Can there be a city with no landfill? Indeed this is a dream to come true. This presentation provides a tool box of strategies that we could consider to move towards this aspiration. There are not many options left - landfills one day will have to be built on the Moon!!

1. Dr. Prasad Modak
Environmental Management Centre LLP
Cities without Landfills

2. Introduction
• As cities grow, landfills grow
• More landfills mean – more
consumption, more waste generation, less
efficiency in recycling

3. Mulund, Mumbai Dumping Ground 2000

4. Mulund, Mumbai Dumping Ground 2012

5. CAN IT HAPPEN?
‘Zero Waste’ city

6. Strategies – Taming consumption
• Twenty top cities in India accounted
for 60% of the surplus income.
• Annual household income growth in
these 20 cities averaged at 11.2%
between 2005-08.
• Spending gets a 52% boost as
households move into the middle
class
• Requires major awareness
programmes, Life cycle
considerations, Green Public
Procurement
Picture source: http://revista-amauta.org/2009/07/consumption-the-root-cause-of-climate-change/

12. • Waste management in a city has two
critical stakeholders - the formal and
the informal sector.
• High recycling rates - the
collection, sorting, and recycling efforts
of informal waste pickers1
• Alliance of Indian Waste Pickers (AIW)
is a national network of 35
organizations, waste pickers and/or
itinerant buyers in 22 cities.
• ExNora in Pune, Stree Mukti
Sangathana in Mumbai, SEWA in
Ahemadabad and Chintan in New
Delhi….
Strategies – Bridging Informal Sector with Formal
1. Solid Waste Management in World's Cities, UN HABITAT, 2010 available at www.unhabitat.org

13. Houses
Offices
Market
Formal
collection
(mixed)
Informal
system
(recyclables)
Dhalaos
Dustbins
Municipal
truck
Landfill
Waste
pickers
Small
Kabaris
Big
kabaris
Recyclers
Thiawalas
SWM system - India
Source: CHINTAN. "Space for Waste:Planning for the Informal Recycling Sector." New Delhi, 2003
Re-
cyclers
Big
Kabaris
Small Kabaris
Thiawalas
Waste pickers

14. • Institutional considerations
– Formalizing informal sector – A challenge
• Can form union and partner with city
administration or with Corporate to assist in
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
– Mumbai waste pickers are involved with ‘Tetra
pak’ for segregation and Coca-cola for shredding
PET units
Strategies – Bridging Informal Sector with Formal

15. We need to provide space: Planning considerations
Strategies – Bridging Informal Sector with Formal
Category Norm per
1,00,000
population
Guidelines
Waste pickers 215
Each waste picker handles 60 kg of waste per day and requires
60 sq ft of space near the dhalao for segregation
Other
workers
90
Each worker requires 125 sq ft of space near the kabari godown
for segregation as well as road space for transportation
Small kabaris 6
3000 sq ft has to be allotted in a shopping centre to each small
kabari for segregation and storage of about 1500 kg of waste,
and shelter for workers.
Thiawalas 33
Thiawalas are located near markets and call centres and each
thiawala collects waste from 150 shops and establishments daily
Big kabaris 1.5
The big kabaris need storage space of 60,000 sq ft for roughly
60,000 kg of waste which they collect weekly from the small
kabaris
Source: CHINTAN, Informal-formal: Creating opportunities for the informal waste recycling sector in Asia,2005

16. • Financial support
– CSR and collection vehicles
– Micro-finance for recycling
• Promoting innovations
– R&D centers cross-function as ‘innovation
centers’
– Prostheses Foundation in Chiang Mai, Thailand
uses aluminium ring pulls of beverage canisters
containing Titanium to produce prosthetic limbs
Strategies – Bridging Informal Sector with Formal
Source: Prosthetic Foundation Official Website http://www.pofsea.org/

17. – Get value from waste,
– Substitute virgin resources
– Create green jobs, with better working conditions
for the Waste Pickers. The waste pickers are
provided with uniforms and safety equipment.
– Promote entrepreneurship,
– Encourage community as well as Corporate
involvement,
– Avoid long transportation
– Reduce burden to the landfill
Strategies – Decentralized Material Recycling Hubs

18. Weigh bridge
Sorting
Inert Storage
Organic storage
Bio-methanation
or Composting
plants
Material
Recovery
Centre
Innovation centre
Street
lights
Waste Sorting Centres
Gardens
Methane gas for street lights and
to fuel transport vehicles
Processed materials for users
Compost to gardens
Waste Sorting Centre
Waste
Generators/
Decentralized Integrated Eco-system

19. Monitoring and Reporting
Targets Examples
Resource efficiency or
productivity
1. Japan’s Sound Material Cycle Society Target Resource
productivity (yen/ metric tonnes) calculated as GDP
divided by amount of natural resources, etc. invested, to
be increased from 210,000 in 1990 to 390,000 in 2010
Waste recycling rate 1. Republic of Korea’s Green Growth Target for Waste
Increase in percentage of MSW recycling from 56.3 % in
2007 to 61 % in 2012.
Waste land filled 1. The EC Landfill Directive Council Directive 1999/31/EC
not later than 16 July 2016, biodegradable municipal
waste going to landfill must be reduced to 35 % of the
total amount by weight of biodegradable municipal
waste produced in 1995 or the latest year before 1995 for
which standardized Eurostat data is available.
Source: EC 1999, Ministry of the Environment, Government of Japan 2008, Ministry of Environment, Republic of Korea 2008, EEA
2010, Lee 2010, Mayor of London 2010/

20. Towards Zero Waste …
• Taming of consumption
• Green Public Procurement
• Involving Children, Youth and Senior Citizens :
Bringing in Behavioral change
• Bridging informal and formal sectors
• Following a Decentralized and Integrated
Approach
• Promoting Waste-Resource Business Models
• Commitment and Support of the City
Administration

21. City with No Landfills
A dream to be true!

22. Thank you
prasad.modak@emcentre.com