India: Chennai initiative promotes waste collection and cycling

DW (English)

A women-led initiative is encouraging the public to properly collect, separate and cycle their waste. They even organize collection drives and promote composting so everyone does their bit.

Transcript

00:00What's happening here is a half-yearly activity in this household.

00:07You see, for over six months, Usha and her family carefully set aside household items

00:12like plastics, electronic items and newspapers instead of discarding them in the bin.

00:19I didn't find it too hard to do.

00:21I found it to be very rational.

00:24I started this because if I can't segregate the waste from my house, how can I expect

00:29someone else to?

00:39Now they're taking all of this to a waste collection drive organised by ROKA, which

00:44is residents of the Kasturbanagar Association in Chennai, India.

00:48The Welfare Association was set up in 2019 with the aim of ensuring all households in

00:53Kasturbanagar were segregating waste properly.

00:57But not everybody was on board like Usha.

00:59ROKA Secretary Janani Venkatesh says that the biggest challenge has been changing people's

01:04attitudes.

01:05We pay tax, so why should we segregate?

01:08Or it is not our job, there are conservancy workers specially employed for this job.

01:15So these were the questions that were put across to us.

01:18And over the years, we have managed maybe quite a good percentage of people into understanding

01:24If that 1kg waste at household is managed, it will be easier for the city to manage segregated

01:30waste rather than unsegregated waste.

01:34Chennai city generates roughly 6,200 metric tonnes of waste every day.

01:39To deal with this, hundreds of micro-composting centres that handle wet waste and material

01:44recovery centres that handle dry waste are set up across the city.

01:48But they're not operating to their full potential, says OKP Research and Advisory's Executive

01:53Director Paroma Roy, who has been actively involved with the ROKA team here in Kasturbanagar.

01:59They can function efficiently and you can completely take advantage of the capacity

02:04of these processing centres only when waste is segregated at source.

02:09What we realised through our research work is that a large part of the waste that is

02:13generated and collected, it just goes to the dumpyards because they are simply unable to

02:19process this in the micro-composting centres or the dry waste processing centres.

02:25Janani puts in a lot of effort to sort everything perfectly.

02:31But different studies have shown that only 20-45% of the population in Chennai separates

02:36their waste as carefully.

02:39Source segregation is something that requires a citizen behaviour change and that's definitely

02:44not something easy to achieve.

02:49The team put together the We Segregate project, where they set up infrastructural nudges in

02:57the community.

02:58These nudges were aimed at highlighting how people's actions are making a real difference

03:03to their surroundings and environment.

03:10This included initiatives like Punch the Plastic, where hooks installed in 40 buildings across

03:15three streets in the locality are used to effectively collect uncontaminated, multi-layer

03:20and soft plastics.

03:22Nearly 100 kilograms of plastics have been diverted in the first six months.

03:26The collected plastics are then sorted and baled at the aggregator and sent to the recycling

03:31centre where they will be made into boats for furniture and other household items.

03:36The most successful initiative, however, is the three community lane composters that have

03:40been set up in the neighbourhood.

03:43The conservancy workers who collect the waste door-to-door transfer about 25 kilograms of

03:47organic waste to each lane composter every day.

03:51A conservancy worker mixes this waste along with cocoa peat in a three-to-one ratio and

03:57then transfers it to the lane composter.

04:00The community has exceeded expectations and diverted nearly 30% more waste than their

04:05target.

04:06The resulting compost is distributed among residents for use in their gardens.

04:13When we started distributing the compost, the residents were really happy and they in

04:17fact approached us to ask us as to how to start it in-house, in their apartment or in

04:23their house.

04:24That is one thing.

04:25We also saw that the segregation levels were increasing with the community composting project.

04:30It also made them understand the need for waste management, why segregation was important

04:34because it was happening right in front of their houses.

04:44Meanwhile, Usha believes that the success of the Punch the Plastic and the Lane Composting

04:50Projects is down to Roka team's constant monitoring and campaigning efforts.

04:55They did it beautifully, thanks to WhatsApp.

05:00They started a group and sent messages.

05:03Whenever people didn't cooperate, they would take a picture of the dustbins and send it

05:07in the group saying, you have not done it today, kindly cooperate.

05:10Some people were sensitive about it but when they started seeing reason, they started doing

05:14it again.

05:15So, e-waste, light fittings, all kinds of electronic waste, headphones, TVs, CDs.

05:24People will also ask you about what we'll be doing, so we'll have to explain to them

05:31where it's going.

05:32Category wise, you can tell.

05:34Tablet strips, please make sure that they don't have the tablets, it's actually empty

05:38tablet strips that we use.

05:47All of the waste collected at the Waste Collection Drive is sent to the recyclers, Wasted 360

05:52and Recycle Mart in the city.

05:54During this drive alone, they've collected 7.6 tonnes of unwanted items for recycling.

06:01Today, I'm very happy and proud to share that Roka has more than 150 members and regular

06:06volunteers, close to 5 or 6 of us to cater to 1000 households and we like to expand and

06:13also inspire other communities to emulate from us.

06:17In July 2024, over 40 participants from 12 cities across South America, Southeast Asia

06:23and South Asia who were here for the Urban Ocean Summit visited Kasturbanagar.

06:29The purpose of their visit was to experience how the Roka team collaborates with other

06:33parties like the Chennai Resilience Centre to carry out the We Segregate project that

06:38prevents plastic waste from entering the ocean.

06:41The Kasturbanagar model is successful as it includes key partners in the waste management

06:46process, its residents, contractors, officials, research organisations and the association

06:52itself.

06:53So we need all these different partners to come together to see if we can replicate and

06:58scale more of these initiatives, that way I think these decentralised and collaborative

07:03models can become a nice network that complements the existing system.

07:08This model at Roka is aligned with the Chennai Corporation's Climate Action Plan for building

07:13a near zero waste ward in the city.

07:16At its core, the idea is very simple.

07:19It's to help families form better habits over their present actions for a more promising

07:24future.

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