Deepika D’Souza
Goa has grown dramatically with an increase in tourism, medical facilities and industry and hence an exponential rise in population density. Each sector contributes a unique type of garbage. Further in the last 20 years packaging and distribution of packaged material has reached the most isolated village, causing an overflow of plastic in ditches, rivers and on the side of almost every road.
Unfortunately, at the local level people deal with this by burning mixed waste which in reality creates a mini Sonsodo daily. Burning garbage is the most dangerous and toxic practice because it releases particulate matter, greenhouse gases, heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants into the atmosphere.
The broad spectrum of pollutants cause innumerable problems ranging from breathlessness, headaches, nausea, vomiting, to more serious long-term ones like cancer, infertility, development delays and endocrine disorders. ‘Persistent organic pollutants’ also known as POPs are more dangerous as they remain in the atmosphere indefinitely.
POPs by nature are stored in fatty tissue - thus stored and secreted in higher quantities in breast milk of women exposed to POPs. Studies have shown young boys exposed to POPs have an impairment in growth and maturity of reproductive organs.
As early as 1960, Rachael Carson in her book Silent Spring noted that the population of Bald Eagles in American were dying out due to the presence of DDT in the food chain which weakened the egg shells of the eggs of the Bald Eagle and caused the eggs to break prematurely thus affecting the ability of the chicks to hatch.
The result of this led to an international campaign to boycott POPs like DDT. However, what the common citizen does not know is by burning PVC commonly found in much of our plastic waste, one is releasing extremely toxic but transparent POPs capable of remaining in the atmosphere and food chain for more than 100 years.
Learning from Mumbai
If there is a burgeoning garbage crisis, our metropolises lead the way. Mumbai is a fine example. In January 2016, the main garbage dump in Mumbai at Deonar caught fire and the entire metropolis was covered with a thick, impenetrable cloud of noxious pollution.
For the first time, policy makers and the Courts were directly affected as the clouds loomed over their residences even though they were a good 30 kms away.
Like Sonsodo, the blaze was extremely difficult to contain and apart from politicians blaming each other no solution was tenable. Then, the Mumbai HC stepped in and passed a judgement banning any further construction till a sustainable plan for garbage management was created. This judgement had an immediate impact.
As per the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016 waste must be segregated at source. This however was never implemented. After the judgement, the Municipality sent out notices that all waste must be segregated at source and bulk generators domestic and commercial must put in place in-house composting facilities within a specified time line.
Those not complying would face criminal action.
This intervention enabled the treatment of wet waste within the compound thereby saving transport cost and vehicular pollution. But greater than that was the joy for the residents to harvest the rich compost generated from what otherwise was just dumped in the waste. These composting initiatives had wide results and many apartment buildings started or restored their gardens and planted vegetables, etc a treat for the average Mumbaikar.
Further interventions were done with Mount Mary Basilica to create a specialised composting for the flowers offered during the Feast in September which normally exceeds two three dumper trucks daily.
The last phase of the project set in place a mobile shredder as garden waste or horticultural waste was found to be one of the highest especially in volume and in order to create a zero-waste locality a mobile shredder was installed to shred the garden waste of the area.
Lessons for Goa
Segregation of waste at source is a must and must be vigorously enforced through incentives and punitive methods. Treating wet waste at source is best, it minimizes cost and ensures better compliance. There is no one size fits all solution necessitating a collaboration and regular working of the authorities with NGOs, citizen’s and other waste generators. Special solutions need to be evolved for market places and small restaurants who generate much wet waste but will need to co-operatively dispose off it.
The Municipality/ Panchayat has to play a strong enabling role and ensure implementation of the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 especially segregation at source. They must create a proper system for collecting dry waste to ensure that it is not burnt. Penalties must be levied for burning of waste and for non- segregation.
At the same time, much effort must be made to hold local sensitisation talks on the types of waste, how to segregate and how to treat waste.
Need for policy intervention
While the government in Goa seems stuck with the domestic waste issue which in reality can be easily managed at the local level, it is not focusing on areas of garbage management where it should be involved “ namely hazardous, medical and construction waste.
While putting in place systems for solving the domestic waste crisis, it must seriously address the issues of collection and disposal of hazardous and medical waste. Syringes, tube lights, soiled diapers, sanitary napkins are not being collected and there are no treatment facilities. At the village and household level what are people to do with this waste? Moreover, inspite of Goa being touted as a popular place for medical tourism and there being numerous medical facilities from path labs in residential buildings, poly clinics to multispecialty hospitals there are no State treatment facility to treat medical waste.
Lastly construction waste must be treated. In other parts of the country, treatment facilities are being installed. In Goa, apart from dumping the waste in open fields and being allowed to do so there is no thought being given to this proliferous waste.
Goa is a small and highly enterprising state it is possible for Goa to create a sustainable, environmentally friendly garbage management plan which could serve as a beacon for the other States that are seriously grappling with this problem.
