The Indian government has been campaigning and motivating its citizens to adopt an environmentally conscious attitude. The campaign dubbed Swacch Bharat has been utilized to create awareness of the importance of disposing of waste correctly. Over the years, the government has deployed and distributed waste management equipment to various cities. However, there is a need for more work to be done as the crisis is yet to be fully curtailed.

At the moment, landfills are on the brink of total collapse and the nation has not been able to recycle a large percentage of the waste it generates. The problem seems to be the country’s approach to waste management. And, an in-depth analysis of the issue on the ground shows that the problem is the unavailability of waste disposal system that can segregate waste. As such, all the waste generated by cities ends up in landfills. However, the concept of landfills does not support this.

What Are Landfills?

Landfills are basically meant to accommodate bio-degradable wastes, which are wastes that can compost over time. Unfortunately, glass, plastics, and hazardous wastes are not in this category. So this is why we have landfills on the verge of collapsing, contributing hazardous chemicals and pollutants to the environment and growing at an uncontrollable rate. As such, the major issue that needs to be resolved is the unavailability of a waste segregation system or technology.

How Can India Manage Waste?

The Municipal Solid Waste Rules introduced in 2015 require city waste management authorities to ensure that waste is segregated at the source. This means that the citizens are expected to sort waste right before they put it in a trash can. As such, they should have separate waste collection bins for each of the following:

Recyclable wastes

Compostable wastes

Hazardous waste

Each household could get separate bins for the above-mentioned wastes or the government could provide public collection bins for each at strategic locations. As such, the amount of waste getting into landfills will be immensely reduced, while recycling centers and factories can easily access recyclable wastes.

In addition, waste management policies and rules should be enforced by the government. This will effectively curtail the uncontrolled disposal of waste by individuals and manufacturers.

Another way this could be achieved will be the implementation of waste segregating technologies. This technology is programmed to sort wastes. As such, the cost for segregating waste will be reduced. Also, human errors would also be eliminated. In addition, this technology will make the country’s waste management and recycle industry attractive for investors.

However, technologies like this are still in the nascent stage and only a few firms like Swacch has been able to record significant progress in this regard. They are working extensively to introduce smart bins that will intelligently collect data about waste and sort them

Final Thoughts

The various policies introduced by the government on landfills sanitation are commendable, however, more efforts are required to enforce and implement them. As such, the above-mentioned strategies will effectively help the country manage the wastes it generates.