Every day, truckloads of plastic waste arrive at a shed near Mahalaxmi Racecourse — the landmark spot for a unique public-private partnership to manage Mumbai’s monumental garbage crisis. After being compressed, the plastic waste is transported to a factory in Vapi where it is upcycled into sportswear, packaging, and industrial material.
The problem? Almost 80% of the plastic waste arrives contaminated — layered with rotting food, or rancid milk or oil. It, therefore, gets rejected and ends up back in landfills that are already overwhelmed. There, it tends to rot and can lead to the kind of combustion that sent billows of toxic smoke across the city.
While it is clear that plastic is here to stay, waste experts are now focusing on consumer habits to enable more efficient upcycling. “The problem is not so much plastic waste as it is contaminated plastic waste which must be cleaned at the time of disposal,” said Nakul Gupta of Xynteo, an Oslo-based sustainability advisory firm which is working with local civic bodies here.
Waste segregation was mandated in a 2016 environment ministry notification which noted that, over a period of time, citizens would have to absorb their kitchen waste and collaborate with their local civic bodies on better dry waste management. Gradually, many have learned to separate biodegradable or wet waste and dry waste. But the issue confronting municipal workers and recyclers is how to finesse consumer habits further to enable upcycling — which entails washing and drying containers and bottles before trashing them.
The coalition of waste experts are now actively target children and teenagers, deemed to be 'future changemakers', through schools and youth organisations, hoping that they will take the messaging back to their parents, neighbours and household help. A pilot project in D ward has already engaged with 29 teachers and 900 children in municipal schools and is being scaled across Maharashtra via the DIKSHA app, which touches more than two lakh students. On Swachhta Diwas, which falls on Saturday, youth organisations will participate in a clean-up drive at Girgaum Chowpatty.
“When we conduct these beach clean-ups, we first clean the waste, let it dry out, and only then segregate it — into, say, milk pouches, bottles and single-use plastic,” said 25-year-old Rizwan Khatee, a long-distance ocean swimmer. His organisation, Seafins, aims to create awareness about marine biodiversity and is now working as part of the clean-up coalition.
Stakeholders in this initiative point out that there is no getting around the ubiquitous plastic in our lives. But given the number of products that can be regenerated from plastic — from buckets to sportswear to industrial packaging — the approach has to change.
“The use of plastic is so widespread in our lives, we have to live with it,” said Pratik Dalmia, who’s plastic upcycling company has tied up with D ward’s project. “Luckily it’s such a versatile material, that instead of trying to eliminate it, we are trying to build a circular model and propel habit change, which allows for it to be recycled.” India generates 62 million tonnes of waste every year, of which less than 60% is collected and around 15% processed. “Ideally, we need people to rinse out say food containers or bottles. Even if a minute amount of food is left behind, when you multiply it by thousands of containers then it is impossible to use them,” he added.
Besides targeting the young, the coalition — which includes D ward officials, Xynteo, State Bank of India, HUL, and youth organisations like Seafins, Change is US and Hope Foundation — has been conducting webinars with housing societies, explaining both segregation as well as the finer points about cleaning dry waste.
D ward has also started an incentive scheme whereby housing societies that are successfully segregating and managing waste are given a 10% rebate in property tax. Ragpickers, an integral but invisible part of the waste chain, are now being integrated and given a host of benefits such as medical and life insurance and help to open bank accounts. “We are hoping to increase the space for collection in Mahalaxmi to absorb more plastic waste — from 2 tonnes to 5 tonnes per day,” said BMC’s additional municipal commissioner D ward, Prashant Gaikwad. This initiative will gradually be scaled across the city.
On Swachhta Diwas, all are invited to participate in a clean-up drive at Girgaum Chowpatty on Saturday between 3.30pm and 5.30pm. Meeting point: Entrance near Wilson College.
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