Solid Waste Management: An ever-increasing challenge

 Dr B K Mukhopadhyay

(The author is a Professor of Management and Economics, formerly at IIBM (RBI) Guwahati. He can be contacted at m.bibhas@gmail.com)

As the ongoing situation reflects that some 56 percent of the world’s population – 4.4 billion inhabitants – live in cities. This trend is expected to continue, with the urban population more than doubling its current size by 2050, at which point nearly 7 of 10 percent of people will live in cities – an ever-increasing challenge being posed before the urban administration as well as planners!

The stern reality- many people are living in large urban centres such as slums and squatters that lack access to improved water, sanitation, security of tenure, durability of housing, and sufficient living area.

The World Bank (WB) observes: ‘…..the speed and scale of urbanization brings challenges, such as meeting accelerated demand for affordable housing, viable infrastructure including transport systems, basic services, and jobs, particularly for the nearly 1 billion urban poor who live in informal settlements to be near opportunities’.

It is crystal clear now that especially solid waste management, among others, has emerged to be an ever-growing problem.

Not only in India, but around the world also, waste generation rates are rising. In 2020, the world was estimated to generate 2.24 billion tonnes of solid waste, amounting to a footprint of 0.79 kilograms per person per day. As per projections, annual waste generation is expected to increase by 73 percent up from 2020 levels to 3.88 billion tonnes in 2050.

Compared to these in developed nations, residents in developing countries, especially the urban poor, are more severely impacted by unsustainably managed waste. In low-income countries, over 90 percent of waste is often disposed in unregulated dumps or openly burned. We are already experiencing that these unscientific practices create serious health, safety, and environmental consequences. What is more, poorly managed waste serves as a breeding ground for disease vectors, contributing to global climate change through methane generation, paving the way for ever-increasing urban violence.

Thus, improving solid waste management, especially in the rapidly growing cities of low-income countries, is becoming a more and more urgent issue. Adequacy of better waste management and recycling to combat greenhouse gas emissions that includes input from all of a city’s stakeholders, including citizen groups and the poor and disadvantaged, is the latest prescription - since the age-old concept of “throwing away” trash already received a farewell.

It has also been a stern reality that the question of urban wasteland receives least attention in many cases. The WB rightly sees impending global garbage crisis. A giant wake-up call to policy makers everywhere - the world’s city dwellers are fast producing more and more trash in a “looming crisis” that will pose huge financial and environmental burdens, the World Bank has warned. The challenges surrounding municipal solid waste are going to be enormous, if not greater than the challenges we are currently experiencing with climate change.

The growing pile of trash from urban dwellers is as daunting as global warming and the costs will be especially high in poor countries, mainly in Africa. China (which eclipsed the United States as the world’s largest waste maker even in as far back in 2004 – generated around 70 per cent of the trash in the East Asia-Pacific region). China, other parts of East Asia, parts of Eastern Europe and the Middle East have the fastest-growing production of municipal solid waste.

Planned Actions:

The Only Way Out

Recycling and other measures are, thus, required in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that come from inefficient solid waste management practices. On the part of the WB, it is strongly hoped that once the extent of this issue is recognized, local and national leaders, as well as the international community, will mobilize to put in place programs to reduce, reuse, recycle, or recover as much waste as possible before burning it – and recovering the energy – or otherwise disposing of it.

Side by side, it is not to be forgotten that urbanization is not a curse in as much as the same creates huge wealth and opportunities, enables better use of assets and creates new ones. Urbanization – being a continuous and spontaneous process - in most developing countries is bringing about enormous changes in the spatial distribution of people and resource and in the use and consumption of land. The unfortunate part is that though such process is strongly linked to development (social, technological and economic), many countries lack the appropriate policies and frameworks that can leverage it for increased development gains and can guide it towards sustainable patterns. In a word, these are not harnessed for development and de facto urbanization’s challenges often seem to outpace the development gains.

Obvious enough, economic growth will increasingly come from the strength of innovative activities instead of factor accumulation as in the past. Recent researches also suggest that such innovative activities remain concentrated in high-tech clusters in globally-linked cities.

In Lieu of Conclusion

Clearly, successful national urban policies have the ability to yield multiple results- the identification of urban development priorities towards socially and economically equitable and environmentally friendly urban and national development; future development of the national urban system and its spatial configuration concretized through national and spatial plans for regional development; coordination and guidance of actions by national functionaries vis-à-vis lower levels of government in all sectors; and, of course, increased and well-coordinated private and public investments in urban development, which in turn, lead to consequent improvement of cities’ productivity, inclusiveness, environmental conditions and people’s participation in the development process .Managing waste properly is essential for building sustainable and livable cities, but it remains a big challenge for many developing countries and cities. Effective waste management is expensive, often comprising 20 percent to 50 percent of municipal budgets. Municipal service on this score, in turn, requires an integrated system that is efficient, sustainable, and socially supported.

On solid waste management projects, the WB advices to use a diverse suite of products and services, traditional loans, results-based financing, development policy financing, and technical advisory. The WB-financed waste management projects address the entire lifecycle of waste—from generation to collection and transportation, and finally treatment and disposal.

Needless to say, there is no short-cut prescription. We cannot solve the problem of over-urbanization overnight. Paying simultaneous attention to rural and urban regions is the only way out, backed by proper financing/ supervision and updation of rules and regulations.

As 80 percent + of global GDP is generated in cities, urbanization can contribute to sustainable growth ensuring healthy living through increased productivity and innovation, if managed well.

We must seek to address such major urban challenges and ensure transition towards smarter, health-ensuring and more sustainable cities in a rapidly urbanizing world. Actions must be taken by government, the private sector and civil society to achieve sustainable urban development and innovative solutions from around the world.

A city must function well for all its citizens (night time and day time population as a whole) - inclusion thus comes to the forefront!