traction

  Germany and Japan – manufacturing giants have extensive laws on the promotion of a circular economy.

  China announced a Law in 2008, established a high level Circular Economy Institute in 2013.

  In India – lots of initiatives, two recent agreements between the MoEFCC with the EU and Germany to set up working groups for Circular Economy.

What is happening in China?

What is happening in China?

Lessons from China

  Waste profile is similar

  Private Sector is similar; local implementation capacities are similarly constrained

  Scale is different

  Solutions would have to be adapted to our context

What is happening in the EU?

Lessons from the EU?

  Our waste is different – calorific value of residual waste is almost half of that in EU

  Our capacities are different – levels of finance and number of staff.

  Our private sector involved in waste management is different

  Our knowledge attitudes and practices towards waste are different

Off the shelf solutions from the EU not relevant for the Indian context

Another Dimension in India (and China)

  Waste Management provides jobs to 1-2% of the urban population in the informal sector

  Organized and efficient collection, segregation and material extraction

  Do not always adhere to environmental/ occupational health and safety standards

Pathway 1: Techno-Nirvana

Attitudes to waste Waste management process Key issues

Focus is on recovering the maximum value from the waste through large scale and capital intensive technology

Local government collaborates with formal private sector to recover value out of waste and introduces technology-based interventions for resource management. Contractual agreements, (through public private partnerships), are for whole waste value chain. Households segregate waste at source into multiple categories. Door to door collection organized by formal private sector through motorized pick-up vehicles. Large centralized material recovery facilities segregate recyclables and compost organic fractions of waste. Non-recyclable and inorganic fractions sent for energy recovery in large capital intensive incinerators

Informal re-use and repair industry suffers because extended producer responsibility is interpreted to extend producer property rights to entire product life cycle. Waste management infrastructure highly capital intensive, large-scale, mechanised, as well as carbon and energy intensive Cost passed on by local government to waste generators – households, commercial establishments, and non-commercial organisations. Additional increased costs for pollution control and monitoring the infrastructure Financial intermediaries support innovative entrepreneurs or large waste management companies to set up waste management infrastructure. Potential conflict between environmental groups and local government, inexperienced in the consequences of large infrastructure

Pathway 2: Green Transformations

Attitudes to waste Waste management process Consequences Key issues

Focus on inclusive resource management Local government values resource-saving potential of skills, networks and decentralized infrastructure as well as potential for job creation which results from this partnership with informal sector collective.

Waste segregated at source by generators (households, commerce, etc) with door to door collection managed by an informal sector collective. Collections monitored and material is transferred to decentralized material sorting facilities, also managed by the collective in partnership with NGOs and technology start-ups. Local government pays waste pickers, operates state-of-the-art landfills, and actively encourages repair and refurbishment markets through incentives like providing space for weekly markets selling second-hand and repaired goods. Financial and regulatory instruments make landfilling of recyclables and energy-rich materials prohibitively expensive for the waste disposer. Repair and re-use industry actively promoted and works in close partnership with product manufacturers

Manufacturers work with informal collectives setting up take back programmes for end of life products, making them a crucial link in their value chains Local government can enforce environmentally sound and occupational health and safety compliant processes. Process is facilitated by simplified regimes of taxation to informal sector enterprises who are members of the collective.

Incinerators not considered viable for developing country context Other Waste to Energy technologies – Biomethanation - possible. Minimal conflict between formal and informal sectors since the former benefits from the latter’s participation in the value chain. However, such participation needs active intervention from local government and other policy enablers to ensure materials do not leak back into unregulated markets.

Implications for Design and Implementation of Swachch Bharat

Local Government   Source segregation is critical

–  Not segregated, not collected

  Create decentralized material recovery facilities and compost facilities   Develop predictable/ consistent approaches - important for private sector (both

formal and informal) participation   Engage with a broader set of stakeholders for technology appraisal

  Explore co-incineration of (currently) non-recyclable waste in cement kilns as a

climate friendly option for waste management

Implications for Design and Implementation of Swachch Bharat

Central Government   Inter-ministerial coordination for Transformation to a Circular Economy

  A National Level Panel for developing a Road Map for the efficient management of

Secondary Raw Materials

  Infrastructure investments in Swachch Bharat directed towards low-carbon technologies

  Initiate dialogue with Manufacturers whose products lead to waste

–  Elimination of hazardous substances –  Elimination of non-recyclable packaging

  Create a platform for dialogue over waste incineration –  Unpack Waste to Energy – Waste to Energy ≠ Incineration –  Incineration is a technology of yesterday –  Discourages higher order processes in the WM hierarchy

Questions/ Comments

A.Chaturvedi@ids.ac.uk Ashish.Chaturvedi@outlook.com