Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat
As India’s 1.30 billion + population has been witnessing a three-week lock-down with effect from 25th March, many people seem to be getting frustrated as they are not able to utilize the time quite efficiently sitting in home from morning to evening. Watching TV news and watsapp messages is frustrating many. I would suggest people make best use of the ongoing lock-down. In my opinion learning art of waste management especially managing kitchen and food waste is the best thing we can do at home. In a place like Jammu & Kashmir where COVID 19 lock-down is more strict and people even being taken into custody by police for roaming on streets, the management of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) especially the food waste is a challenging task for municipal authorities in Srinagar , Jammu and other towns. The main reason is lack of sanitation staff who are not able to attend their duties. The food waste accumulation in mohallas and colonies is adding to our problems because authorities are not able to lift the same due to obvious reasons. Even if the sanitation staff is available i would suggest waste collection by them from individual households be avoided at least for two to three weeks so as to stop the spread of COVID-19 infection. Pertinently the sanitation workers and rag-pickers are more susceptible to this viral infections because of their nature of job.
Managing Food waste
From last several years i have been stressing upon in-house composting of organic waste (kitchen waste). I along with my friends from Environmental Policy Group (EPG) gave a presentation to state Chief Secretary B V R Subramanhyam in December 2019 urging upon him and his administrative secretaries to enforce management of kitchen waste within the house premises especially for those households who own 8 marlas of land or more. Such households can be directed to dig a 5 x 3 feet pit or can be asked to use a big plastic or steel drum for storing the kitchen waste. I have written about the whole process in my several articles in past. I am not sure how many people have taken tips from those write-up’s but I was overwhelmed when I got a message from a doctor in Chennai recently who has started composting food waste on her terrace using a big plastic bin. The doctor had gone through one of my articles published in a Srinagar based newspaper on management of kitchen and food waste. The COVID -19 lock down is the best time to learn managing household waste especially the kitchen waste within the boundary walls of our house. This may be bit challenging for those families living in multi-storied apartments and flats but for a place like Kashmir , Jammu and many other smaller towns and cities where people have some space in front of their house or terrace, processing kitchen waste won’t be an arduous task.
Dustbin not a Solution ?
While showing our concern for management of solid waste we have a very simple advise to people especially for our kids “Beta Dustbin use Karo” (use dustbin). Teachers stress on students, parents stress upon children, civic authorities request citizens to use trash-bins for disposing off solid waste. Have we ever thought for a while where shall the dustbin or trash-bin go ? Dustbin is not going to eat up the solid waste. It has to go somewhere? Let us assume that all the trash generated in colonies, towns and villages will be thrown in dustbins from April 15th 2020, where shall all this waste finally go? When I ask people they say it will go to Dumping Site (landfill site). How many scientific garbage dump sites we have in J&K ? Do we have enough land availability to create new garbage dumps? In past through my columns in this newspaper I have exposed Municipal Councils & Committees of Udhampur, Poonch , Ramban, Kulgam, Magam, Kupwara and many others using all the unscientific methods to dump municipal solid waste (MSW) either near water-bodies or inside Forest areas.
The lone landfill site in Srinagar at Saidpora Achan is almost overloaded with garbage. Every day around 350 to 450 metric tons of garbage is unloaded by vehicles of Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) at Achan. For how many years we can afford to send such a huge quantity of waste to Achan or any other landfill site located in the towns of J&K ? I am of firm belief that after 2 years there will be no space left at Srinagar’s Achan to accommodate the solid waste. SMC has to identify at least 100 -200 Acres of land to create a new landfill site. Do we have such a huge chunk of land available in Srinagar or in its neighboring districts like Budgam or Ganderbal ? No not at all. Can authorities in Ramban, Udhampur , Poonch, Rajouri, Doda or Kishtwar find even 30 to 50 acres of land (240 to 400 kanals) in each town to create a scientific landfill site? I am sure not even 100 kanals of land would be available in these hill towns for waste management. In this scenario isn’t it the duty of Government to be vigilant and futuristic ? We ought to learn the art of waste management and start processing at least food waste within the boundary walls of our house.
Technique
Food waste or Organic waste consists of 70 % of the total waste generated in Jammu , Srinagar or any other town of J&K. From last 5 to 6 years I have become very much conscious about waste management. My family does not even send 1 kg of kitchen waste outside our house. In-fact I have seen some of my friends in Jammu / Srinagar who also process food waste in their kitchen garden. Last year when I went to see my journalist friend at his Sainik Colony house, I was overwhelmed to see a compost pit in his kitchen garden. He does not even send 1 kg of kitchen waste out of his house. Another Journalist friend also processes kitchen waste near his house in Srinagar. In my house we put all the kitchen waste in a pit which gets decomposed in within few months and is used as manure for our vegetable garden. Only plastic trash is taken away by a rag-picker who comes to my home once or twice a week.
Kitchen waste management is not a rocket science. We need ensure to collect all the food waste in a separate bin that can be kept in the kitchen.
Food waste like egg shells , bones , tea waste , fruit and vegetable waste , leftover rice , bread etc should not at all be mixed with plastic waste like chips packets , biscuit packets , milk pouches, sanitary pads or diapers. This is the only challenge and within one or two weeks of time we will learn the art of waste management. The segregated kitchen waste is to be put into a small pit outside around our house or to be thrown into a 70 to 80 liters plastic drum. Within a month or two the waste will get decomposed into Compost and we can use the same in our kitchen garden. During two to three months time we need to add some saw dust or dry soil to the waste at least twice or thrice. This will reduce its foul smell and contain moisture as well. We also need to keep turning the waste after every week. Adding Jaggery (Gudd) with some hot water can stimulate the process of composting. Lastly don’t forget to put a lid on this compost pit or bin in order to protect it from rain and preventing spread of pungent smell..
Conclusion
To reduce the pressure on garbage dump sites and roadside trash collection points the in-house composting of kitchen waste is the only viable solution. Govt must adopt this model and get it enforced in some selected municipal wards of Jammu and Srinagar cities on a pilot basis. The households who undertake waste management with the premises of house (in-house composting) should be incentivized by Government. Let Department of Agriculture or Flouriculture provide the compost drums and other material under their approved schemes. The pungent smell emitting out of municipal waste dumps is mainly due to food , kitchen or organic which is approximately 70 % of the total solid waste generated in towns and cities. The non biodegradable waste like plastic and polythene does not emit any foul smell and if it is not mixed with food waste the same can be recycled and utilized in an efficient way. By mixing both bio degradable and non bio degradable waste we are doing disservice to nation. Let us make our mind to process kitchen waste at home and utilize the lockdown time to learn management of food and kitchen waste….
(The author is Chairman of J&K RTI Movement. He is also an Acumen India Fellow)
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