Our addiction to PLASTICS

by Dharmesh Shah

as Published in The Ritz, Chennai

It is hard to imagine life without plastics. It is fascinating how a material once unknown to man has over a century become the most ubiquitous. Plastics are now known to exist in all corners of the world. In the ocean discarded plastics have found their way into the ocean and formed an island known as the Great Garbage Patch in the Pacific Ocean. The patch is the size of Texas and is known to contain nearly 3.5 million tons of plastics trash. Beaches around the world are littered with plastic debris even the uninhabited ones discovered recently by explorers. Once in the ocean it can kill or injure animals though entanglement or ingestion.

All technologies currently available to dispose plastics are known to cause irreparable long term damage to the environment. Incineration causes toxic emissions like dioxins and furans which cause cancer and hormonal imbalance among children. Burying also known as landfilling prolongs the impacts and shifts the burden on future generations.

Yet this is not enough to wean us off our addiction. Plastics have made life extremely convenient and it is just asking for too much to give them up. But the impacts are clear – from depleting crude resources to the toxins in the environment to our unmanageable garbage heaps.

There are several facts and myths that influence the way we use and dispose plastics. To address our plastic woes we need to understand plastics, its life and certain misconceptions around it.

What are Plastics?

Plastics are made from crude oil with the help of certain chemical that give them the solid form. There are two basic types of plastic: thermosetting and thermoplastics. Thermosetting plastics are set to a permanent shape and cannot be softened. These plastics are used primarily for multiple use items, such as dishes and furniture. Thermoplastics are soft when exposed to heat and pressure and harden when cooled. Thermoplastics are the most common type of plastic and are used to make a variety of products like water bottles, tubs, buckets etc.

Where does it go?

Plastics do not degrade readily because their content is not digestible by microorganisms. If they are not picked up for disposal in landfills then they travel through air and water and accumulate in low areas and water bodies. Even in landfills where they are rightfully destined to go, plastics remain unchanged for hundreds of years causing environmental hazards for the future generations.

I recycle!

Plastics are only down-cyclable, which means that they can only be processed into things of lesser quality, degrading with each cycle to be eventually dumped into the environment when of no further use. Unfortunately, recycling has been used as a vehicle by the industry to defeat the beating virgin plastic industry has taken as a result of the environmental impacts of excessive plastic use. This does not mean that we stop recycling as it still supports a huge informal work force and it does help the environment in some way. But recycling is not enough, it can never be enough. Even with a fairly robust recycling system in place the US recycles only 5% of its total plastic waste.

The plastic menace is a product of our linear market system that follows the pattern of extraction, manufacture, use and disposal with no emphasis on putting things back into the system or efforts to review lifestyles.

The way out of our plastic woes are several but it calls for a little unlearning of the ways in which we have learned to live with plastics.

1. Reduce the use - Source reduction Retailers and consumers can select products that use little or no packaging. Select packaging materials that are recycled into new packaging - such as glass and paper. If people refuse plastic as a packaging material, the industry will decrease production for that purpose, and the associated problems such as energy use, pollution, and adverse health effects will diminish. 2. Reuse containers - Since refillable plastic containers can be reused about 25 times, container reuse can lead to a substantial reduction in the demand for disposable plastic, and reduced use of materials and energy, with the consequent reduced environmental impacts. Container designers will take into account the fate of the container beyond the point of sale and consider the service the container provides. "Design for service" differs sharply from "design for disposal". 3. Require producers to take back resins - Get plastic manufacturers directly involved with plastic disposal and closing the material loop, which can stimulate them to consider the product’s life cycle from cradle to grave. Make reprocessing easier by limiting the number of container types and shapes, using only one type of resin in each container, making collapsible containers, eliminating pigments, using water-dispersible adhesives for labels, and phasing out associated metals such as aluminum seals. Container and resin makers can help develop the reprocessing infrastructure by taking back plastic from consumers. 4. Legislatively require recycled content - Requiring that all containers be composed of a percentage of post-consumer material reduces the amount of virgin material consumed. 5. Standardize labeling and inform the public - The chasing arrows symbol on plastics is an example of an ambiguous and misleading label. Significantly different standardized labels for "recycled," "recyclable," and "made of plastic type X" must be developed. Source: International Plastics Task Force

WASTED AWAY!!

by Dharmesh Shah (Published in Times Property, Chennai June 4 2011)

Climate Change, rainforest destruction, oil spills, financial crisis, inflation – these are some issues that bother us the most about the state of our civilization and also concern us about our collective fate on the planet. But these issues evade our interventions because they are distant and often out of our control. However, there are things each one of us can do everyday that can lead to larger changes and impact things that seem way out of our league.

One such thing is waste; yes waste. Waste connects all aspects of modern life; and its collective mismanagement is now leading to a crisis on several fronts. Nature makes no waste; it is solely a product of our civilization, a result of resource mismanagement that is connected to all that is now wrong with the planet. Our society currently runs within a linear framework where resources are extracted from the earth, processed in factories and disposed into landfills or incinerated. This clearly causes a huge burden on natural resources and environment but also on the economy.

According to the World Bank, the urban areas of Asia now spend about US$25 billion on solid waste management per year; this figure will increase to at least US$50 billion in 2025. Today’s daily waste generation rate is about 760,000 tonnes. By 2025, this rate will be increased to about 1.8 million tonnes per day.

That is indeed a mammoth problem. How can I change anything, the skeptic in you might ask? Waste is a social issue demanding social fixes but our policy makers are desperately seeking technological fixes. For instance, the Chennai Corporation has proposed two “Refuse Derived Fuel” (RDF) facilities at the city’s two largest waste landfills at Kodungaiyur and Perungudi. These facilities propose to covert the waste into bricks that can be used as co-fuel (along with coal) at cement kilns/industrial boilers or like in Delhi to incinerate and covert the “Waste to Energy” (WTE).

Why is this bad? It takes care of our waste and resolves our energy security issues. Proposals like these not only undermine the need for recycling and our transition towards a low waste future but also further compounds the social and environmental challenges currently posed by the waste sector.

The gravest concern about incineration is its environmental fallouts. Waste incinerators are a major source of toxic emissions that include volatile organic gases and heavy metals. They are also among the top 5 sources of dioxin emissions worldwide. According to WHO Dioxins are environmental pollutants that have the dubious distinction of belonging to the “dirty dozen” - a group of dangerous chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Dioxins are of concern because of their highly toxic potential known to cause cancers even in low doses among exposed populations.

Both RDF and WTE are technologies that burn waste that can otherwise be recycled and brought back into use. When discarded materials are recycled, they provide industry with an alternative source of raw materials from which to make new products. This results in less demand for virgin materials whose extraction, transport and processing are a major source of Greenhouse Gas emissions. While WTE incinerators capture some of the energy embodied in materials that they burn, recycling the same materials conserves three to five times as much energy.

Further, in countries like India, these projects compete for the same resources that support waste pickers. Waste picking is the choice of livelihood for over 15 million urban poor worldwide – 1% of the population in the developing world. By commissioning RDF and WTE projects the government literally snatches these livelihoods and serves them on a platter to companies. This most often is done without any roadmap for rehabilitation, hence further depriving the poorest of the poor.

Clearly, our waste woes need psychological analysis not technology, a compete overhaul of the way we think about waste. Each one of us needs to partake in the process starting with segregation of the waste at home. Then locate the local waste picker/Kabariwala and hand your waste to him directly. Finally, if possible, start your own compost.

And if you still need perspective about the magnitude of the problem take a tour to Kodungaiyur (north Chennai) or Perungudi (south Chennai).

The Plastic Waste Rules 2011 – A baby step instead of a giant leap.

- Dharmesh Shah

The plastic consumption in India, as per estimate in 2008 by CPCB was 8 million tons/annum, out of which about 5.7 million tons of plastics are converted into waste annually i.e. 15,722 tons of plastic waste, is generated per day. Of this, approximately 6289 tons per day (TPD) i.e. 40% of plastics are neither collected, nor recycled and find their way into drains, open lands, rivers, railway tracks and coasts[1].

Recognizing the magnitude of the problem, in February 2011 the Ministry of Environment and Forests notified the Plastic Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2011. These rules propose to address the growing environmental crisis caused by the mismanagement of plastic wastes within the country. Despite some progressive provisions like integration of waste pickers in the collection systems and a ban on manufacture/use of bags below 40 microns; the rules seem like baby steps at a juncture when a leap frog approach is required.

Some of the salient features of the rules are:

• Sachets using plastic material shall not be used for storing, packaging or selling of tobacco and gutkha.
• Municipal authorities should engage agencies or groups working in waste management including waste pickers into the system.
• Use of recycled plastics or compostable plastics for storing, carrying or packing foodstuffs is prohibited.
• Plastic carry bags of less than 40 microns in thickness are banned.
• No carry bags shall be made available free of cost to consumers. The municipal authority may by notification determine the minimum price for plastic carry bags.
• The municipal authority can ask the manufacturers to establish plastic waste collection centres, either collectively or individually, in line with the principle of ‘Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR)’.
• Marking or labeling provisions that mandate manufacturers to print the name, registration number and thickness.

EPR as a fig leaf!

Upon comparison with the recommendations of the Expert Committee constituted to examine the draft rules[2]; it is clear that the notified rules have suffered primarily due to the intervention of the plastic and packaging industry that has forced the dilution or removal of certain key recommendations of the expert committee. The rules are being hailed principally for its provision on EPR. In its report “to Evolve Road Map on Waste Management in India (March 2010)”, the expert committee recommended the following responsibilities for Manufacturers and Processors:

• Paying for both recyclable & non-recyclable plastics and their ultimate waste management options
• Providing incentives for adopting non-burn and novel technologies for non-recyclables.
• Undertaking mandatory responsibility of producers for R&D activities on plastic waste mitigation.

In a rather weak interpretation of the term EPR, the rules ultimately restrict the role of the manufactures to providing the required finance to establish collection centers in lines with the “principles of EPR”. This effectively means that the manufacturers can now get away with making a small contribution and not be inconvenienced with the responsibility of managing the waste it creates. Thus the onus of management eventually falls upon the urban local bodies that have already displayed adequate inefficiency in waste management.

No Penalties

Though the guidelines of use and disposal of plastics are clearly laid out, there are no penalties within the rules for violations, rendering the whole legislation toothless against violators. However, violations can be prosecuted in a convoluted manner through the Environment Protection Act, under which these rules are notified. An avenue to strengthen the rules is at the state level where the central rules will be used as guidelines to sketch out stronger state rules. Public interest groups and environmental organizations can use the opportunity to work with respective state governments in strengthening the local Plastic Waste rules.

Exporting Harm

The restrictions on manufacture and use of plastic sachets and bags less than 40 microns prescribed under Section 5 of the rules are not applicable to exporters. Included after the suggestion of the Commerce Ministry, this provision further weakens the rules as it does not consider the ground realities. With the dismal monitoring mechanism in place the leakage of the export designated carry bags into the domestic markets cannot be contained. Secondly, India needs to make ethical considerations on exporting such products to other countries.

End of the Pipeline clauses

Conversely, the rules also contains one of the most regressive provisions - Section 6(h) of the rules state “municipal authorities shall encourage the use of plastic waste by adopting suitable technology such as in road construction, co-incineration etc.” This is an extremely short sighted provision that fails to recognize the environmental damage caused by plastic incineration. The market uses a wide array of materials including toxic ones like Vinyl and in the absence of any collection and segregation system for different kinds of plastics excluding them before co-incineration is impossible.

Using plastics for laying roads is yet another toxic and end of the pipeline solution resorted to in a desperate attempt to dispose plastics. Because the plastics only melt in the process (and are not destroyed); use of plastics in road laying is similar to creating open landfills that will eventually disintegrate and be much harder to contain. Secondly, it is a common sight to see unmasked and bare handed migrant workers engaged in road laying across India, if plastics are included in the process it would only further expose these workers to extremely toxic emissions.

Decentralized monitoring

A positive feature of the rules is that there is an earnest attempt to decentralize the monitoring, enforcement and implementation. To monitor its implementation, a State Level Advisory Body consisting of experts, NGO, academics and government has to be formed under the aegis of the Department of Urban Development. The state Pollution control Boards/Committees are responsible for reporting on the implementation of the rules to the Central Pollution Control Board which in turn has to present a consolidated annual report to the government. The involvement of multiple agencies might ensure better efficiency and greater accountability in the functioning.

Informal sector

The most positive aspect of the rules is the inclusion of waste pickers in to the system. The Plastic Waste rules are the first to legally recognize waste pickers and will go a long way in ensuring that the rights of the informal workers within the sector are secured.

At a stage where we are discovering islands of plastic in the ocean and when cities are inundated because of plastic clogged drains – we need to think unreasonably. The Plastic Waste Rules 2011 are disappointing for curbing the “plastic menace” realistically.

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[1] Report of the Committee to Evolve Road Map on Management of Wastes in India – MoEF, March 2010 - http://moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/Roadmap-Mgmt-Waste.pdf

[2] Report of the Expert Committee to examine the comments and suggestions including economic instruments in the draft Plastics (Manufacture, Usage and Waste Management) Rules, 2009 http://moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/draft-plastic-rules-2009.pdf

Phnom Penh's Wastepickers and Solid Waste Management

Heng Yon Kora and CSARO

AIW Newsletter May 2011

Cambodia: Phnom Penh city is the capital of the Cambodian Kingdom and has a population of around 3 million. The city generates 1,500 Tonnes of waste on an average per day out of which 70% is wet waste and 30% is dry. Like in Indian cities, Phnom Penh's informal wastepickers collect waste from households, commercial establishments, streets, landfills, markets, containers and sell recyclables to scrap depots.Citizens separate waste into wet and dry at home, and pay CINTRI - a private company engaged for primary collection of waste, a monthly user fee ranging from 1US$-5US$ for the service. The Phnom Penh Waste Management Authority (PPWMA) transports the waste from the container to the landfill in Dangkor, also known as 'Stung Mean Chey' or 'Smokey Mountain'.Rapid population growth and inadequate, dilapidated infrastructure and services are making solid waste management in Phnom Penh a growing problem. Generation of waste in volumes greater than ever before, inefficiencies in the waste management system due to under-financing and poor management, result in waste often being thrown on roadsides, vacant land and into drainage canals within the city leading to health and environmental problems for the city. Dumping at Stung Meanchey began over 15 years ago and the landfill has reached the end of its operable life. New locations are being sought for another landfill which is expected to take a few years.2,000 registered wastepickers, including 600 child wastepickers, work at the landfill, sifting through the waste that arrives each day. Wastepickers have to pay 1.50 US$ to 2.00 US$ per day to the Dumping Manager of the Phnom Penh Municipality to gain access to waste. Working conditions at the landfill are dangerous and fires are a frequent phenomenon. Contamination of a nearby pond due to leachate seeping from the dumping ground and high air pollution are other hazards.A study of the socio-economic, working and living conditions of waste pickers in Phnom Penh revealed that 51% wastepickers are below 18 years of age, and 35% are below 15 years of age. Majority of the wastepickers are male; over a third of wastepickers households are female-headed households and the community comes from impoverished backgrounds, consisting of mostly landless migrants from rural areas.Literacy levels are just below the estimated national average of 65%, but much lower than the estimated urban average literacy of 78%. Many children claim to attend school but 68% work seven or more hours a day.Most wastepickers have little or no protection against injury and infections occurring while working. Over 80% of wastepickers interviewed for the study had suffered from some illness or injury in the previous month and 61% said they treated themselves when ill, only 1% attempted to see a doctor.The poverty line for Phnom Penh was set at approximately $111 per month per family by a World Bank Study. The wastepickers study findings indicate that 74% wastepicker families survive on less than $50 per month, which means they are well below the poverty line.Most wastepickers live in houses made of palm leaves or wood, without access to basic sanitation and half of them live on rent, without electricity. 64% households are compelled to buy water from vendors as only 2.6% have access to piped water.Most recyclables collected in Phnom Penh are processed by depots to reduce their weight and then shipped abroad for recycling. Except for beer and sauce bottles and certain types of plastic, other recyclables are exported to Thailand, Vietnam, and China.Community Sanitation And Recycling Organisation (CSARO) through many years of working with Phnom Penh's wastepicker's has listed certain basic needs that wastepickers believe must be addressed, such as protection of their human rights, food security, health facilities, shelter for wastepickers, education scholarships for their children, access to loans and protecting their livelihoods from external threats and an end to discrimination.

CSARO wastecollectors in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Zero Waste Electoral Ward Initiative – Katraj Gaon

by Anjor Bhaskar

Source: Alliance of Indian Waste Pickers Newsletter - May 2011

Pune: In a bid to provide a comprehensive solution to the waste problem, several agencies have joined hands to create a model Zero Waste Electoral Ward in Pune city. The idea behind it is to create a working model to show how every discarded item can be recycled or disposed in the best possible manner.

The aim of the project is to tackle the problems of inequity and poverty in the city by engaging wastepickers and ensuring dignity of labour and fair wages. It envisions a zero waste model, different from the centralized, capital intensive models proposed by numerous private entities working in waste management.

The impetus for the project came through the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) ban on plastic bags which the plastic industry argued against, saying that plastic bags constituted a very small proportion of the city's waste. They claimed that plastic was perfectly recyclable, and that the problem of plastic waste was due to inefficient waste management rather than due to plastic itself.

Janwani - an NGO got together agencies such as Cummins India, SWaCH, MITCON, Kirloskar and Maharashtra Plastic Manufacturers Association (MPMA) to work towards a common goal and support the project. Cummins India is sponsoring the project as well as providing volunteers for generating awareness. Mr. Lalit Rathi, MPMA is helping establish systems for collecting and processing dry waste, particularly plastics. SWaCH has employed wastepickers to collect segregated waste from households and ensuring it reaches the secondary collection system while PMC is providing support in various ways.

An electoral ward is the smallest administrative unit in Pune and Katraj Gaon is among the largest wards in terms of area and population with nearly 12,000 establishments and a blend of high and low income - residential and commercial units, consisting of high income apartment complexes, individual bungalows, housing societies, industries, factories, shops, slums as well as a rural area, which served well for a pilot of a model ward as, if a sustainable zero waste system is successfully put to test in such an area, its replicability would be high.

A supportive Ward office, two existing biogas plants, a composting unit and adequate space for sorting sheds, a wet waste pelletization plant were additional bonuses of doing the pilot in Katraj.

Today 7,500 establishments in the ward give 9 tons of waste daily to wastepickers. Nearly 3 tons of wet waste segregated by wastepickers is sent to biogas plants. The burning and dumping of waste on open plots and public spaces has also reduced considerably. Dry waste collection has also gone up as a result of the efforts and a lot more dry waste is now being sold for recycling. A substantial amount of waste consisting of dry non-saleable and low value waste and mixed waste however, still has to be sent to the landfill.

Two months on, the project has shown progress but faces challenges such as an insufficient number of wastepickers willing to engage in DTDC work on the city's fringes, ensuring 100% coverage and segregation by citizens, coordinating between the primary and secondary collection systems, political issues. Overcoming these hurdles will be fundamental in establishing a sustainable, decentralized wastepicker friendly system for replication pan India.

Use and Throw! Is there no way out of the mess?

Dharmesh Shah

Last week after the yearly house cleaning we ended up with two cartons full of unwanted stuff and like most people we had no option but chucking it into the green curb-side bins. The garbage truck arrived at the same time and unloaded the entire bin into the compressor along with all my stuff. Now I knew that a lot of it, though absolutely useless to me, was still worth saving or putting to better use. I slipped into a momentary nostalgia and summoned up the call of the Kabariwala on a tricycle who would come home to collect discards. I still do see the occasional Kabariwala but I had also found myself easily adapted to the convenient use and throw lifestyle. However, I decided to follow the truck out of curiosity to see where all my stuff was going to end up.

After a long ride on my motor bike, past the incongruous IT corridor, I reached, Perungudi in the Pallikaranai marshlands of South Chennai. I remembered reading about the Pallikaranai marshlands on Wikipedia. Once spread over 5000 hectares, it is one of South India’s last remaining freshwater wet land networks ecologically assigned the task of storing and replenishing the ground water for the city of Chennai. The marshland is also rich in biodiversity and supports a variety of flora and fauna. Nearly, 61 species of plants, 106 species of birds, 50 species of fish and 21 species of reptiles are found here. Many of them are endemic (exclusively found) to Pallikaranai marshes.

The final resting place for my waste was a 250 acre plot within the marshlands where most of what I threw would remain buried for several thousand years. The city of Chennai generates nearly 3500 metric tonnes of waste per day, which eats into a bit of the marshland every day. It was a real mess and what really perplexed me was that as a nation we were building the biggest dams and laying the longest highways but failing miserably when it came to simple task of “potty training”. What could be more ironical for a water starved city like Chennai where we abuse our local water banks and then spend millions on piping water from far flung villages?

Garbage dumps like Perungudi forms a part of all urban landscapes across India, often remaining strategically ousted from the municipal limits of a city. On the outskirts of a city the waste becomes the black man’s burden, to be borne by communities marginalized from economics or in the case of India those ousted from religion. The areas surrounding Perungudi are perpetually surrounded by a veil of toxic* smoke belching out of the smoldering garbage and the smell of putrefying food hugs the air 24x7. Yet, I could see thousands of people living around Pallikaranai and several hundreds rummaging through the garbage piles eking a living out of what I threw out. On a social level, the implications of such waste-racism are far fetched.

I soon began reading about the politics of waste and made astonishing connections between everything that is wrong with the environment. Our lifestyles, obviously, takes the biggest blame because we are trying to run a non-recyclable system on a planet with limited resources. Plastics are a classic example, where fossil oil is converted into a something that the earth cannot recycle or consume, hence breaking the very cycle of life on which everything depends. Plastic waste is posing to be the biggest man made environmental challenge. On land they wreak havoc by chocking water bodies and causing floods and in the ocean they cause unimaginable destruction. In 1988 scientists discovered what they termed as the ‘Pacific Trash Vortex’ or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, in the North Pacific Ocean. The Patch, characterized by exceptionally high concentrations of plastics, chemical sludge, and other debris trapped by ocean currents, is the as big as the continental United States. Samples of marine life from the patch show the presence of plastics at the microscopic level, ie; inside the bodies of zooplanktons.

It is certainly an overwhelming problem, especially for people who are concerned about the future of the planet and looking for ways to make a difference. Fortunately, in the context of waste, it is fairly simple to achieve sustenance with 3 simple thumb rules –

Phase out plastics – Always be conscious of what you buy and refuse disposable plastics in any form. Once the demand for plastic declines producers will be forced to explore other packaging.

Segregate at Source – Always separate your wet (kitchen) waste from your dry waste. This makes the plastics, papers and metals in the waste re-usable/recyclable hence reducing the burden on extractive processes like mining and drilling.

Compost – Composting is easy and fun. This will offset your carbon footprint by several hundred tons. There are fabulous online guides like www.dailydump.org which give a spoon-fed introduction to composting.

Adopting these methods require very little re-thinking but will have a far reaching effect in saving the planet not just for ourselves but for our children too.

Published in Ritz Magazine, Chennai

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* An air sample at Perungudi revealed the presence of nearly 27 toxic chemicals including 3 that cause cancer among humans.