Here are a selection of trash dump issue stories for India published recently in Indian media itself.
Our trash denier Indian above has no idea what a dump they are actually living in. Read on.
They all involve India's pathetic sewage and toxic/medical waste problem exclusively, despite having far lower population density compared to places like Bangladesh.
These stories about street $hittery is from Indian media itself,
Inaugural issue of Down To Earth Hindi exposes poor progress of Swachh Bharat Mission
Besides pointing out the associated risks of poor sanitation, the analysis also shows the enormous challenge before the NDA government
The analysis by Down To Earth Hindi reminds us that building toilets is only a small part of the movement towards access to sanitation for all. Credit: Henrik B / Flicker
Only 7,327 toilets were built in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, in the past two years against a five-year target of 234,489 (till October 2019). At this rate, the target cannot be met before 2048. Similarly, home minister Rajnath Singh’s constituency, Lucknow, has seen 5,332 new toilets against the 2019 target of 186,177. At this pace, the constituency will not reach the target before 2051. Such explosive findings are part of the analysis done by Down To Earth Hindi, the
inaugural issue of which will hit the stands on October 2 to coincide with Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary.
With the 2019 general elections round the corner, will the government be able to keep this promise made to a nation that leads the world in open defecation? The inaugural issue of Down To Earth Hindi, which was officially unveiled today by the Editor, Sunita Narain, tried to find an answer by doing a
first-of-its-kind assessment of the ‘toilet building’ performance of a number of Central ministers, chief ministers and a few opposition leaders ever since the initiative was launched in October 2014.
“This analysis by Down To Earth Hindi is also to remind us that building toilets is only a small part of the movement towards access to sanitation for all. Firstly, as we build toilets, we must ensure that they are used, that they are functional. Secondly, we must have clear answers to questions of how can we manage and treat our waste, our excreta,” says Narain.
Behaviour change at many levels needed to make India open defecation-free
National Consultation on Rural Sanitation calls for triggering mindset change, but lack of credible data on health and sanitation is a challenge
Panelists were unanimous in their opinion that the SBM has always been about toilets, numbers and incentives, but not about mindset change. Credit: Vikas Choudhury/ CSE
We need to look beyond toilets and establish a connection between sanitation and health in order to trigger a mindset change in rural India. This is one of the key takeaways from the National Consultation on Rural Sanitation, hosted by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in New Delhi on October 6.
Laying bare the concerns related to poor sanitation in India, Sunita Narain, the director of CSE, said that we need to answer a fundamental question: how does the waste get treated? “The government’s emphasis should be on safe disposal of waste and not just building toilets and sewage treatment plants,” she observed. On this note, Sunita announced that the CSE is setting up an independent faecal sludge testing laboratory.
Government’s approach
Parameswaran Iyer, secretary in the Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation, spoke about making the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) a success by treating it not as a
sarkari programme but as a
jan andolan (people’s movement). While claiming that more than 100,000 villages have been made ODF in the last two years, he added that verification of these villages has been done through third parties.
Explaining the concept of Swachh Gram, Iyer pointed out that any village that is open defecation-free and has effective solid and liquid waste management mechanism at place will be declared a clean village. “The government will introduce a self-rating system in all the 650,000 villages in India wherein the panchayat will rate a village every six months. The members of the panchayats will receive some training to assess the sanitation situation, following which third-party verification will be conducted in assistance with the World Bank.
Gender gap
Taking cue from Joe Mediath, Founder of Gram Vikas, who raised the issue about privacy for women during bathing and building a bathroom along with toilet, Srestha Kumar from International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) said that there is a gender gap in the way we look at solving sanitation problem.
“Women are being shamed and discouraged to defecate in the open, while men go out in the open and defecate. How can we expect to make a village ODF when male members don’t embrace this shift? Moreover, availability of water is also an issue because ultimately, it is the women who have to walk miles and fetch water for using in toilets,” said Sreshtha.
Scarcity of data
The general opinion that emerged from the discussion is that there is not enough disaggregated and conclusive data down to the village level. “Each sector is collecting data in its own way and they are working in silos. That’s why there is no concrete data on health and sanitation, said Madhumita Dobe, Director- Professor (Public Health) at All India Institute of Hygiene & Public Health, Kolkata.
“We want tangible information on open defecation, sanitation and water-borne diseases to bring change in people's mindset. Since water-borne diseases have been denotifed, it has become a struggle to find data about them. Without data we can’t establish a viable argument,” said Sunita.
Clear wins and challenges in districts
Kamal Kar, Founder & Director of CLTS Foundation, referred to Ahmednagar and Nanded districts of Maharashtra where community-led total sanitation is now a reality. For him, this was made possible because of the commitment to construction of toilets shown by the villagers, who even refused to accept government subsidy in return. “Peer pressure also worked when it comes to making districts open defecation-free. They also mobilised resources and brought the unused toilets into use,” said Kamal.
But an open defecation-free campaign can fast lose steam if villagers don’t cooperate with local administration. Highlighting the challenges that district authorities face in sustaining such a campaign, Sumedha Kataria, District Collector, Kurukshetra, said, ‘You have to do constant hammering and constant checks to keep people motivated and bring that social change.”
Role of Health Ministry
While Sunita called for a common work plan to improve sanitation issue in India, Madhumita emphasised the need to involve the Health Ministry to ensure we have “convergence of thought” on tackling waste management, open defecation and water-borne diseases. “In Bangladesh, sanitation status of a village used to be assessed by the number of cholera and diarrhea cases reported in nearby hospitals and health centres,” said Kamal taking a leaf from his experience of working in the country.
Behaviour change needed but not with a coercive approach
The panelists were unanimous in their opinion that the SBM has always been about toilets, numbers and incentives, but not about bringing a change in the mindset of villagers.
According to one of the panelists, the government’s biggest mistake has been to take responsibility on behalf of the people to trigger behaviour change. The authorities arbitrarily decided to thrust technology on people and focussed only on construction of toilets.
“Indian Constitution says sanitation is a state subject. So let’s leave sanitation to panchayat and state and don’t let the Centre prescribe an approach. Right now, the Union Government is thrusting its policies on all the districts without understanding that one-size-fits-all approach cannot work. That’s why there is a need for behaviour change at the level of policymaking,” asserted Deepak Sanan, Former Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Himachal Pradesh and advisor to the CLTS Foundation.
Sanan also added that SBM has been chasing toilets—a private good—but it has ignored the behavioural change—a public good, which is essential to improve sanitation situation.
But there is a danger in adopting a coercive approach to force people to have toilets since it may create a division within the community. “Shaming people in public, not marking students’ attendance in school and
not allowing villagers to vote in local elections for defecating in the open are not the way to trigger a change in mindset,” argued Arundati Muralidharan of Water Aid.
Besides talking about the focus on collective behaviour change, Anowarul Haq, director of CARE, Bangladesh, pointed out how the country opened market for sanitation accessories. Manu Prakash, executive director at TARU Leading Edge, noted that while there has been a huge hike in money spent on SBM but there is no invest in sanitation market.
Nursing infections
From selling infectious waste to flouting guidelines, hospitals in two major Jharkhand districts highlight the country's casual attitude towards biomedical waste management
[IMG alt="A rag picker sorts
used blood bags
at a municipal
waste dumpyard
in Dhanbad"]
https://cdn.downtoearth.org.in/library/large/2017-01-19/0.03947000_1484824186_26-20170131.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG alt="A rag picker sorts
used blood bags
at a municipal
waste dumpyard
in Dhanbad"]
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/static/images/iconstopryCam.jpg[/IMG] A rag picker sorts used blood bags at a municipal waste dumpyard in Dhanbad
If you thought hospitals only treat diseases and make us healthy, then think again. Hospitals in Jharkhand are hotbeds of infections that put doctors and patients at a high risk of catching diseases. The reason is the way the hospitals, government and private alike, handle their biomedical waste.
Every day, healthcare facilities in Jharkhand dump 2,201 kg of biomedical waste without even basic treatment, says the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). This is over 40 per cent of the total biomedical waste generated in the state. The India average is close to seven per cent.
Worse, several healthcare facilities in the state sell plastic waste such as infected syringes and blood bags to scrap dealers, shows a study by Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). The study, which collected waste management information from 19 hospitals in Ranchi and Dhanbad districts with a combined bed capacity of 3,486, highlights how the hospitals are flouting the Bio-Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1998 and the Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules, 2016, at every stage.
Problem at source
As per the 1998 Rules, waste generated from healthcare facilities needs to be segregated at source into infected and non-infected components. The waste, once segregated, can either be treated in-house or sent to a common biomedical waste treatment facility (CBWTF). CPCB data suggests that Jharkhand has just one CBWTF that caters to 455 of the 906 registered healthcare facilities in the state. Only 14 healthcare facilities treat their waste in-house.
[IMG alt="Source: 2016 report on implementation of Bio-medical
Waste Rules by Central Pollution Control Board;
Data for 2014"]
https://cdn.downtoearth.org.in/libr...0.51332300_1484824377_26-1-20170131.jpg[/IMG]
The 1998 Rules state that waste should be segregated in four containers: a yellow container for infected body parts, blood soaked cotton, gauges and bandages; a red container for intravenous tubing, saline bottles, catheter, syringes and gloves; a puncture-proof container for sharp wastes; and a cardboard box for glassware and metallic body implants. The reason for segregation is that 15-20 per cent of waste generated in hospitals is toxic and needs to be treated. But mixing it with the remaining 80 per cent increases the pool of infected waste and chances of infection. The CSE study finds that 42 per cent hospitals do not follow even this basic segregation guideline. In fact, just 52 per cent hospitals have their yellow containers distinctly marked as containing bio-hazard waste. Most hospitals (79 per cent) transport their waste in open containers, which increases the risk of spreading infection. Biomedical waste, being organic in nature, must not be kept within the premises of any healthcare facility beyond 48 hours. In reality, just three of the 19 hospitals follow this guideline. Two of the hospitals admit that they clear their waste only twice a week.
Hospitals blame CBWTF for the situation. “People from CBWTF do not come to collect the waste even after we make repeated calls for three to four days. Finally, we are forced to burn the waste ourselves,” says Antara Jha, hospital manager of the District Hospital at Ranchi.
As one approaches the lone CBWTF, located at Ramgarh, heaps of biomedical waste can be seen littering the surroundings. CSE was not allowed to enter the premises by the private contractor who runs the place. The site’s chimney was shut down, which hints that incineration might not be happening at the site. Hospital authorities say the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) has failed to take any action against CBWTF despite being aware of the dire situation. Kamal Agarwal of Dhanbad Nursing Home says he has complained to SPCB, but the agency has failed to act. Sanjay Kumar Suman, member secretary of Jharkhand SPCB, refutes the claims. He says, “A case is already going on against CBWTF and we have submitted our reply based on our survey. So, what is the point of going again and again for inspection.” He adds that three more CBWTF plants are in the pipeline. The sites for the new plants have been identified and construction will start after getting environmental clearances.
While the lax attitude of CBWTF is a major problem, hospitals are also not serious about proper handling of biomedical waste. For example, the condition of the interim waste storage area within the healthcare facilities is deplorable. The 1998 Rules say all healthcare facilities should have a covered interim waste storage area, which should be kept locked. In reality, most hospitals simply dump their waste in the backyard. The hospitals which have interim storage area do not have locks. As a result, stray animals carry the waste outside, increasing the chances of spreading the infections.
Noncompliance everywhere
Every healthcare facility should maintain records of generation, collection, storage, transportation, treatment, disposal and any other form of handling of biomedical waste undertaken over five years. The 1998 Rules state that the records should be shared with SPCB every year. In reality, most facilities do not maintain the records and depend on the information gathered from the bills furnished by CBWTF operators. They also use CBWTF estimates for the annual report to SPCB, which means untreated biomedical waste goes unaccounted.
As per the 2016 Rules, healthcare facilities should also have an accident reporting system to check any mishaps during handling of biomedical wastes. But 14 of the 19 hospitals are not following this guideline. Officials at all the 19 hospitals are not even aware that they need to prepare a report about the remedial steps taken as a response to every accident/mishap within 24 hours.
Low on information
Ignorance is one of the main reasons behind the poor management of biomedical waste in the state. An alarming 90 per cent of the staff nurses in the 19 hospitals CSE visited are not aware of the 1998 Rules—almost two decades after they have been implemented. It comes as little surprise that except a medical superintendent at Patliputra Medical College Hospital, Dhanbad, staff in the other hospitals have never heard of the 2016 Rules. Healthcare staff in most hospitals are not even aware of the colour coding practices meant for biomedical waste segregation.
Not surprisingly, officials in 17 of the 19 hospitals are not even aware of the country’s long-standing commitment to phase out the use of mercury by 2020. India, a signatory to the 2014 Minamata Convention, has issued two directives in 2010 and 2016 to all government healthcare facilities to phase out the use of mercury-based thermometer, blood-pressure meter and dental amalgam from their facilities. Still, close to 90 per cent of the hospitals in Jharkhand are disposing mercury-contaminated waste along with regular waste and do not own a mercury spill cleanup kit. The extent of the knowledge gap can be gauged from the fact that just three hospitals in Ranchi have regular training modules on waste management for nurses, ward boys, waste handlers and paramedic staff. There are no similar training programmes for doctors.
Risk of infection
Healthcare sector exposes its workers to some of the worst occupational health hazards because of biomedical waste, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO). As a result, each healthcare facility should have occupational safety procedures such as mandatory Tetanus and Hepatitis B vaccinations for new staff and maintenance of a register on needlestick injury, which is a major cause of infections. Just four hospitals maintain records of needlestick injuries and only five vaccinate their new staff. Healthcare facilities should also conduct regular health checkups for employees dealing with biomedical waste. Only Shakti Nursing Home of Dhanbad claims to conduct such health checkups. The hospital, however, does not have standardised parameters for the checkups.
Water waste
Hospitals generate two kinds of wastewater: sanitary wastewater from kitchens, toilets, washing and cleaning activities and non-sanitary wastewater generated from laboratories, blood banks and treatment areas. The sanitary wastewater is similar to domestic sewage, but at times carries infectious body fluids of patients. The non-sanitary wastewater is full of pathogens and bacteria and should be treated before being released into the sewer drains. But none of the hospitals CSE visited has separate pipes to carry the non-sanitary wastewater. Only three in Ranchi have onsite sewage treatment plants to treat mixed wastewater before it is discharged into sewer drains.
The CSE report also highlights how the hospitals, which consume considerable quantities of water, do not practice water conservation mechanisms such as rainwater harvesting. This could be responsible for the depleting water table in the two districts. RIMS Ranchi, which has 1,500 beds and a medical college, consumes 0.4 million litres of water a day, half of which is pumped out of the ground. In fact, none of the healthcare facilities has water meters. “Earlier, tube wells 91 metres deep were sufficient to draw out the water. Now we have to dig up to 240 metres,” says a worker at Govindpur community health centre.
Only Ispat Hospital in the state capital practices rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharging. “We have estimated the whole potential of groundwater recharging through rainwater harvesting and accordingly dug wells within the campus of MECON Limited (which runs Ispat Hospital),” says Sanjay Xalco, chief engineer, town administration and construction department of MECON Limited.
Infection on your doorstep
The report points out how almost every village in the surrounding areas of these hospitals is at risk of infections because of poor biomedical waste practices. India’s Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) for vaccination of newborns alone can spread multiple infections if used syringes and plastic vials are not disposed of properly.
[IMG alt="The surroundings
of Jharkhand's
lone common
biomedical waste
treatment facility
in Ramgarh is
littered with heaps
of untreated
biomedical waste"]
https://cdn.downtoearth.org.in/library/large/2017-01-19/0.82156200_1484824272_29-20170131.jpg[/IMG]
In 2004, CPCB issued guidelines making it mandatory for health workers to carry back all plastic waste to the issuing centres (community health centre or district hospital). The guidelines state that the plastic waste should be disinfected either in an autoclave or through chemical disinfection procedure and then sent to authorised recyclers. The metal counterparts such as the used needles should be buried in a sharp pit constructed within the hospital premises. CSE report says that none of the community health centres studied follows the guideline. Sheer load of the waste can be gauged from the fact that on an average, a community healthcare centre issues 5,760 auto-disable syringes a month under UIP. Of this, 90 per cent or 5,184 syringes are normally used.
Plastic parts of the used syringes are either dumped or burnt in the village where vaccination is being administered or sold to local scrap dealers. Hospital solid plastic waste has huge recyclable potential as it is made up of virgin plastic, which has high market value. According to the report, most hospitals sell infected plastic waste directly to unauthorised scrap dealers at an average price of Rs 15 per kg.
Lax state government
The laid-back attitude of the state government is one of the major reasons for the current situation. For starters, the Jharkhand government does not have a list of healthcare facilities in the state, which is mandatory under the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010. The Act says that every state government should constitute a State Council for Clinical Establishments to compile and update the state register of the clinical establishments. In February 2012, Jharkhand notified the Act and accorded the health department to keep the record of all the clinical establishments within the state. But both the state health department and SPCB do not have the list. While the health department only has information related to government health centres, SPCB has data for those health institutions which submitted authorisation applications till 2014.
NGT judgement on Okhla waste plant: no lessons learned
National Green Tribunal has, once again, made clear that it advocates a centralised system for waste processing which may not serve a long-term solution
NEXT NEWS ❯
Published: Thursday 02 February 2017
Delhi generates over 9,000 metric tonnes of garbage per day, only 43 per cent of which gets processed (Credit: Ravleen Kaur/CSE)
The
National Green Tribunal (NGT), in its much awaited judgement on Okhla waste-to-energy plant, has allowed the plant to function but has directed it to pay an environmental compensation of Rs 25 lakh for its deficient operation earlier.
A bench headed by NGT chairperson Swatanter Kumar while passing directions in "interest of public health and environment", said equal environmental compensation (EC) must be paid to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) to fund prevention and control of air pollution in the area. In its 142-page judgement, the bench said that Okhla plant should not be directed to shut down or shifted to another site the project proponent, M/s Jindal Urban Infrastructure Ltd, is compliant and non-polluting.
Years of protest
Residents of the Sukhdev Vihar colony, located merely 35 metres away from the plant, have been protesting against it for allegedly toxic emissions since 2003. If rules are complied with, a WTE plant should be located at least 300-500 m away from residential zone. The residents wrote to NGT chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar sharing their concern of the waste plant in their backyard and also how it is adding to
Delhi's air pollution.
Delhi is already reeling under a pollution crisis. The city generates over 9,000 metric tonnes of garbage per day, only 43 per cent of which gets processed. The waste-to-energy (WTE) plant at Okhla incinerates 2,000 tonnes of mixed waste per day to generate 16-19 megawatt electricity every day. The plant processes unsegregated waste, which is adding massively to the problem.
Pro-landfill judgement
As per the judgement, plant’s emissions will be monitored and must comply with CPCB or DPCC standards. If the plant is found violating these standards, it would be liable to pay environmental compensation of Rs 5 lakh per incident, the judgement says.
The NGT has further directed that the brick manufacturing plant, utilising the fly/bottom ash must be operative to its optimum capacity. The judgement has directed the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi and all its local authorities to mandate and incentivise the use of bricks made from fly ash for all construction projects.
As per the judgement, the CPCB, DPCC and environment ministry will direct Delhi’s local authorities to provide more landfill sites in Delhi. It adds that such sanitary landfill sites should be maintained and utilised strictly in accordance with the Solid Waste Management Rules of 2016.
But where is the land in Delhi-NCT? The city is already struggling with the existing dumpsites that receive the maximum quantum of unsegregated waste in the city. In the current paradigm, most of the so-called landfill sites are dumping grounds which were originally low-lying areas and waste was used to fill them (hence the name ‘land-fill’). These dumping grounds cause excessive groundwater pollution, methane gas emissions, fire-hazards and pests—a scenario completely opposite to a scientific landfill site.
More waste-to-energy plants for Delhi
The tribunal has directed the Centre and local authorities to ensure the establishment of more waste-to-energy plants in accordance with the Rules of 2016. Past experience shows that these plants work only when waste is segregated—a task which is tedious at later stages. This makes the whole process inefficient and has led to the closure of many WTE plants.
The judgement has further directed the existing landfill sites to be improved: their heights should be reduced and bio-stabilisation promoted. Reusable materials, particularly inert and plastic waste, should be recovered and utilised for construction of roads and embankments, it adds.
As per the NGT judgement, the plant should have online monitoring system linked to CPCB and DPCC websites.
The NGT has directed DPCC to issue appropriate directions to local bodies to ensure segregation of the solid waste at source. Construction and demolition (C&D) waste should be collected at source and transported to processing plants at Shastri Park and Burari.
Justice not served
The NGT judgement has, once again, made it clear that it advocates a centralised system for waste processing. The question for NGT is not if waste management should be decentralised or centralised, but how waste will be processed and reused.
Decentralised solutions will cut costs of transportation and make households and institutions part of the solution. NGT’s view that decentralised plants are not environmentally sustainable is incomprehensible. Although NGT is right in stating that clear availability of land will be at a premium, this does not mean that the “centralised/cluster approach” will make the problem go away. As more waste gets generated, more land will be required in a business-as-usual scenario.
Cost of transportation is a key component of waste management and the further the site, the more will be the charge on municipal budget.
For long, we have used the backyards of our cities to dump waste. But with growing literacy and social empowerment, people in poor neighbourhoods are taking a stand with a message that urban waste cannot be dumped in their backyards. Their protests are, however, not being heeded to, the latest example being this judgement. Sukhdev Vihar has not received due justice.
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Now the little comfort this stunted from birth man was to get by comparing India to Bangladesh - is denied him as well. Where to turn?
Replicate Bangladesh strategies to end open defecation in West Bengal: MP Hossain
Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, who is minister of local government, rural development and cooperatives in Bangladesh, is on a two-day trip to India with his delegates.
Bangladesh Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain with Subrata Mukherjee in Kolkata Monday. (Express photo)
West Bengal should replicate the strategies adopted by Bangladesh to eradicate open defecation, said Bangladesh MP and minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, who was in the city with a team of delegates on Monday. “Our country has become around 99 per cent open defecation free (ODF), and that has been possible with the participation of common people. I believe it can also be duplicated in West Bengal
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