Daily Times

How does a city solve its plastic waste problem and hunger at the same time?

Leaving every other city and state behind in its waste management game, Ambikapur, India’s model city for the best waste management practices, has announced a novel approach to manage hunger and plastic pollution together.

The city of Ambikapur in Chhattisgarh has announced that its municipal corporation will inaugurate the country’s first “Garbage Café.” By launching India’s first garbage café on October 9, 2019, Ambikapur, a city in the state of Chhattisgarh, is bringing out the “best out of waste.”

The concept of this cafe is people can get their plastic waste weighed and enjoy a warm meal in return. The tagline of the cafe says, “More the waste better the taste.” The scheme follows one simple rule: poor and homeless people with 1 kg plastic waste will receive a full meal, while those collecting 500 grams will be served with a substantial breakfast. There is also a definitive plan to provide shelter to over 100 homeless people in the city.

The Garbage Café would run from the city’s main bus stand and act as a collection point for waste. And it looks to solve two problems: 1) to provide food to the homeless and poor people; and

2) to motivate them to get involved with the corporation and help them manage their waste effectively.

According to the cafe staff, many citizens have extended their support and lauded the initiative taken by the AMC. The plastic waste collected by the people is ultimately sent to the Municipal Corporation. This waste will then be utilised for the construction of roads in the city. This is not the first such road that will be built in the city. Earlier, eight lakh plastic bags were used to build a road in Ambikapur as a pilot project to test their durability. The combination of plastic and asphalt makes the road more durable because water does not permeate through it. The corporation claims that as of now, no problem has been faced and that is the reason why they have decided to construct more roads utilising plastic waste.

Also, this is not the first time Ambikapur has come out with solutions to manage the city’s waste effectively. In fact, it was one of the first cities in India to start the practice of Waste Segregation. The city of Ambikapur is ranked the second cleanest city in India after Indore. The Municipal Corporation of Ambikapur has also come up with several other ideas that will deal with waste disposal, composting as well as waste management head-on.

In Pakistan, each year, 30 million tonnes of solid waste is produced, out of which nine per cent are plastics. Here, 55 billion plastic bags are produced a year. These single-use non-biodegradable bags mostly find their way to open garbage dumps, landfill sites or municipal sewers, thus, making sewage disposal systems less efficient by choking and adding to the costs of utility operations. Current urban waste management practices are partners to this crisis since they only focus on picking waste from communal bins and disposing of it in urban fringes without segregation, material recovery or recycling, as well as by not making communities act responsibly. They are spending as much as Rs 3000 to Rs 6000 per tonne without any business model to recover costs.

In Pakistan, single-use non-biodegradable bags mostly find their way to open garbage dumps, landfill sites or municipal sewers; making sewage disposal systems less efficient

On another serious aside, a colossal number of these bags is often being directly burnt; adding most hazardous exhaust gases like dioxins and furans to the ambient air. Despite being buried in landfills and incineration, about half of the plastic waste finds its way to the ocean; eventually posing a serious threat to marine life.

The inundating plastic pollution has two unique but very closely connected effects; its global and far-reaching impacts with a cyclic impact on regional and local ecosystems. Then are local eco-systems, which are immediate recipients of all ill-effects. To tackle this looming issue, we need to think globally and act locally. Considering a two-pronged strategy, we need to follow a holistic way forward to deal with this until science finds a sustainable way to replace conventional plastics. These solutions may include: dovetailing global scientific research in plastic modifications to local solution regimes to benefit the local industry to improve production standards and processes to produce sustainable and biodegradable plastics. Urban councils should reach out to communities sensitise them on the issue. They should encourage the use of reusable and washable long-life metallic and glass utensils at the household level as much as possible. They should help assist urban waste management institutions to establish material segregation and recovery facilities to enhance plastic recycling to reduce disposable volumes. Enforce already existing regulations to curb the use of plastic bags and open burning. A recent example, worth-following, is KP’s ban on single-use shopping bags. The consumer industry must be made to practise a take-back policy, especially for PET bottles and containers. Local urban councils must ensure that plastic waste is not directly disposed to a landfill site. Municipalities must impose fines on throwing plastic bags into their sewers. The informal sector must be made to use recyclables, most importantly plastics, through enhanced financial incentives.

This looming crisis can only be tackled through collaborative efforts by industry, government, researchers, and end-users. Users must be made to understand the gravity of this looming issue and urged to buy, use and dispose of plastics responsibly. The role of local councils is really important in enforcing and devising plastic use and disposal related regulations (related to manufacturing, after-use recovery and disposal), and by augmenting a holistic waste management solution encompassing segregation/recovery facilities to substitute current abysmal waste management practices. The present government should take steps to prioritise this issue now by adopting sustainable approaches like “Garbage Café” to controlling the plastic pollution, otherwise, we will run out of resources, poison our environment and have landfills all around.

Tayyab Ali is Assistant Director, Lahore Development Authority. Afshan Arshad is a student at the City and Regional Planning Department, UET, Lahore