Plastics – To Ban or Not to Ban – Part 4 – The solution

This is in continuation to the previous 3 parts, and as mentioned earlier, has nothing to do with my political affiliations and preferences. Also, I have no economic interests in the subject of concern as of now and not likely to have any in the near foreseeable future. Therefore the thoughts below are as unbiased as they can be. Of course, the only bias that is by default is my personal opinions about the Plastic menace.

As mentioned in the earlier part, more garbage bins, maintenance of cleanliness around the bins, effective and timely collection of garbage is critical. However there are 2 complexities to this. One, how can we make it efficient? And two, what do we do with this co-mingled waste along with that which comes wrapped up / packed in plastic carry bags.

For the efficiency part, easily available and inexpensive technologies can help. All the bins can be enabled with a sensor and using IOT technology, the bins can send signals based on the volume of its deposits to a central system which then automatically decides a route map for the garbage vehicle. The garbage vehicle GPS system shall show the realtime map to the driver and the bins can be cleaned up before they overflow. This technology is NOT very expensive unlike the impression it gives. (There are expensive ready solutions from some foreign companies. However, the basic technology is quite cheap and the solution can be built by local software companies at a much cheaper cost.) It can certainly be a part of the civic authority’s annual expense budget. Given that governments balk at expenditure, there are other methods also. It can be made as a mandatory part of a company’s CSR activity to adopt a dozen of dust bins each and maintain them through their CSR budgets.

Once the garbage is collected, the next part is also intensive. Currently whatever piecemeal garbage collection happens, is simply dumped in open dumping grounds. This causes problems such as garbage fires (accidental or otherwise), release of fermentation gases, foul smells, and infections. This needs to be changed immediately.

A good solution is a waste-to-energy plant. Japan has many such plants. In fact, about 8-10% of their total energy comes from WTE plants (Percentage to be confirmed). Many other countries, especially Scandinavian countries have such WTE setups. This is a proven technology and there could be possibilities that corporate houses may want to have a slice of this infrastructural business. Such plants are also set up in Varanasi and Delhi as of the news a few days back. These plants essentially work on incineration basis and given the advancement of technology, extremely effective emission control measures are available. In fact many WTE plant makers integrate highly sophisticated emission control system along with their plant. The residue of this plant when co-mingled waste is used consists of ash, glass and metals. The metals and the glass can be recycled and refined in a foundry while the ash can be used in making fly ash bricks or can be used directly as an additive in concrete for road building. WTE plants of all sizes are available and depending on the waste generation of a city, the plant size can be determined.

However, given that WTE plants are expensive and may not be viable in smaller towns, there is also a possibility of some alternative technologies such as refuse derived fuel. The way it works is, the comingled waste is collected in a central location where at stage 1, the waste is segregated into biodegradable and non biodegradable by waste workers. It is a combination of a mechanical and manual process. Biodegradable waste is converted into biogas which is further used to fire a turbine. Inerts such as glass and metals are manually or mechanically picked up in stage 2 and sold to the relevant buyers who then recycle the same. Other stuff like plastics is again manually classified into recyclable and non recyclable. The non recyclable plastics can be converted into fuel which can also be used to fire the turbines. The recyclables can be recycled to create new plastic. A absolute zero waste circular economy is possible.

For even smaller towns and villages, they can have only local collections and segregation centres. All non degradable material can be stored and periodically transported to larger centres for stage 2 and stage 3 activities. This is the standard honeycomb model where many smaller villages and towns converge into a fewer larger centres which further converge into even few super large centres. Just like we have a standard logistics process from a few manufacturers to the end user, we need to establish this reverse logistics process with significant intervention from the civic authorities, CSR initiatives from corporate houses and local citizen participation.

Palava City in Dombivli has a nice model. They collect garbage from all flats, get it to a single facility where there are many waste workers working for segregation. The waste workers take away the recyclables and sell it to the next point in the recycling supply chain. All degradable material is converted into biogas and fertilizer. They give away the fertilizer to local farmers for free. Other stuff like e-waste is handed over to registered e-waste recyclers. The whole eco system works beautifully.

We have tried a similar model on a small scale for electronic waste with some of our customers and it works very well. The principle is simple. Everyone in the supply chain gets a sizeable incentive to ensure that the system keeps working.

This will ensure that the waste plastics are eliminated from the earth and converted into usable fuel. Additional demand on paper and textiles that would get induced due to plastic ban will get eliminated and in turn remove the indirect disadvantages that I have pointed out in part 1 and 2. The extra fuel generated will reduce the strain on fossil fuels. The residues will assist in reducing sand mining by helping in road building as an alternative additive. The whole waste management activity can come under a regulated industry and provide dignified livelihoods to many.

I leave it to the readers to decide whether to go for the shortcut of a seemingly benign solution that is more of a knee jerk reaction rather than intensely planned policy or whether to oppose it and insist to the state that it should conduct a deeper study on these lines and come out with a more effective, efficient, economically viable, environmentally sustainable and socially beneficial policy.

– The author is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore with specialization in public policy. He works in the waste management space through his venture – ResposeIndia – a company dedicated to manufacturing machinery for e-waste recycling.  Earlier to that, he has a long experience in information technology.

Plastics – To Ban or Not to Ban – Part 3

This is in continuation to the previous 2 parts, and as mentioned earlier, has nothing to do with my political affiliations and preferences. Also, I have no economic interests in the subject of concern as of now and not likely to have any in the near foreseeable future. Therefore the thoughts below are as unbiased as they can be. Of course, the only bias that is by default is my personal opinions about the Plastic menace.

Having examined the credentials of the plastic alternatives in the last 2 parts, it is amply clear that there is simply no viable alternative for most of the plastics in daily use. In the absence of a economically viable alternative, imposing a ban on plastics is not only impractical but also immature. While I do not deny the menace that plastics have caused, it is perhaps important to note that plastics by themselves do not cause any havoc. The menace is actually caused by mismanaged or rather unmanaged plastic disposal. Just imagine a situation where no one in the world throws away plastic irresponsibly, will plastics still continue to be bad?  Now also imagine a situation where plastics are selectively banned and the mismanagement continues. Will the “allowed” plastics still cause environmental damage? The answer is obvious.

The problem statement is clear. Plastic is not an issue. The problems lies in the disposal management system. With that point established, let us move on to now see how do we solve the problem.

Before getting down to find a solution in a hurry, (which the ban effectively is all about) it is important to understand the origin and cause of the problem. It is also important to understand that the problem currently identified is for cheap single use plastics. Let us assume for the time being that other multi use and expensive types of plastic are being handled appropriately (Apparently, not 100% correct).

So this cheap single use plastic is manufactured at a few manufacturing points and the distributed across practically innumerable end points. At the manufacturing point, this bulk production has a certain value and a defined target end point which makes calculating the transport cost possible. This cost is loaded on the manufacturing value. Since the transport is bulk, the per piece extra price load is infinitesimal. However when a single unit of the plastic object in concern is to be picked up from the end point, the transport cost is NOT divided on the bulk. And hence the cost of pickup becomes almost infinite times that of the cost of the disposed product in concern. This is a significant disincentive for any one to pickup these plastics separately. This is the root cause of mismanagement.

For an expensive enough item, it is easy to provide an incentive to return the product to a particular collection/disposal point for establishing a take back system. However it is also important to note that irrespective of the incentive, if the collection/disposal point is not easily accessible,  such take back system will not work. In fact, given that the awareness levels of citizens is going up, if we just make enough collection/disposal points available, the system can work even without any direct incentive. People are now aware enough that disposing plastics in a proper manner itself is an incentive by virtue of improved environment, cleanliness and overall quality of life.

But for inexpensive and widely proliferated items such as under 50 micron carry bags and tea cups, etc., it is not possible or economically viable to implement any direct incentive structure. So we must bank upon the indirect incentive of the benefits of cleaner surroundings.

How do we achieve this? Let us take the case of carry bags which is the most ‘visible’ problem area. One way to get rid of it is to stop manufacturing it. The last 2 parts have shown why this is not a logical or viable step. So now let us concentrate on the end points. Ultimately the end use is at a household level. There is a daily garbage pickup mechanism from the households. In some areas of some cities this is efficiently implemented. In most places it is not. Can we fix it by some political will, focused effort and strict vigilance? Perhaps yes.

The garbage pickup from slum areas is a problem. In a large slum where thousands of households are crammed up in a small space, it is impossible for a garbage collection van to reach the centre of the slum. There just isn’t enough space. Since there is no pickup available, the residents pack their garbage in the same villainous plastic bags and dump them in a open drainage or in an open area or in and around a solitary large municipal dust bin. More often that not this dustbin is overflowing, the surrounding area is so unclean that no one will want to go near the bin and throw the bag inside. Usually it is a simple swing throw vaguely aimed at somewhere around the bin from about 20 feet away. The result is 

So first thing that needs to be corrected is timely collection and maintenance of the garbage area. So steps should be, first to cover all the open drainage systems, second to install more garbage bins in every available open area, and third to keep the garbage collection points clean. This is the responsibility of the civic authority.

Next point. We are large population. A few tiny bins will not suffice. We will need many more larger bins at many more locations. I guess those who have visited cleaner countries would have noticed the number of garbage bins and their locations. Given their population density, the bins really stand out if one is looking for them. Almost all the time, residents and even visitors from otherwise undisciplined countries such as ours look for these bins to throw garbage. There are 2 reasons. One is the fear of the law. Second, and the one that I think is more important is that one does not litter in a place that is already sparkling clean. If you see a corner with a file of rubbish, you have the tendency to increase the pile!

Third point. It can be made mandatory for road side eateries and tea stalls to deposit their waste in the nearby bins. If the bins are sufficiently close, it works. There are many places in Mumbai where there are entire lanes of small road side eateries, popularly called as “khau gallis” . In many of these places, this system exists and it works. Of course it can be made more efficient and robust.

More on collection methods, technologies and the next steps in the next part.

Meanwhile, now that “to ban or not to ban” is out of question, keep thinking, how to solve the plastic problem without banning it.

– The author is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore with specialization in public policy. He works in the waste management space through his venture – ResposeIndia – a company dedicated to manufacturing machinery for e-waste recycling. 

 

 

 

 

Plastics – To Ban or Not to Ban? Part 2

As mentioned in the previous part, I reiterate that this article has nothing to do with my political affiliations and preferences. Let me also make it clear that I have no economic interests in the subject of concern as of now and not likely to have any in the near foreseeable future. Therefore the thoughts below are as unbiased as they can be. Of course, the only bias that is by default is my personal opinions about the Plastic menace.

Continuing from where we stopped, if long lasting cloth bags are used as the replacement of plastic bags, the equations change. The environmental footprint of cotton is far higher than plastics. With the same numbers from part 1, we will need 3 crore cotton or Jute bags. These will be stronger and will last longer. Upto about 5 years. Weight of each bag is about 50 grams or more depending on the size and reinforcement. Usually these bags come is bigger sizes and cannot be easily folded and pocketed. So 3 Cr bags of 50 grams each, considering conservatively, we are talking about an increased demand of 1500 tons of stiff cloth. This requires even more power and water to produce as compared to synthetics. Secondly, additional 1500 tons of cotton or jute will need to be grown. This will mean either lesser production of other agricultural products or additional land under agriculture. Additional land under agriculture will also mean additional deforestation and additional demand on water for irrigation. Deforestation and water demand are definitely at loggerheads.

Another alternative for carry bags that is talked about are bio-degradable bags made from corn starch or similar material. This will also mean additional production of these crops. Again, it comes back to the same additional demand on already scarce resources.

These non recyclable or self degradable options are not at all substitutes for plastic carry bags. At least not for major use cases.

Plastic single use containers

Typically these are used by caterers for packing food items. First and foremost, let me agree that majority of these plastics are not suited for packing food items. We do not have any mechanism to determine that as well. So whether the packing material is safe or not for food, we do not know.

Secondly, these so called ‘single use’ containers are more often than not, used many more times by the lower economic classes of the society. Even many middle class households reuse these containers for a few times before discarding them. Whether it is advisible to do so, is another matter altogether.

Now who uses these containers after their 1st use? Most labour class, 4th grade workers, daily wage workers use it for their regular lunch. That is the best they can afford. By banning these containers, we are forcing an additional cost of lunch boxes and storage containers on these lower income groups.

Again, the alternatives proposed are containers made from biodegradabale plastics, agricultural material, etc. The same limitations and resource concerns that I have mentioned in case of plastic bags hold good. Is it wise to keep exploiting so much of natural non renewable resources just because we find it difficult to control the pollution potential of an otherwise extremely useful material?

Plastic cups, plates, cutlery etc

These are usually used in large family parties or on a regular scale at road side tea stalls and eateries. For the family parties, it is possible that they can shift to alternative material such as edible cutlery. Price is not a great concern in such occasions.

But for road side tea stalls, plastic cups were introduced for multiple reasons, most important being hygiene. Glass cups need to be washed before reuse. Most road side tea stalls do not have running water. Their cleaning mechanism is simply dip in two buckets of water one after the other. This certainly doesnt guarantee complete cleaning. Given that Indian tea vendors serve tea with milk and sugar, cups that are not thoroughly cleaned are susceptible to bacterial growth. Secondly, glass cups are prone to breaking and replacement is expensive.

In case of paper cups, these usually have a lining on the inside to make it leak proof. This lining is itself a potential hazard to health when used for hot liquids. Also paper cups will mean all the negatives that are applicable to paper bags against plastic bags. The only difference is that the paper quality is much better as compared to bags and hence the pollution potential of this paper is much higher than newsprint kind of paper. Also paper cups are more expensive than plastic ones. Obviously the cost of the cup is transferred to the consumer. Majority consumers of tea from road side tea stalls are from lower income groups. They will have to shell more for a cup of tea and burn a bigger hole in their pockets.

Same is true for plastic plates given in eateries. There are many small vendors who sell home made breakfast in the mornings. These vendors have to now hike their price because of the switch to paper. More often than not, this paper is also coated with a thin film of plastic or aluminium. This completely defeats the objective of bio degradability of the plates. Steel plates will have their issues of hygiene. Besides water utilization goes up by about 100 litres per vendor per day. Conservative estimate is that there are at least about 2000 such vendors in Mumbai and suburbs alone. This means an additional water demand of 2 Lakh litres per day.

PET Bottles 

PET bottles are not included in the ban. If we just google images of plastic pollution, we see majority photographs of plastic bottles. It is an equal or bigger menace than plastic carry bags. Why PET bottles are not included is any body’s guess. There is simply no viable alternative. It is also argued that PET bottles are recyclable and hence not included in the ban. But so is any other plastic.

Now look at who consumes packaged drinking water. Clearly not the lower economic class. They reuse these bottles as and when available to them.

So what are the alternatives ? More about it in the next part…

Meanwhile, keep thinking – Plastics – to ban or not to ban ?

Plastics – To Ban or Not to Ban ? – Part 1

At the outset, let me make clear that this article has nothing to do with my political affiliations and preferences. Let me also make it clear that I have no economic interests in the subject of concern as of now and not likely to have any in the near foreseeable future. Therefore the thoughts below are as unbiased as they can be. Of course, the only bias that is by default is my personal opinions about the Plastic menace.

Let us begin by restricting this discussion to the banned items – primarily carry bags less than 50 microns thick, garbage liners and “single use” plastics usually used in the catering industry. For the time being we shall leave thermocol out of this discussion.

Carry Bags less than 50 microns.

First and foremost I wonder how many people know what is a micron or how much exactly is 50 microns? Secondly, among even those who know, how many people know how to measure 50 microns? And third, among those who know, how many have the resources to measure it? That itself becomes a single cause for hassling between citizens and law enforcers, harassment if any and ultimately failure of the regulation. For the records, such ban on under 50 microns plastic carry bags was imposed a few years back and it was a utter failure. The reasons quoted by the law enforcers is that the fine was Rs 200/- and it was too low. Let us take it at face value. My question is, how many law breakers were fined? Are we saying that people chose to pay 200/- everytime and still use thinner bags? And that too as a regular practice for these may years of the erstwhile ban? Ridiculous!

I do agree that a fine must be strict and serve as a serious disincentive to the law breakers. So I am ok with the 5000/- fine. I have no complaints about that. My contention is clearly on the ban itself and not the fine. But here goes one more issue. How many people carrying these plastic bags carry 5000/- in their wallets? India is a country where per capita income is less than INR 10,000/- per month. You seriously expect people to pay 5000/-? So what happens when one gets caught? I leave the matter here to the reader’s imagination. But I guess readers will understand why even 5000/- will not work. And why the amount of fine was not the real culprit behind the previous ban failure.

Now let us assume that we are all, more or less, law abiding or law fearing (more of the latter!) citizens. Official population of Maharashtra state is about 12 Crores (Rounded off for ease of reading and comprehension). Lets assume a household size of 4 on an average. That makes it 3 Crore households. Let us assume that each household shops 4 times in a week and everytime they shop, they consume on an average 2 carry bags. So every week we consume 24 crore carry bags. The weight of 1000 carry bags of an average size sufficient to carry about 3 kg goods is roughly about 500 grams. So 24 crore bags will mean 120 tons of plastic every week, which means 6240 tons plastic disposed every year. That’s a significant number. And we are talking only about Maharashtra state.

Now if we consider that we will replace plastics with paper, which is also a ‘single use’ case. We are talking about 24 crore paper bags. The weight of 1000 paper bags of similar size of the plastic bags is about 6 kgs. Also note that against 1 plastic bag, the same size of paper bag can carry lesser weight. But let us discount that and assume that we replace plastic carry bags with the same number of paper bags. So it is a straight 12 times increase in weight as compared to plastic carry bags. That means we will need 74,880 tons of paper. It takes about 12 trees to make 1 ton paper of the grade required to make such bags. (24 trees for stationery paper.) So number of trees required to be cut down for meeting our new increased demand on paper will be 8,98,560. That is just short of a million trees ! Even if we assume that 25% of paper bags will be recycled, (Which will not happen. This paper will simply vanish in dumps.) we will still be needing 6,73,920 trees to be cut. EVERY YEAR!

Ok. Let us consider another alternative of cloth bags. Let us assume that the same 3 crore households will now use 2 cloth bags each. And of course, these bags will not be thrown away after 1 use. But it may be ok to assume that you will need to replace them eventually. Also we assume that these are easy to carry, light weight, thin fabric bags. Since we are assuming the same situation, 4 times usage in a week and 52 weeks a year means a bag will be used for 208 times in a year. Let us also assume that these bags are washed on an average once in 2 weeks (That is as filthy as it can possibly get!). 1 bag can perhaps survive for 2 years before it is rendered out of service. So we will need 6 crore cloth bags per 2 years. So let us assume the mathematical equivalent of 3 crore per year demand on cloth bags. This cloth may be synthetic or natural fabric. Whatever is the material, the electrical energy required to convert the yarn to 1 meter cloth is about 0.5 KWh , ie half a metered unit. Let us assume 1 meter requirement per bag including the cutting losses. So for 3 Crore bags we will need 1.5 Cr KWh of electrical energy. Apart from this you also need thermal energy of about 5000 Kcal per meter of polyester yarn. So for 3 Crore meters, we need 150 TCal (Tera Calories) i.e 17.4 Cr KWh, thus totalling to approx 18 Cr Units of metered electrical energy. Given that 80% of electricity still comes from fossil fuels, think about the amount of additional fossil fuels to be burnt for meeting this added demand.

In case we assume that better quality, long lasting cotton or jute bags are used, the equations change significantly. But let us hold it for the next part of this discussion which I will publish soon…

In the meantime, keep thinking – Plastics – to ban or not to ban ?

– The author is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore with specialization in public policy. He works in the waste management space through his venture – ResposeIndia – a company dedicated to manufacturing machinery for e-waste recycling. 

Transforming from ‘dumping ground’ to an Urban Mining Success Story

STEP and the UN have ‘warned’ that most e-waste from US may be exported to (or shall we say dumped in) India.

How strange! More than half of the valuable content of WEEE processed in India is exported! So effectively, the WEEE will be dumped in India at dirt cheap rates. All the dirty work of sorting, dismantling, isolation of valuable components will be done in India, the negative value items will be simply discarded in primitive ways due to lack of technologies or affordability of the same. And the cream goes abroad again. The same metals recovered somewhere are again imported in India at a high price!

I look at this UN ‘warning’ as a great opportunity for our formal sector. In fact under current situations, one may see it as a great opportunity for the likes of Umicore and Dowa! Considering that the e-waste dumped in India will undergo dismantling at the basic level and the valuable contents will be exported to them, they may have already stepped up their Christmas celebrations!

India generates about a million tons of e-waste already. The total installed capacity of the formal e-waste recycling sector is just about 10% of that. The remaining 90% has no trace, simply vanishing in the informal sector and powering a large grey economy. Even at that 10% capacity, the formal sector is struggling to get e-waste. This is where the opportunity comes in.

Now lets look at this a bit more positively. E-Waste is a great resource. The problem with this resource is that it is highly polluting if handled carelessly. Umpteen studies have shown that when clean recycling methods are applied to WEEE, the metals recovered actually have a much greener footprint. For example the amount of Copper recoverable from 1 ton of WEEE of an average quality can be easily about 100 Kg. Considering the fact that the global yield of copper mines is falling and has already reached below 3%, it means that we are replacing at least about 3 tons of Copper ore. And if we consider the environmental cost of extraction and refining of pure copper from copper ore, it is at least 6-8 times that in case of WEEE recycling. So if we have to consider the actual total cost (including social cost) of copper recovered from WEEE versus that from a mine, we can safely say that the former has a 20 times better value than the latter. And to add some more math, with 1 ton of WEEE recycling, we are replacing 3 tons of mining. So with say 25 million tons, we can replace 75 million tons of mining. Is that close to the weight of a small mountain? Probably yes. And we are still talking only about copper! WEEE contains almost about 40 metals! (See www.resposeindia.com for more details). How many hills and forests and natural carbon sinks can we save!

The key lies in how green can we keep this activity. If we can implement clean technologies at affordable costs and make our processes compliant to globally acceptable standards, we have a winning story. We at ResposeIndia are bullish about the entire e-waste sector.

What can be done is, all our existing formal sector and those willing to upgrade from the informal sector can be aligned to global standards and made compliant to ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 and R2. Thereby we can legally import WEEE. We can equip the e-waste recycling facilities with affordable technology solutions for environment friendly recycling and transform the millions of tons of WEEE to billions of dollars. We at ResposeIndia provide such services at extremely affordable costs. That holds the key. Making recycling technology mainstream will provide answers to many questions. We need not oppose US ‘dumping’ e-Waste into India or even be worried about it. Let us evaluate how we can transform all this waste to wealth.

Why are most authorized e-waste businesses struggling?

I got this question posed to me in a social media interaction. In larger interests of the e-waste sector as a whole, I thought it would be a good idea to post a blog.

There are multiple reasons responsible for the woes of authorized e-waste recycling business. First and foremost in the list is the regulatory framework. The current e-waste regulations are grossly incomplete. These regulations have been made with the sole objective of controlling pollution by the informal sector. While this part of the objective is good in itself, the other side must be to encourage the formal sector. This part is grossly missing. As I have always been saying, every person needs an incentive to do anything. Currently the incentives offered to the formal sector are so ridiculous that the entire system actually encourages the informal sector. (see : https://respose.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/recycling-versus-resposal-the-e-waste-case/)

Secondly, the informal sector has its own unique style of working. They have by far perfected the technique of reverse logistics. Under operations management, reverse logistics is supposedly one of the most difficult tasks. Akin to the ‘dabbawalas’ of Mumbai who have won a place in Harvard case studies, this informal recycling sector collection chain is a masterpiece in itself. The amount of money, effort and time required to establish a parallel equally successful system is simply unimaginable. Many companies have tried to copy the ‘dabbawala’ model in the food industry but most have failed drastically. One needs to understand that there is always a great value in simplicity. Complex board room solutions often fail at grass roots. This reverse logistics expertise is grossly lacking in the formal authorized sector.

Thirdly, the country does not have a great metallurgical infrastructure. Most of our metallurgical giants are focused on a single metal. There is a gross lack of multi metal smelting and refining units. Therefore the part of the e-waste value chain that is generates the maximum wealth is not within reach of Indian recyclers. We at ResposeIndia are trying to devise clean technologies suited to the Indian market conditions in terms of individual collection sizes and budgets. As of now we have succeeded only to a certain level (restricted to metal and non metal separation). (See http://www.resposeindia.com/products)

Fourthly, the demographics of India are so diverse that one single solution to any problem does not exist. It will always need to be a framework with suitable modifications over every 200 km radius. This is extremely difficult and expensive for Indian corporate houses to achieve, given the fragmented e-waste scenario today.

Fifth, the awareness levels about e-waste, what is means, what are the hazards, what are their responsibilities, etc are extremely low even among the effluent higher middle class, let alone the rest of the population. There are many more issues related to econometrics, logistic infrastructure, half baked legal frameworks, polarized thinking on part of some of the NGOs and environmental activists, etc. Each of these issues deserves a long article in itself.

To conclude for the time being, the reasons are many. What has a potential of being an endless source of wealth is being grossly neglected as a low level, blue collared, polluting business. However the fact is that if done in an organized fashion with a little bit of lateral thinking, resposal is a fantastic method of transforming waste to wealth. For more details, see (www.resposeindia.com/infobank)

Symbiosis of informal sector and formal e-waste resposal agents

I have been reading most blogs on e-waste and I see that most of them are dedicated to pointing flaws in policies and laws and implementation models. I think it is most inappropriate that governments throughout the world need to be involved in making policies for effective collection of e-waste. I may sound ridiculous to many. But here goes my logic –

e-Waste management is basically dependent on efficient collection. Rest of the things are easy. For efficient collection, policy researchers and environmentalists are crying hoarse over making collection effective. The question commonly being asked is who will bear the cost of collection. All suggestions for policies, laws, models revolve around how the cost of collection can be transferred to be generator of e-waste. So far so good.

The critical question is who is the generator of e-waste? Manufacturer? Distributor? Retailer? User? Reuser? Depending on the convenience of the policy maker (suggestor!) one can decide that. However I have a slightly different line of thought. Who bears the cost of distribution of electronic goods? If one understands the economic incentive attached in distribution of electronic goods, I guess it is easy to see an answer for the reverse logistics cost transfer problem.

If we look at the India example, less than 95% e-waste comes to authorized recyclers. (As of 2012). The question is where is the remaining? Obviously it is collected through the informal sector. If the informal sector can collect 95% of a million tons of e-waste a year, I guess they must be at least as efficient in the processes, cost management and network as any damn corporate chain, if not more. Does it therefore make any sense in breaking that highly efficient collection chain?

The problem is not the existence of the informal sector. The problem is in ensuring that they get rid of the collection in a right manner. This is where the question of incentives comes in force. I personally thing that no one spoils environment by choice. It is either unawareness or lack of incentives to keep things clean. One may as well put it the other way round. There are clearly visible instant economic incentives for the polluters to pollute. (see : https://respose.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/recycling-versus-resposal-the-e-waste-case/)

In one of my earlier blogs I urged readers to sell their e-waste only to authorized recyclers. However a few grey hair later, I feel that it may not be the panacea to the problem. Yes, it could contribute in some small way in making the recycling activity cleaner, but only in a small way. I guess mainstreaming the informal sector collectors is the most logical answer to the problem of e-waste. (In fact all other wastes as well !)

If we can simply build a mechanism to clearly separate the scope of activities of a collection agent and a resposal agent (recycler) and provide each of them individual economic incentives, I guess it could be a great model. If both can coexist and a market place can be created where free trade of e-waste is made possible between collection agents and resposal agents, it could build a very nice ecosystem. And to build such an ecosystem, governments need not play a major role all they can do is provide a conducive framework for creating such a market and the invisible hand of the market will play its role in achieving the larger social good. Just some food for thought !!!!

* For Resposal : pls see : https://respose.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/respose/

For more information on e-waste resposal pls see http://www.resposeindia.com

 

Recycling versus Resposal : the e-waste case

Resposal, a term coined by Respose Waste Management and Research, India, stands for responsible disposal. Respose does not use the term recycling because a recycling process may simply  not be responsible enough.

Recycling, according to Respose, is a flawed industry. In developing countries such as India, the e-waste processing sector is grossly abused by the informal recyclers who have no concern for the environment. The typical informal recycler uses primitive tools such as fire and acid. Most of the available WEEE in India, almost to the tune of about 80%, ends up with informal recyclers who simply crack open the equipment and rip off the PCBs and Wires. The rest of the body is directly sold to scrap metal dealers. The PCBs are immersed in acid baths to recover gold. The wires are burnt in the open to recover copper. In both these processes, the damage to the environment is unimaginable. Also the quality of the recovered metal is significantly impacted. The total yield of such processes cannot go beyond 30-40% . The advantage this sector enjoys is its extremely low cost. The capital investment is almost nil and the labour is often underpaid. Also, very often this labour comprises mainly of children and women. The long term impact of this business is therefore highly negative in terms of health, education, and all other issues imposed by economic constraints. Therefore if we consider social costs as a part of production cost, the informal e-waste recycler has a very high total cost of production. Because the social costs are left out of the equation, theoretically the informal process results in supernormal profits. At the same time since the yields and the purity are low, the actual realization of the profits is much lower. Sometimes even lower than the formal resposal process.

As against this e-Waste resposal is a potential candidate for creating high value in terms of both tangible monetary benefits as well as intangible social and environmental benefits. In the organized sector, the process is compliant with environmental norms and a mechanism exists to continuously monitor the compliance. The process is split into two phases, dry and wet. In the dry process, where no chemicals are used, it is a simple mechanical size reduction. The size of PCBs is reduced till the layers separate. The mixture of the mixed metal granules and the epoxy powder is separated by a density separation technique. The entire process can be made completely automatic and environment friendly. In the second stage the separated mixed metals go through a series of steps, some of which use chemicals and some use incineration. However the effluents are properly treated before discharge and environmental compliance is maintained. It is a completely closed “black-box” process so that there is no direct risk to the labour. In this case the yield is increased to as high as 98% . Also the purity of the metals is much higher fetching higher returns. Thus, in this process, no social costs are incurred. The only cost is the operational cost. While the capital cost is high, it is surely less than the social cost incurred. Also, the capital cost is a one time expense whereas the social cost is incurred everytime the process is run. Therefore it makes infinite sense to replace marginal social cost by a one time fixed capital cost.

Also, considering that labour costs are always on the rise, in the informal recycling sector a stage will eventually come when the labour costs may have a sharp impact on profits. Whereas in the resposal process, since dependence on labour is kept lower, this rise in labour costs has a much lower impact. Apart from the economic impact, there is a large positive impact on the environment by virtue of resposal. The metals recovered from the WEEE can meet some percentage of the overall metal demand. This means, given that there is only a limited stock of metal on the earth, the existing mines in the world can perhaps last much longer. Needless to say that lesser the mining, lesser is the damage to the forest cover, lesser is the erosion of the carbon sinks. Conversely, the informal recycling process creates a higher pollution leading to a higher Greenhouse effect, contributes to erratic rainfall patterns, has an impact on health, and drains the economic resources towards curative causes rather than allowing to invest the same in preventive medicine. Apart from pollution the informal sector employs child labour and women at dirt cheap prices. This, while it seems to give the poor an economic incentive, in reality it prevents them from being able to pursue larger opportunities. An unskilled labour in an informal recycling environment perennially lives in the same profile and the only escape from abject poverty is through organized crime.

In the resposal process, conversely all these social drawbacks are addressed. Respose is therefore committed to bring in a complete revolution in the e-waste recycling industry and encourage their gradual shift to resposal.

What’s the big deal about e-waste?

India produced 8 million tons of electronic waste in 2009. In 2012, the number may cross 12 million tons. No big deal. With a population of  1.3 billion, it  means a mere 10 Kgs per capita !

The big deal is here. e-waste is the fastest growing pile of waste worldwide, and in India and China it is growing faster than the world. Great ! It simply means that India and China are absorbing new technology and discarding old technology at a rate faster than the world. So good for them.

No.

The reality is that a large part of this heap is contributed by the west. Despite anti-dumping laws, there are huge consignments of e-waste being brought in India and China in the name of ‘second hand products for reuse and/or resale’. In reality  these containers go straight to the unorganized recycling sector. Ok. So what? If the unorganized sector is getting a livelihood, isnt it good enough?

The issue is that they do get a livelihood in return of their lives !

Let us look at the entire mechanics of how this whole stuff works. e-Waste is collected through multiple sources including the ragpickers, large ITES companies, manufacturers, governments and of course the banned import route. (Sometimes I think, imposing a ban on anything is equivalent to signalling that now you can make money out of this!) The collection chain is an extremely “well organized” network with a clear hub and spoke arrangement. The ragpickers sell their foraging to the slightly bigger scrap retailer. Such scrap retailers then sell it to a scrap dealer. Many such dealers then sell it to a regional scrap agent. These agents collect the scrap on behalf of the scrap tycoon.

This tycoon directs the scrap to recycling agents who then download it to local recyclers. These local recyclers dump it on their labour, often bonded labour. Such labourers actually recycle the scrap with three simple tools : A sledge hammer, a match stick and acid. The collected scrap is simply broken into pieces. The wires are burnt in heaps. The PCBs (printed circuit boards) are dipped in acid and the metals are dissolved in the acids. The output obtained is metal pieces and plastic from the external casings, a highly contaminated lump of copper from the wires and various metals in form of sulphates and chlorides and nitrides and other salts. And of course the largest output is the by products – poisonous gases, tar, leachants, wasted acids and chemicals.

There is absolutely no problem in dealing with these pollutants. There is a simple mechanism. The poisonous gases are inhaled by the workers. So human lungs take care of treating the gases. Left over gases become a part of the city atmosphere. So we have a few million lungs cleaning the gases. The leachants and tar and other stuff that runs into the ground is absorbed by the soil. The earth being earth, it simply allows the poison to seep in. Occasionally it may seep in directly in an aquifer. Else it may simply be absorbed by trees (if there are any!). And as far as wasted acid and other dissolved chemicals are concerned, it is very easy to let it flow to the nearest drainage that finally terminates either water bodies either above the earth’s surface or below. If it is above the earth’s surface, the treatment is simple. Aquatic life takes care of it. So may kidneys, gills, intestines are available to clean the water. So the final residue on the planet is only a few dead bodies. That’s fine. Someone needs to sacrifice for the benefit of the environment !

It is a scary situation. We, at Respose, conducted a small dipstick survey. (Of course it was a under cover operation. And we could only venture as far as our common sense and a sixth sense of danger would allow.  Recyclers dont like too much inquisitiveness. So one needs to know when to back out. ) The survey was based on the economic and health aspects of the waste workers.

Table 1 : Average Sick Days observation in waste labourers

People interviewed	37	Average Years in this activity	Average monthly earning	Avg No of sick days in a month	Avg weight (kg)
Male Adults (above 14)	15	5	4500	3	48
Female Adults (above 14)	4	5	3000	4	42
Male Children (under 14)	10	4	1400	6	29
Female Children (under 14)	8	3	1200	6	27

Table 2 : Average Daily Earning of ragpickers

	No. of. Respondents	Material collected	Average daily income (Rs)
Male Adults	10	Plastic, Metals, Paper, household electronic equipment	76
Female Adults	30	Plastic, cloth, metals	53
Male Children (under 14)	43	Plastic, cloth	32
Female Children (under 14)	37	Plastic, cloth	27

This is the big deal.

While the ‘mafias of waste’ are making huge money, the actual workers are languishing.

Respose aims to change this. We therefore appeal –  DO NOT throw away your electronic waste and please DO NOT sell it to your local scrap retailer.

The unsung heroes of waste management

India is a strange country. On one side we have the spotlessly clean malls, high profile residential complexes, shining chrome and glass office buildings and on the other side, reflected in the same chrome and glass is the stink of defecation,  mess of the slums and huge piles of garbage collected from the upmarket areas and dumped unceremoniously in heaps.

And within these heaps of garbage are human scavengers and rag-pickers isolating the garbage into the usable and the useless. So much for the slogans of reduce, reuse and recycle. This scavenging community that lives on the edge of life and death every day is the saviour of the day. A sight of a 12-14 year old girl carrying a sack of her size on her back and a prodding stick in hand, turning the garbage up and down to find something of value is a very common sight in India. This girl may work throughout the afternoons in the hot sun, inhaling the  stink that seems to be the only fragrance of life that she knows and would ever know.

Typically her day starts early morning in the dark (before dawn) when she has to relieve herself before the males rise. Then she goes back to her make shift shelter made of plastic and jute bags, pieces of asbestos and thin bamboo to figure out what she can do to help her mother, perhaps in the same business as hers, to “cook” some sort of concoction which may pass for breakfast for the family. This “food” is mostly a appalling watery liquid of some cereal flour and salt. Once in a while if they are in good luck, they may be able to have some hand made Indian bread with raw onion or a paste of cooked lentil flours. The food is cooked on a smoky fire made by burning variety of fuels ranging from paper, wood, dried dung cakes, coal and sometimes kerosene. Soon after she would leave for the garbage piles dragging her filthy sack. Surely, there is no concept of a daily bath and changing of clothes is just a luxury.

She would then toil in the hot Indian Sun throughout the day trying to collect broken plastic pens, cans, metal cans, bottles and all possible variants of garbage that may be able to fetch her some value. In the afternoon, she may perhaps help herself with a small piece of Indian bread or a left over scrap tied carefully in her filthy dress. Or she may buy herself a “vada pav” (A kind of burger with just bread and fried potato balls, generously sprinkled with red chilly powder. Now is the time for her to segregate her spoils.

Once she is done, she now needs to go to the guy who usually buys her scrap and if she is lucky she may drive a hard bargain of Rs 20 -30 ( about 40 -60 US cents in today’s value). On an especially great day she can hope for Rs 50 (About a dollar). She is smart enough to take the money in small change, hide some part away and give the remaining to her mother who would the  buy the necessary ingredients for their next meal.

This community, perhaps about a million strong in urban India (Give or take a few thousands. Who cares for their lives any ways!), ensures steady supply of scrap to the unorganized waste recycling sector that recycles about 5000 tons of waste every day (the number may vary depending on how it is arrived at. I have a simple calculation – 1 million x 5 kg per day on an average).

This scavenging community is directly responsible for cleaning up 5000 tons of garbage every day! ie about 18 million tons a year ! And all this while they lead an existence tottering on the leading edge of perpetual poverty!

Of course this does not mean that we should let them keep contributing their 18 million tons while they worm their way through their lives. The situation can surely be improved through innovative and ambitious projects by social entrepreneurs such as Respose.

At Respose, we are trying to organize these rag pickers and scavengers in self help groups. We are trying to improve their living standards and work environment. Respose is working out a model that promises to lift these people out of their poverty and convert this entire unorganized waste management sector into an organized industry. Instead of waste disposal, we are promoting the idea of resposal – responsible disposal. The grand aim is to make give these people their right place as the heroes of waste management