Tale Of An Untapped $13 Bn Waste Management Industry

By siliconindia | Monday, 11 April 2016, 12:22 Hrs

"Around 39 million people -- around three percent of India's population -- are involved in manual scavenging, e-waste or other waste management. Those working in this fragmented industry have a life expectancy of 45 years and 30 percent of their income goes towards medicine," he said.

"The government should at least work to give waste management an industry status," says Marya.

"Once it becomes that, everything that's working individually or at NGO level would come under one roof. Then things get regularised, people want to do jobs together. Today no one wants to work in waste management because there is lack of professionalism," she says.

The environment ministry on April 5, 2016, had announced regularisation of manual scavengers, but it did not answer the question on how to implement it.

"Given an industrial status, rag-pickers would get a blue collar job. It's important to uplift them by making them more professional," she adds.

Ravi Agarwal of Toxics Link, a Delhi-based group of philanthropists, says there is a huge opportunity in waste management and a lot of work is required to make it an industry.

But things are not clear as waste management happens at the local government or municipal level, which he says is incapable to handle the present recycling requirements.

"Municipality is the main stakeholder and it needs to open up. It requires well-defined hand holding, collection mechanism and revenue generation. Waste management is a completely untapped industry or rather an opportunity," he said.

"The environment ministry has done a good job, but the problem is with its implementation. Political initiatives like Swachh Bharat helps, because it keeps the ball rolling. But to actually implement it effectively, we need to go one step further," he adds.

Ministry officials, however, say waste management is already working as an industry at the local level.

"A part of the waste management market is already working as an industry, like e-waste or hazardous waste management. We make legislation and the state governments, pollution control boards and municipalities apply it. There are initiatives already going on.

"If demands like giving waste management an industrial status are coming up, then perhaps business houses or entrepreneurs are expecting support from the government like loans or land allotments. We are looking into it," an environment ministry official told IANS.