Why India needs zero-waste cities, not garbage free cities

On October 1 – a day before Gandhi Jayanti – Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a big announcement. The flagship and the equally lauded-critiqued central government program: Swachh Bharat Mission will now have a sequel. The Prime Minister said that with the Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0, his government aims to make “urban areas garbage-free”.
He stressed that in the second phase – “garbage mounts in cities will be processed and removed completely as part of SBM-U”. Also going on to say that presently – “we are processing about 70 per cent of the daily waste; the next step is to take it to a complete 100 per cent.” The proposed program will also focus on source segregation of solid waste, utilising the principle of 3R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle), scientific processing of all types of municipal solid waste and remediation of legacy dumpsites for effective solid waste management. As per the official release, the outlay for SBM-U is tipping to be around Rs 1.41 lakh crore.
While admittedly rightly timed – in terms of the needs of Indian cities – the flagship mission aims to signify a step forward in our march towards effectively addressing the challenges of rapidly urbanising India and the emerging climate challenges we are witnessing. But like the problem with sequels, they are almost always worse than the original. SBM 2.0 might fare worse than its predecessor. The latest avatar of the mission lacks an on-ground understanding of waste management in its early conceptualisation, builds castles on the failures of the SBM 1.0 and is reliant on technology – privatised ‘models’ for solving complicated urban governance issues.
Moreover, if smart cities are any cue to go by, the SBM 2.0 will be another scheme that aims for speed and scale but will fail to deliver and eventually come to a grinding halt. The SBM 2.0, with its push towards garbage-free cities, might lose the focus on recycling and decentralised handling of waste. Garbage-free cities will remove waste from our sight but will not effectively handle the waste using sustainable means. The below mentioned are why, unless redirected, the SBM 2.0 will fail to address the waste management of Indian cities.
First, Indian cities must aim for the right models. Indore, according to the rankings released by the Government of India, remains very dubiously the cleanest city in the country, consistently. The SBM 2.0 cannot be based on the (in)famous Indore model that scores well for waste collection and transportation but not the segregation and recycling of waste. Indore is not an aberration; most of the top cities featured in the Swachh Survekshan rankings share a similar story – ensuring that the waste is picked up by employing an army of trucks and machines for processing. Keeping waste as garbage- what is out of sight, is true, out of mind.
Second, it is only decentralisation that will work and not (re)centralisation of the process. Effective waste management is expensive, often comprising over 20 per cent of municipal budgets, and that is usually invested in heavy vehicles for transportation and centralised collection, processing, and management practices. All of which favour the transportation contract lobbies that would want this ‘lift and dispose’ system to continue. This will only accelerate under the garb of ‘garbage-free’ cities.
The mission here needs to comprehend that with the increasing waste generation of four per cent a year and most of the waste generated – nearly 60 per cent is organic with low calorific value – decentralized households and the policy must prioritize community waste practices. Therefore, rather than being garbage-free, we should aim for zero waste communities where all organic waste is composted while only the inorganic waste is collected
and recycled.
Third, with lots of money and resources riding, thrust for technology-centric waste management needs to be handled cautiously. There is a threat of using outdated and obsolete waste management practices, which are now not employable in the global north but are looking for markets in the developing contexts. Like how companies or consultancies operating at scale were at an advantage to usurp smart cities projects and proposals but failed to deliver. For example, grappling with legacy waste landfills in Indian cities, solid waste incineration is often presented as a ‘quick-fix’ solution to reduce rapidly growing waste volumes while producing energy. However, incineration is among the worst approaches cities can take to achieve both waste reduction and energy goals. It is expensive, inefficient, and creates environmental risks. The residents of South Delhi in areas around Sukhdev Vihar, Ishwar Nagar, New Friends Colony, Jasola, Sarita Vihar and Haji Colony stand as testimony to the waste-to-energy (WtE) plant in Okhla. There is a need to steer clear of such expensive and unscientific practices for SBM 2.0.
Fourth, the Prime Minister mentioned the mahanayaks – the waste pickers (workers), who lead the solid waste management in Indian cities, and acknowledged their contribution to our cities; especially during the COVID pandemic. Disappointingly, he failed to talk about the need for mandatory inclusion, skilling, and taking into the formal fold the waste pickers who manage to recycle around 20 per cent of waste without any state recognition. The country’s informal sector workers in waste play a crucial role in waste management and are the real green warriors, but operate without protective equipment such as gloves, masks, and other essentials that offer dignity and safety. Major cities’ existing models do not promote the inclusion of waste workers, but instead incentivize mechanization. When adequately supported and organized, informal recycling can create employment, improve local practices, reduce poverty, and substantially reduce municipal spending.
Fifth, rather than focusing on tech-led solid waste management practices, the SBM 2.0 needs to focus on getting the basics right and adopt a paradigm that incentivized cities with the 5R’s (and not 3): refuse, reuse, recycle, recover, and reduce. And not forgetting to address the most critical ‘R’ – Responsibility, that the generator – be it households, markets, or companies – are accountable to deal with their
own waste.
Reorienting the SBM 2.0 to move towards zero waste communities and not garbage-free cities must be the call. The mantra of speed and scale can work if communities and people are involved, and the effort promotes a decentralized – localized approach to waste management. We need to emulate principles of 5R’s, decentralized segregation, recycling, and compositing with mandatory inclusion of workers. Maybe we need to talk about alternate models like that of Alappuzha with 100 per cent segregation with community-led biogas plants and composting; of worker collectives that are cost-effective and sustainable, like Pune; city planning with the spatial allocation of working with waste and protecting livelihoods like Bengaluru. This alone will ensure that the sequel is thought through and not simply rushed.

[The views expressed are the author’s own. They do not purport to reflect the views of Urban Update.]