Innovation in Waste: Material Recovery and

Livelihoods at the

New Delhi Railway Station

Chitra Mukherjee

Why waste matters

• India Waste generation 68.8 milliontons/year

• By 2050, India generation 150 milliontons/year

• Each Urban Indian generates 0.8 kgwaste/day

• Less than 15% urban waste safelyprocessed; less than 2% properlydisposed

• Urban waste requires environmentally,socially and economically sustainablewaste management

2

Why waste is a crisis

• Landfills are filled- contaminate ground water irreversibly; cancer clusters found near them

• Flies breed on waste, and spread disease

• Waste filled drains result in backlogs and sanitation based illnesses

• Over 3% of India’s Greenhouse gas emissions are on account of poor waste management

3

Environmental hazardsPolluting the Commons

• Water Contamination

• Surface water : pollution of ponds lakes, rivers

• Ground Water: leachate from waste

• Air Contamination: Greenhouse gases, emissions from burning

• Soil Contamination: due to open dumping of waste

India is drowning in its own waste!

4

What happens to your waste

5

Paper

Mixed Waste in Dustbin

Plastic

Wood

Metals/Cans

Municipal Garbage Station

Kitchen Waste

E-Waste

Landfill

6

CURRENT SCENARIO

7

IDEAL SCENARIO

Who handles your waste

• Formal Sector: Government,

Municipalities

• Informal Sector: Waste pickers,

waste collectors, small waste

traders etc.

8

Informal Sector: 15 lakh people in India depend on waste picking for a livelihood

Backbone of Recycling industry in India

Significantly reduces GHG emissions

Saves the municipality money & resources

Current scenario and the way forward

The solution

Materials Efficiency- Circular Economy (reducing waste, extractingvalue from organics, lowering emissions, reducing GHGs)

Decentralized Waste Management – waste managed close to source

• Source segregation

• Door to door waste collection

• Space for waste

• Less dependence on High Tech solutions like Incinerationtechnologies

What is innovation?

Innovations in process

Process innovation by Chintan

at 4 Railway Stations in Delhi -

in partnership with the

Northern Railways and Safai

Sena

Everyday at the New Delhi Railway station 360,000 transiting passengers300 trains

Can you imagine the kind of waste produced by this number of passengers?

Who takes care of this waste?

What process innovation did we do at the Railway Station?

Waste Management was informal:

• Uncoordinated and disorganized

• Relatively unclean facilities

• Lack of quality waste management

• Violence amongst rag pickers

• Inappropriate Reuse of PET bottles

Previous Challenges

Ensure cleanliness and eco-friendly systems of waste management based on principles:• Environment• Efficiency• Professionalism

Goal of Chintan and Railways Project

Environment

• 30% of the waste produced is recyclable

• Collection and segregation process entirely carbon free-nothing motorized, nothing burned- PET Bottles- News Paper- Tetra Packs- Food Containers/Packaging

• Waste transported off site to recycling units-Wet Waste- In situ Composting-Dry Waste- Separate Recycling Centers &

Storage Units

Efficiency

• Workers operate on strict schedule

• Specific hierarchy of management for waste collection and segregation

• Each train tended to by coordinated group of workers

• Waste collected is transported to off-platform segregation site

• Information Documentation

Professionalism

• Identifiable: Workers required to wear uniforms with ID cards

• Move quickly and respectfully through trains collecting waste -workers have schedule and platform placements

• Workers understand the need for efficiency as they collect from several trains within minutes

• Work coordinated with officials for trouble-shooting and for improvement

Recovering materials from waste and creating livelihoods from waste

Chintan has trained 700 waste collectors :-to collect waste materials-provide liners for bins on platforms

Provided uniforms and ID cards to make waste collectors visible and legitimate

Waste material carried to Material Recovery Facility at the train station built on land allocated by the Northern Railways

MRF – a facility where waste is segregated into PET, paper, glass, cardboard etc.

Segregation - recovery of different kinds of materials that can be reprocessed into new commodities

Sale of recyclable materials pays the salaries of the workers

Material Recovery Facility (MRF)

Material Recovery Facility (MRF)

Source at Trains (Duranto,Rajdhani, Shatabdi) → Collection at platforms → Segregation at work site → Transportation of dry waste (mills) ; wet waste (on site compost)

Waste Chain

Material Recovery Facility (MRF) Contd.

MRF handles about 13 tons of waste monthly- dry and wet:

5-6 tons of organic waste/month → 500 kgs of compost/month produced

In total, 13 tons of waste /month diverted from being sent to the landfills, creating safe, stable and secure livelihoods in the process

Personnel

EMPLOYMENT

• 80 workers

• Day/Night Shift

• Paid minimum wages

• Trained in collection and segregation

• No discrimination based on ethnic, cultural or religious background

• Educated about the environment and their role in reducing carbon footprint.

REQUIREMENT

• Must be 18 years or older

• Must be physically fit

• Honest, Hard working

• Confident

Sustainability in the truest sense – Environmental, Social and Financial

Project demonstrates that

• Railways can handle own waste; reducing the burden on city, reducing pollution & making city cleaner, greener

• Safe stable secure livelihoods for vulnerable marginalized urban population• No financial transactions between Railways and Chintan• Waste collectors earn livelihoods from sale of recyclable materials

Recognition for the project

• In 2014, for this project Chintan won the prestigious Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award

• The award is presented to initiatives that utilize partnerships to improve the quality of life & quality of urban environment

More about Chintan

Voice for Waste

1

Scavengers to Managers

2

No Child in Trash

3

We work through our programmes:

Our key partner: Safai Sena

Let’s push together to change the future…

238, Sidhartha Enclave New Delhi - 110014, India T: + 91-11-46574171/72/73 F: +91-11-46574174

E: info@chintan-india.org W: www.chintan-india.org