PANAJI:
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday alleged that there was a "hidden scam" in the Deposit Refund Scheme launched by the Pramod Sawant-led BJP government to tackle recyclable waste like food cans, bottles and plastic waste.
The Sawant government had rolled out the Deposit Refund Scheme (DRS) claiming that it will improve waste management in the State by offering incentives to recycle PET bottles, cans and glass bottles.
While calling it well-intentioned, AAP's general secretary Francis Coelho said, beneath this noble-sounding goal lies a scam aimed at building a monopoly which could potentially dismantle whatever success Goa’s waste management ecosystem has achieved, burden citizens and benefit one solitary private company, RECYCLE.
Addressing a press conference along with AAP State president, Amit Palekar and other leaders, Coelho said, the DRS only covers PET bottles, cans and glass, which are already being recycled at an impressive 90% rate by the informal sector and small individual recyclers.
"Instead of focusing on e-waste, low-value plastics and multilayer packaging (MLP) which are the real bottlenecks in Goa's waste management, the scheme only focuses on high-value items and gives it to one private company for free," Coelho said.
In effect it is privatising public waste streams and handing over the most profitable waste to RECYCLE without any competitive process, he added.
He said, MRFs set up by panchayats and small recyclers depend on these high value materials to earn the revenue to offset the cost of solid waste management but by diverting this “cream” waste, the government will ensure profits for a single company at the cost of all others.
Explaining the economics of Goa's Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs), Coelho added that these rely on 10-15% high-value waste to generate 50-60% of their revenue which helps handle the 85-90% of other low-value waste (plastics, paper and other junk).
With the introduction of DRS, MRFs will lose access to profitable waste, making it impossible for them to cover the costs of managing the remaining low-value waste, he said.
"As MRFs collapse, the waste infrastructure will crumble, leaving panchayats burdened with unmanageable garbage," Coelho said, adding that other local buisnesses in the sector will be left bankrupt too.
It will also lead to loss of livelihood for hundreds of people currently involved in Goa’s waste management industry which Coelho said is estimated to employ close to 10,000 people -- waste pickers, ferrywallas, scrap dealers and workers at MRFs.
Coelho said, this DRS which is actually a scam, be stopped and Goa's dry waste management system be pre-empted from collapsing as it is one of the most successful in the country built organically and some institutional support by small recyclers, MRFs, and informal waste workers.
