Technological advancements in City waste management.
Waste management rarely appears in mainstream discussions about technology & its implementation. But lately, the sector has been embracing technology to meet the new regulations and explore new value creation opportunities. The change is visible, in two decades most of the cities have moved from a roadside dumping point collection system to a vehicle-based door to door collection system.
GPS technology has the potential to bring about accountability and transparency into the economic model of waste management. Swachh Bharat mission has been instrumental in the adoption of GPS technology for waste collection at the city level. The result of GPS and barcode-based collection is evident in Biomedical waste management. Each hospital can be tracked for the type and quantity of waste generated, resulting in strict compliance with the norms. Similar transparency and traceability can be achieved in municipal waste management as well if we use GPS based collection data to keep a record and verify the amount of work done before processing payments to waste management contractors.
Adoption of the biometric system for attendance and direct account transfer for sanitation workers to a great extent got rid of attendance management and salary-related issues. Few cities have gone further to ask for proof of Provident Fund (PF) and ESIC benefits before clearing the contractor’s bill, this step has ensured more and more people becoming part of the formal economy and getting benefitted from social security schemes.
Technology is also transforming the way cities process their collected waste. Cities are building their processing facilities to move towards zero landfills. Wet waste processing has seen a plethora of customized solutions for composting. Also, the adoption of Biomethanization technology for wet waste has increased as it promises better economic value generation from waste.
We, in India, have a strong network of informal waste workers, who ensure a supply of post-consumer plastic to the recyclers. Setting up of Material Recovery Facilities (MRF) to complement the informal system has increased the efficiency of resource recovery and reducing the quantum of waste going to landfills. The positive impacts of MRF can be seen in cities such as Pune & Indore. Smaller cities too are waking up to this concept and building MRF’s suitable for their waste management.
There is a high scope for the private sector to invest in municipalities through Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs and lessening the financial burden on municipalities. MRF employs manpower for manual sorting exposing labors directly to the waste. MRF 2.0 will be about reducing exposure of labor to the waste and implementing Infrared based scanning and optical sorting of waste for metro cities.
We need to start looking at waste management as a business having scientific backing and like any other discipline without investment in technological research and innovations, our progress will be shunted one. The future of waste management is about figuring out the role of technology in creating circular systems and Social Lab plans to be at the frontier of this change.
Stay tuned to know more about technological advancement in waste management.
Contributed By- Rahul Juware, Director at Social Lab
Originally published at- https://social-lab.in
Social Lab Environmental Solutions is a waste management company, which helps brands take-back and scientifically dispose of post-consumer plastic waste of their products. Brands take our services to fulfill Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) obligation under Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2018.
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