Mumbai: For about a year, 10,000 residents of the BARC Cooperative Housing Society in Anushakti Nagar have taken pride in being a “zero-waste society”. A workforce of 40 women manages the 300 kg of waste produced by the society every day, reducing the burden on Mumbai’s overwhelmed landfills.
But that’s not all. The women, trained by the NGO Stree Mukti Sangathana, manage the waste through composting pits and four to five biogas plants that generate enough energy to power a canteen run by the housing society.
How did they achieve this? It took some tweaks at the waste-collection stage. In this housing society, door-to-door waste collection is handled by a separate set of contractors who coordinate with the women operating the composting and biogas plants.
Theirs will be among the many waste management models that will be discussed as scalable solutions on Saturday, when Mumbai’s waste takes centre stage at Solutions that Work—a half-day convention on urban waste, the first such event ahead of the debut edition of the Mumbai Climate Week, a three-day climate action conference scheduled for February 17-19.
The city, which produces about 7,000 metric tonnes of waste daily, has a burgeoning garbage problem. However, the discussions to be held at the Museum of Solutions in Lower Parel will focus decidedly on solutions. Think tanks, NGOs, and grassroots organisations will be among the participants. Kiran Dighavkar, deputy municipal commissioner (solid waste management) at the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), will also speak on the future of Mumbai’s waste.
Manjyot Kaur Ahluwalia, regional lead (Asia) at the Global Methane Hub, said that while citizens do care about waste segregation, there are critical gaps to fill. Her organisation piloted Amhi Sorted, Mumbai Sorted, a behavioural change campaign in the K-East ward (Andheri East), along with Purpose, another non-profit.
Wet waste, a major source of methane emissions, constitutes 73% of Mumbai’s waste stream and continues to choke its landfills, Ahluwalia said. This, she added, is not only a systems challenge but also a cultural one.
“We have a broken relationship with the waste we generate. As incomes increase, we become more disconnected from what we discard, often overlooking the important role of waste workers and waste pickers who manage our waste every day,” said Ahluwalia. The example from Anushakti Nagar, she said, is one of the many green shoots of the fundamental shift needed in communities.
The event will largely focus on domestic waste, organisers said. Along with ward-level waste management and decentralised waste solutions, tech-enabled waste traceability systems that empower cities and waste workers to deliver measurable climate impact will also be discussed.