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The conventional approach of the Government towards Waste Management, has involved collection, transport and disposal of wa

ste. These processes have essentially involved heavy purchases of manufactured items like bins, vehicles for transport and acquiring land to set up centralised facilities where the motivation is kick backs and commissions from purchases

The basis of conventional waste management is dumping, burying or burning. Now science and technology is misused to re label the same process as mixed waste composting, land filling/capping and incineration/waste to energy. All of them are end of the pipe solutions which have been proved unsuccessful across the world. For example out of latest mechanised and centralised mixed waste composting technology applied in major 16 sites, 14 of them already shut down due to problems. One such facility is in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.

The procedure followed in most of the big waste management projects in India is almost the same. It is conceived by planners and experts from a government owned NGO who are actually consultants of Waste Management companies and International financial agencies like World Bank, Asian Development Bank, etc. These consultants make the proposals and strongly recommend privatisation. The qualifications for service providers are made unique so that the contract goes to the company behind the curtain. Monitoring of such projects becomes the responsibility of government agencies that have no control over it. When it comes to failures or problems, no agency is powerful enough to take any action against these companies! And on winding up of the companies due to failures from their side, the government is compelled to compensate the companies with a huge amount of money. This is because of the typical nature of the agreements and contracts prepared and signed. They create a public opinion through constant campaign that government systems are inefficient and privatisation is the only solution. Thus, we are not only fighting with the government but with NGOs created by the government. We are also up against the private interests. So we are fighting the notion that government systems are inefficient and so these must be privatised and paid for by public funds or loans from international financial corporations. ADB’s major effort in Kerala with regard to waste handling has been to facilitate privatisation, and distance government agencies like primary panchayats or municipalities from the process. With the result there is no one who can take even corrective action on this. Even when such action is sought the private companies are richly compensated as winding up charges. For example in Trivandrum the government has decided to compensate the company Rs.15 Crores for handling waste for five years.

The Zero Waste Approach

The approach of Zero Waste involves: a) basic participation of the people, in b) decentralised facilities, with c) back to back policies of handling waste. These policies are based on fundamental principles of efficiency, ethics and economics.

The components of zero waste start with resource recovery through the four 'R'- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Repair or Reconstruct. This basically means, conserve resources. It also goes one step ahead by opting for a toxic free production process. The producers are held liable for their consumer products too under Extended Producer Responsibility. This also leads to the replacement of unviable or unsustainable material with economic and ecological material.

The process of moving toward this approach necessarily involves improving the capacity of the community to address these issues, increasing their sense of ownership, by involving the community in the planning and implementation of the process. But first there has to be a basic policy commitment to the alternative approach. And then of course there will be some policy in handling these resources.

Our involvement with the issue began when there was a proposal for incineration of waste in the tourist centre Kovalam in Kerala. We campaigned against it using technical support from all over the world as well as support from the local community.

We launched Zero Waste in 2001. It was a multi stakeholder process and included people from the local community -- taxi drivers, government officers and private operators. We created models for resource recovery and material substitution -- created independent resource recovery units for individuals, and cluster based units at the community level which were owned, managed and monitored by the community. We built capacity in the community to come up with alternate and viable products. Over the years it created independent jobs -- 150 jobs over three years.

The programme also focused on environmental education in the community especially for school children and had the backing of several organisations including travel agencies, hoteliers, shop-owners, etc. The programme got an award for the best initiative in the tourism sector. We got this award because the government was also involved and we took this programme to different parts of Kerala.

With our experience on the ground, we started interacting with the government officers, the experts and even the public.

Our constant interaction with Clean Kerala Mission a government agency responsible for shaping waste management policies and plans for local bodies in Kerala resulted in a guideline which is supporting zero waste principles and prohibiting incineration of waste. Capacity building for the community and material substitution thus officially become part of any waste management projects in Kerala.

A major break-through was when we got it included in the election manifesto of the Left government.

Our interaction with Total Sanitation and Health Mission that is focusing on rural local self governments could bring marked changes in their attitude and programmes. Participation of community, decentralisation of waste management, segregation and disposal of waste at source, non incineration technologies, waste reduction, recycling, anti plastic campaign, material substitution, capacity building, cross sectoral integration for conceiving and implementing waste management projects and focus on qualitative change rather than quantitative changes – where instead of counting number of biogas plants or infrastructure as indices of success, the change in attitude of people, total quantity of discards recovered, recycled are counted. Also the number of jobs created, incidents of diseases were made part of indices of success. This was the result of our interaction.

Our constant campaigns and interaction with Kerala Tourism resulted in acceptance of Zero Waste as a brand in tourism sector. Zero Waste was accepted to be a component of Eco tourism. The Kerala tourism now finances Kudumbasree (Women Self Help Groups) to implement zero waste components in selected tourism destinations.

Thanal was accepted as faculty in the State Institute of Rural Development, Kerala Institute of Local Administration to give training on waste management.

Thanal representatives also became resource persons and members in Technical Support Group formed by Government of Kerala for addressing the waste issue.

We were invited to contribute a chapter on waste management in a handbook to be published by UNDP.

All these achievements were the result of strategic moves such as working at the grassroot level with the community and sensitizing them to grow as pressure groups; updating the policy makers to respond to the needs of the community and helping them to frame policies to support Zero Waste. Thus our role was that of a facilitator or catalyst. In a way we ‘infected the system’ by lobbying with the key people in government for Zero Waste and allowed them to take credit for the good results.

In terms of dilemmas and problems: We have been intervening in municipal corporation areas. In five municipal corporation areas, the programme is negatively influenced by ADB and World Bank as they are involved in the funding. Thus there is a kind of dilution of the concept of Zero Waste. Another problem is that even though we make all the efforts to change the policy, when it comes to money, it goes to the government owned NGOs that recommend the disaster technology. Another problem is anti plastic campaign. Government policy is to reduce the use of plastics. But the other side the tax cuts and financial policies are supportive to the plastic industries. No bold decision can be taken to control the use of disposable plastic product which is a menace. Also no smart move can be made from the government’s side to hold the plastic manufactures liable for the plastic waste. Instead the government is also fooling around carry bags and ‘microns’ by diluting the whole plastics issue into only ‘carry bag’ problem. So the effect is negative and plastics are very much available in the community. While there is a sense of ownership of the programme in the community and in the systems, the institutions are not coming forward. And finally technology choices are being made on non-technical considerations i.e., the size of the investment and potential kick backs. This is particularly true with our experiences of international bodies like the World Bank and their policies.

On the one hand, the policy on waste management is pro people when it comes to rural local governments and on the other, it completely negates the democracy when it comes to big cities where the decision making power is concentrated with consultants of ADB or WB.

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Clean Kerala Mission	Target – Zero Waste Non incineration Capacity building Material substitution
Total Sanitation and Health Mission	Participation Decentralisation Segregation & disposal at source Non incineration Recycling and reduction Anti plastics campaign Capacity building Material substitution Cross sectoral integration Qualitative change approach
Kerala Tourism	Zero Waste in tourism-Brand Zero Waste part of Eco Tourism Financial aid for Kudumbasree to run Zero Waste projects
Faculty	State Institute of Rural Development Kerala Institute of Local Administration
Resource Persons	Technical Support Group – Govt. of Kerala Working Groups – District, Block and Panchayat level, Tourism working group- State Level
Guidelines	Handbook on Rural Tourism – UNDP Handbook for Trainers – Govt. of Kerala