URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION AND POLICY: REFLECTIONS ON WASTE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN TRISSUR MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, KERALA Prathibha G Centre

for Studies in Science Policy Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi. Introduction: Increase in population and economic activity are two major sources of pollution in urban areas. Generation of large amount of solid waste is one of the negative impacts of increased population and economic activity. Ever since human development there were solid wastes. But the degradable nature of wastes produced and available land helped in natural degradation. Industrialization changed this natural fabric of waste degradation by changing the characteristics of the waste. Increased production on a large scale within a short time and change towards a disposable culture escalated the waste crisis across the world recently. Accumulated solid wastes in the streets become the responsibility of municipal administration and therefore they are called municipal solid wastes. Municipal solid wastes are categorized into garbage, rubbish or trash according to their characteristics by scholars. Some scholars use these terms interchangeably. Few scholars argue that solid wastes can shed light into the political economic and social conditions of the world we live in. Urban Local Bodies engage in collection, treatment and disposal of wastes in the cities. Most often a scarecely populated area in the outskirts of city is selected for the disposal of wastes. Today unscientific practices of waste management are under scrutiny because of serious health and environmental issues it pose. Recognizing the seriousness of the issue many international and national policies are formulated for sustainable waste management. India is one among such nations to have a waste management regulation and policy. In spite of the policy initiatives, waste management practices in many cities face with serious setbacks. Financial constraints of municipal bodies and attitude of people are often mentioned as reason for the failure.

It is argued that solid waste management is a networked activity involving many players. State, civil society and market forms the major players in this network. While state envisage waste management strategies civil society facilitates state action through citizen participation. The influence of market on the waste management system is kept alive only to the extent of waste management industry in the waste management discourse. The liberal market and its capital accumulation and power, which have the capacity to change the consumption behavior of the people, are seldom addressed. For successful formulation of any regulation and planning the statistical information is significant along with proper definition, categorization and documentation. Lack of information can negatively influence both policy formulation and implementation. This paper argues that lack of information can lead to ambiguities in policy implementation at the local level. Production and reproduction of such ambiguities can serve the market interests. Therefore the paper intends to look at the ambiguities in waste management practice in relation to policies, available data and its implementation. Environmental Protection and Waste Management in India: In the initial years of independence, India was skeptical towards the idea of environmental protection precisely because of the fear that it might clash the economic and development interests of the nation. Since 1970s there was a marked change in the policy incorporating environmental protection and economic development as mutually serving. In compliance with the Stockholm Declaration and to ensure greater co-ordination of environmental policies, National Committee on Environmental Planning and Coordination was set up in 1972. In 1976, forty second constitutional amendment act incorporated environmental protection to the constitution. In 1980, a committee was constituted to evaluate the administrative and legislative approach to environmental policies. Department of Environment was set up according to its recommendations. Planning commission was involved in the implementation of environmental protection policies through Five Year Plans. Initially much emphasis was given to water and sanitation schemes. Intervention of judiciary as a result of many PILs secured the implementation of environmental protection policies.

Solid waste management was not a well-known environmental protection policy until 1992. Plague outbreak in Surat the same year was an eye opener towards the health and environmental issues created by Urban Solid Wastes. Planning Commission constituted a High Power Committee under the chairmanship of J S Bajaj, member of Planning Commission to look into the matter. The focuses of the committee were: Impact of waste management on community health Identification of potential hazards Assess quantum and characteristics of waste Review existing technologies Consider any other relevant issues.

After identifying major drawbacks, the committee recommended following methods for increasing the efficiency of waste management. Source segregation, house to house collection of waste Use of appropriate low cost technology Create public awareness Design regulatory mechanism Create reliable data on generation and management of solid waste on a national level Documentation of health consequences, and Enactment of a national policy and action plan for waste management.

The Solid Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000 accomplished many of these recommendations with its nine rules and four schedules. It defines municipal solid waste as commercial and residential wastes generated in municipal or notified areas in solid or semisolid forms excluding industrial but including the treated biomedical wastes. The rule applies to all

municipal bodies entrusted with waste management to emphasize on integrated waste management. The compliance criterion for parameters like collection, segregation, storage, transportation, processing and disposal illustrates the emphasis on reduction of waste reaching to disposal site. Schedule III of the rule extensively deal with landfill which is one of the major methods of waste disposal in India. The problem of this schedule in relation to the present waste management system is that, while schedule provides extensive directions on how a landfill(sanitary landfill) should be, local bodies struggle to construct a sanitary landfill and most often retort to trenching grounds. Upgradation of these trenching grounds to landfill is problematic due to many factors, prominent one being the lost carrying capacity of trenching grounds. Indian Statistical Organization and National Solid Waste Association of India (NSWAI) attempted to document some information regarding the waste management on a national level. A close examination of statistical data on solid waste provided by ISO reveal the emphasis on waste generation and categorization data and not much on the other processes of waste management. Most of the information given is on the amount of waste generated and its characteristics in different class cities. While information on waste generated are important, neglecting information on other practices from collection to final disposal can have significant impacts. One impact can be importance for waste collection and removal in policy as compared to other processes of waste management. This leads to wastes getting transferred from one portion of the city to other leading a large section of people to carry the burden of wastes generated elsewhere. NSWAI attempted to document some studies related to health and environmental consequences. But the irony is that studies on public health in the Indian context are a bare minimum. This exposes the lack of research on important issues concerning public health, one of the neglected zones under liberal state policy. The available data on solid waste management expose the relation of data gap to ambiguous nature of the waste management. This ambiguity is a blessing in disguise for the liberal market in expanding their market interests. For example the changing consumption behavior of the people creates more wastes while policy makers create public awareness to treat the waste in a particular way (for example: to source segregate). This in no way reduces the waste burden to the municipal bodies but tend to increase the burden in due

course of time. In such a situation it can be argued that state through the regulations and policies facilitates the market strategy of production and reproduction of wastes. The lack of adequate data on the processes also leads to failed policies.

Solid Waste Management in Trissur Municipal Corporation: Trissur is a district and a town in the southern most state of Kerala in India. The town is historically important and is also called the Cultural Capital of Kerala. It was constituted as a municipality in 1942 and upgraded to a municipal corporation in 2000. The corporation now has an area of 101.42 sq.km with an average population density of 2868 persons per sq.km. The total waste generated in the town is around 155 tonnes per day according to official sources. Waste generated in Trissur No MSW sources 1 2 Domestic Commercial Establishments 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Community Halls Hotes and Restaurants Markets Institutions Street Sweepings Hospitals Slaughter House 2.12 14.57 11.01 5.51 13.87 3.60 2.25 75.75 13.02 generation Trissur MC(T/D)

Construction/Demolition 13.60 Total Waste Generation 154.70 per day

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Per capita Generation 476 per grams per day

Source: Dr. Ajay Kumar Verma, Status of Municipal Solid waste Generation in Kerala and their Characteristics, suchitwa mission,2006) Waste generated in town is the responsibility of Urban Local Body. In Trissur door to door collection of waste is encouraged in residential areas through Kudumbasree1 women. Collected wastes form the households and the streets are carried by the kudumbasree women and contingent labourer to the trenching ground in the outskirts of the town called Lalur. The history of dumping wastes in Lalur dates back to Cochin Kings(Shakthan Thampuran) rule, when he ordered cleaning of the royal routes to dispose in Lalur. Large pits were dug and wastes are unloaded in the pits. After few days when it turns out to be compost they are removed and used for the pineapple cultivation. This process is continued by municipality after independence even though the area doesnt come under municipalitys jurisdiction. It turned out to be mere dumping process as the change in waste characteristics like influx of disposable wastes leaves with no option of reuse of the waste. People rise in protests against this practice. When agitation became strong municipality integrated the panchayat to its jurisdiction and continued the dumping of waste. Open dumping of waste threatened the sanitary belt of the area. The waste dumping practice continued without any ethics to the extent of dumping human body parts along with the biomedical wastes. Peoples agitation continued and took a violent turn by stopping and destroying the vehicles carrying waste. The judiciary intervened to order the construction of a compost plant which was carried out by the ULB. Water examinations conducted revealed the percolating toxicity in the region. Problems escalated when monsoon hit the region in 2009. The compound wall of the trenching ground broke flooding the area with wastes and leachates2. The entire residents nearby trenching ground had to be rehabilitated until the water was pumped away.
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Kudumbasree (meaning prosperity to family) mission is an integrated programme initiated by the government of Kerala for the empowerment of women with the help of three prong strategy- microcredit, entrepreneurship and empowerment. Women are encouraged to take up various developmental activities and solid waste management is one of the activities supported in the urban areas.

At this point Kerala state government intervened to pass an engineered landfill for the corporation in the same area under Kerala State Urban Development Project. After a year the project was stopped for reasons unclear for both people and the state. One sited reason is that the place is geologically not suitable for construction of a sanitary landfill. The policy document which invite for the upgradation of the trenching ground to sanitary landfill need to learn from this experience. Any project without proper research can only end up in loss of public finance. Later a project called LAMP (Lalur Malineekarana Padhathi)was envisaged by an agricultural university scientist which was approved by the state and municipal body. Project emphasized on the source segregation and decentralized treatment of waste. One of the decentralized plant was to be built near the fish and meat market, which led to protests form merchants. Today the implementation of LAMP is also on a halt. Principal point here is that while state has to keep the interests of the liberal market often public health and environment are given least importance. Diversion of attention from the real problem to issues like peoples lack of awareness in treating the waste in a particular way and other factors actually help the market to pursue its long term goal. The state becomes a facilitator to market interests by not dealing with the real issues behind environment and public health issues. These are manifested through the lack of proper research on the issues and available data along with the laxity in policy implementation. Conclusion: Waste management can throw light into various political and economic strategies. Though it is a networked activity certain actors and activities like market are hidden to protect their interests. Formulating regulations and policies in line with these interests actually make the state a facilitator to support these interests. This paper does not argue that that collection and documentation of proper data can drive away the market interests. But state can better formulate a policy for waste management. Today available data on the issue only escalate the ambiguities and not reduce the severity of the problem. Ambiguities can be reduced to a great extent if it is mandatory for every municipal body to document data on its waste management system and the integration of these data to the state and the national level. Then the success and failure of waste
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Toxic discharge from the dumped waste that contaminate the waterbody and land area around the dumping yard.

management systems at various places can be examined and new ideas can be incorporated in the national policy. Also research on the public health due to solid waste needs to be given importance. A greater understanding of the political, social and economic issues underlying waste management processes needs equal importance as that of the technical research on waste management. For this purpose the available data needs to be expanded to incorporate every process in the waste management system from collection of waste to final disposal of waste apart from just the waste generation and categorization. Reference: Brien, Martin O. A Crisis of Waste? Understanding the Rubbish Society, ( London: Routledge, 2007) Davies, J Clarence, The Politics of Pollution,(Pegasus:New York:1970). Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966). Fagan, Honor G, Waste management and its contestation in the Republic of Ireland, capitalism, Nature and Socialism, 15:1:2004, pp83-102. Gandy, Matthew. Recycling and the Politics of the Urban Waste (London: Earthscan, 1994) Hawkins, Gay and Muecke, Stephen(eds.). Culture and Waste: The Creation and Destruction of Value (UK: Rowmen and Littlefield Publishers,2003) Harvey, David, The Urbanization of Capital: Studies in the History and Theory of Capitalist Urbanization ( John Hopkins University Press: Canada,1985). Pellow, David Naguib. Garbage Wars: The struggle for environmental Justice in Chicago (USA: MIT press, 2004) Scanlan, John. On garbage ( London: Reaktion books,2005). National Solid waste Association of India, http://www.nswai.com/ Indian Statistical Organization, www.indiastat.com.