SWACHH BHARATH-SOME THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS

                                          Pic. Credits:The Hindu

India’s PM Narendra Modi launched the “Swachh Bharath” initiative on 2nd October 2014 .The campaign aims to clean the entire country by 2019, which marks the 150th birth anniversary of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.This was a bold move from PM Modi, because the task he hopes to achieve is herculean, the duration small, and hence I was skeptical about this campaign.I was curious to see how the government would carry out such a huge task. PM Modi tried to cash in on the popularity of ‘ice bucket challenge’ and adopted a similar strategy.He initially nominated 9 persons and asked them to take up cleaning activities,and each in-turn had to nominate other people. Priyanka Chopra, Sachin Tendulkar(both Nominated by the PM) and other did take up the challenge and  undertook cleaning activities,but the goal is too huge to be achieved this way.An organisation(if it can be called that)known as “The Ugly Indian” has been doing such activities all over the county,successfully for some years now.But we need more efforts than citizens doing the cleaning(sign of the broken system),celebrity PR stunts (some of them have genuine intentions ,by the way)and photo ops to achieve it.Some of Modi’s own ministers have been caught in some ridiculous photo ops.PM Modi told every Indian to indulge in ‘clean India’ activities and post photos(I have seen some people just collecting dry leaves and posting photos titled“participated in swachh bharat “blah blah).The basic message was every Indian should not litter and should clean up for the sake of our nation.I believe that patriotism isn't a good enough motivator for public to suddenly shed old habits that have been ingrained deep in the subconscious.

Many people ask this question, so what if I don't litter? So what if i segregate most of my garbage? Eventually the Municipality just dumps it in the landfill (which some time happens to be right in the middle of the city) or burn it.They are right.So bottom line “It still pollutes the environment”.

SO WHAT DO WE DO??

First things first, we need to build a lot, and by “a lot” I mean hell of a lot garbage recycling industries.

These include

 • Garbage segregation industries

 • Anaerobic digestion chambers

• Waste to energy plants

• Plastic recycling industries

• Paper and cardboard recycling industries

• E-waste recycling industries

• Rubber and tyre recycling industries

• Construction and demolition waste recycling industries

The technology for all the above already exists and i am pretty sure we can buy some of the technology if we don’t have it yet. Still the fundamental question remains”How do you stop public from littering? And can you get the public to segregate the garbage?When i mean segregation i mean not just segregation of wet and dry waste.I mean segregation of paper and cardboard,plastic ,e-waste and wet waste all separately.This requires a huge change in mindsets and habits of people,and we all know people are resistant to change.

 MY PROPOSED METHOD (May seem as a long shot)

The method i propose is inspired from the German Green Dot system. The basic idea of the Green Dot is that consumers who see the logo know that the manufacturer of the product contributes to the cost of recovery and recycling. This can be with household waste collected by the authorities (e.g. in special bags - in Germany these are yellow), or in containers in public places such as car parks and outside supermarkets.The system is financed by the green dot licence fee paid by the producers of the products. Fees also take into account the cost of collection, sorting and recycling methods.In simple terms; the system encourages manufacturers to cut down on packaging as this saves them the cost of licence fees.

This system still requires end users to segregate their garbage,something I think is too much to expect from the citizens of our nation,no offence(people of any nationality ,will be unwilling to change-that’s the point here).So we need to offer some kind of incentive,preferably monetary incentives to make sure end users segregate the garbage.I have seen ‘not so poor’,even upper middle class people ,trying to save money and fighting for it,no matter how tiny the amount looks to be.(ex people arguing with bus conductors,vegetable vendors etc.)So my guess the monetary incentives should be a good enough motivation, regardless of the amount.This mindset to save money may perhaps be used in a positive way is my point.

THE WORKING

In brief: Every form of packaging has a fixed cost.A product is sold including the price of packaging.If the user returns the packaging material, he gets the appropriate amount back.

All companies that use any kind of plastic, paper, cardboard and other forms of packaging, have to register themselves and follow this method.Once they register they will be assigned an unique identification number (UIN).I think a government with strong political will, can make this happen.

Every packaging material used, needs to have a code(like bar code,or any other form of colour coding that may be read by an electronic device)or two.The first code should represent the material being used(for ex Red-plastic,blue-paper or 1-plastic,2-paper,etc)and second code should represent the size and amount of packaging,the UIN and any other information the companies may want to add(date,serial number etc).The size and amount of the packaging can be separated into classes for ex

• Class 1: very small to small(like 1 rupee chocolate wrappers,Shampoo sachems)

• Class 2:Small to medium(wrappers of the size of the standard KitKat chocolate)

• Class 3: Medium to large(of the size of “lays” chips packet and other chips wrappers)

 • Class 4:large (like shampoo bottles etc)

• Class 5:Extra Large(like TV and other electronic item packaging)

 Each item of a particular class will have a fixed cost (for ex class 1:50 paise; class 2:1 rupee and so on.).On returning the packaging material,the appropriate cost is refunded.This actually leads to increase in the MRP of the product, so initially you have to shell out more money, but if you decide to recycle, your net spending remains the same.The profit margin of the shopkeeper also remains the same.

WASTE COLLECTION

This is the real long shot in my proposed method. waste collection stations or kiosks can be set up at every nook and corner of the country.The waste collection station must have an electronic code reader of whatever coding mechanism that has been agreed upon.The waste collection machine, should do the following (this machine doesn't exist as of yet, but is possible to build this, no Rocket science)

•The end user must slowly enter all the garbage one by one into the machine.The machine reads the first code and realizes the type of material used.On reading the second code, the machine determines the cost of the packaging.Using the first code,a combination of conveyor belt and vacuum suction ,the machine drops the garbage in the respective container attached to it(preferably locked).At the end of a user’s session the total worth of his garbage is calculated

• The local municipal authorities must clean these containers daily

• If the above idea appears too sci-fi, the machine may be used only for the calculating the total worth of the garbage using the code reader.The dropping of the garbage into the container can be done manually

• Preferably this collection stations must be open 24x7 and present every village, or street.Small shop owners can be encouraged to manage this station for some profit.

• An app can be created that shows all such waste collecting stations across the country on a Google map.

The tricky issue is once the total worth of someone’s garbage is calculated, how the user is paid that amount.

These are some of the options.

1) Cash: Very impractical, because the amount may be too less and include 50 paises etc, which makes it even more difficult

 2) Some sort of authenticated acknowledgment slip, with amount printed on it and the user gets the amount mentioned on the slip, at say,a bank (Disadvantage: A smart crook can start a scam in this)

3) The user enters his debit card and amount gets debited to back account (disadvantage: This needs banking software, so increases cost and security concerns arise.)

The Government must then collect the data from all the collection station, and calculate the total waste generated, sorted by company using their UIN. The company has to pay the total amount to the government. ( For ex:basically if cost of production is 2 and company was earlier planning to sell it at rs 5,now it sells it at rs 8...the extra 3 rupees must be returned to the government if a user decides to recycle the packaging material).

If we can make the above system work, we still have other issues to deal.E-waste, huge card boards, plastic gunny bags, tyres are a few kinds of wastes that cannot be collected using the proposed method.The e-waste can be collected in the following manner.Every district should have a collection center for e-waste,with trained personnel.If they have the resources they should offer door to door to collection ,or at least collection from home,after a phone call.The trained personnel should take all plastic out of the waste.Then the item must be weighted. Even.Even non functioning electronic items have some metals and other components that can be used. Electronic companies can come together and decide standard amount to be paid for a unit of e-waste based on the weight.Similar method can be used for tyre recycling.

If this system is implemented, it will take care of only those packaging items which follow the coding system mentioned.The tons of trash accumulated over 67 years,lying on the road is going to stay there.For this to change ,we need municipal body reforms.All the municipal reforms that need to be taken have been beautifully summed up in this document(https://www.localcircles.com/a/img/press/Transforming_Municipal_Corporations_Inputs_from_210,000_Citizens_to_Government.compressed.pdf).

The method proposed may need lot of investment from the government and the returns are very low.Still a clean, garbage free India, can improve India’ tourism, reduce the breeding of pests and insects, thus decreasing the spending on healthcare.

So what do you guys think? Can it be implemented? Or is it stretching it too far? Have I been clear in putting forward my views?Please Comment.