CEE Jul-Sep-2012

- r I ;. r types of wastes generated shows that a majority of the same can be segregated even at source. Globally the estimated quantity of waste generated annually is around 20 billion tonnes (as per 2010 estimate). Out of this, 12 billion ton11es are industrial waste and 4 billion tonnes is Municipal Solid Waste or MSW. The rest is a mix of organic, inorganic, hazardous and e-waste. The highest producer of waste is the United States of America, with a staggering 8 billion tonnes per annum alone. Russia is close to 7 billion tonnes primarily due to industrial and mining activity. Compared to the above statistics, the European Union generates only about 2 billion tonnes of waste every year. As compared to developed economies, the developing economies of Asia alone generate around 4.4 billion tonnes of solid waste annually, out of which China and India release around 1.2 and 1 billion tonnes, respectively. Currently, out of the 1 billion tonnes of waste produced annually in India, about 350 million tonnes constitutes organic wastes arising from agricultural sources; about 390 million tonnes is inorganic waste from the industrial and mining sector. The rest are from different sources such as municipal, medical, electrical and electronic waste. It is a common belief that wastes are to be either dumped or used as landfills. However, there are enough instances from small initiatives to show that these can also be turned into useful products. There are quite a number of initiatives through the CSR activities of premier companies or by research institutions in creating useful products. However, there are very few organizations carrying out applied technological research on utilizing the same in a profitable manner, i.e., to create profitable and sustainable businesses out of the same, transforming the waste to wealth. Courtesy: Developing Alternatives, May 2012, P2. THE GROWING WOES OF INDIA'S WASTE PICKERS The waste pickers of India are the most neglected lot who suffer silently beneath the huge dumps of waste. Stella Paul narrates their tale of trials and tribulations. Despite the chilly winter air, Chinnamma's day begins at 5 in the morning. Wrapping a length of her sari over her head, the 48-year-old makes her way to Jawaharnagar municipal dump on the outskirts of Hyderabad. The smell from the mountains of rotting refuse is overpowering but Chinnamma does not care. A delay could mean a day of no earnings as the gates are locked after 7 am. An hour later, she has filled a plastic bag with her precious collection: empty bottles, empty cans, rags, torn shoes, scraps of plastic and pieces of metal. Sorted neatly in separate bundles, she will later sell this collection to a scrap dealer for around Rs. 5 a kilo. On a lucky day, she will make about Rs 150 - a lot of money for her. Chinnamma is an unofficial or "free-roaming" waste-picker, one of an estimated 8,000 men and women in Hyderabad who scrape a livelihood by sifting through garbage, looking for items to recycle and sell on. Sorting through the rubbish in the semi– darkness is fraught with risk. Infection and illness aside, the worst fear is getting buried under a sudden avalanche of refuse. In the past year alone, six waste pickers- three of them women - have been buried in this way in this dumping ground. Of those six, the body of only one was recovered - the rest are still untraced. After this incident the city authorities started to lock the gates of the dumping site to stop waste pickers from getting inside. A further 7,000 recognized waste pickers work for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). They collect rubbish from around 200 homes and get paid Rs. 30 each month by each of the families, bringing in a total of Rs. 6,000 a month. Between them they help to collect, sift and process the city's waste an estimated 3,800 metric tonnes of waste everyday, the equivalent of 322 double decker buses - providing and informal and environment-friendly recycling service. It would be hard to call it a "living" but waste-picking allows 32