Managing solid waste in the peri-urban areas : case study Bhopal planning area

Abstract

Solid waste management is one of the fundamental and essential services provided by municipal authorities in the country to keep urban centres clean. Solid waste management has always been a serious problem for cities throughout the world” As a by-product of human activities, solid waste tends to increase with rapid urbanization, improved living standards and changing consumption patterns. “India is the second largest nation in the world, with a population of 1.21 billion, accounting for nearly 18% of world’s human population, but it does not have enough resources or adequate systems in place to treat its solid wastes. Its urban population grew at a rate of 31.8% during the last decade to 377 million, which is greater than the entire population of US, the third largest country in the world according to population.” (annepu, 2012). Management of increasing amounts of solid waste is of serious concern and has become a major task in many cities in developing countries. Due to rapid increase in population over the last few decades, uncontrolled urbanisation, rising standard of living, the generation rate of solid waste in Indian cities and towns have also accelerated. Solid waste can be a valuable resource if properly used, otherwise can conclude into unfavourable impacts on environment and serious consequences on the health of public, arising from contamination of land and soil, water, air and spread of diseases through waste. Solid waste generally consist of household waste, construction and demolition waste, industrial and waste from streets. The study is conducted with an aim to examine the existing problem faced in Peri-urban areas related to solid waste management and suggest various new strategies for solid waste management. Identifying the main issues and problems to its effectiveness, inefficiency and to gain suggestions and recommendation to improve the management structure and practices. For this study the objectives are: 1. To study and understand what peri-urban areas are and delineate spatially the peri-urban areas of Bhopal city. i. Understanding of characteristics and formulation of PUA through various document study. ii. Identification of areas similar to the Peri-urban characteristics. iii. Delineation of the area based on the parameters and the characteristics. 2. To study the SWM of peri-urban areas and identify its issues. i. To understand the legal frame work for SWM in India. ii. To study the type of waste generated and composition iii. Identify gaps and issues in the existing MSW system 3. To suggest different practices for better management of SW and land requirement for safe disposal. i. To study the importance of service level benchmarking and its parameters. ii. Comparison with the best practices of MSW iii. Implementation on the identified wards of the study areas A case study of Bhopal planning area is taken to know the current scenario of development in the planning area. To which part the city is growing and are creating Peri-urban belts around it. The study represents firstly the identification of Peri-urban areas according to different indicators given in the literature study and based on the identification of the areas, the characteristic of waste generation, quantification, current practices adopted and institutional framework. The Peri-urban areas often close to the Municipal limits but are very poorly treated by municipalities. Peri-urban areas suffer from a lack of infrastructural, technical and financial resources to tackle the problems of waste management. The main challenge is to provide various types of waste segregating and composting recycling plan at various levels like village as well as household level for the beneficial of the environment and for the people. A comprehensive literature review is done to understand the terminologies, concepts, theories and standards related to solid waste management. The literature represents various terms and definition related to Peri-urban areas and their formation and how they are delineated spatially. Followed by ways of managing waste processes, approaches etc. Best practices adopted by cities, peri-urban areas and villages for comparisons and learnings. Field visits were conducted to collect primary and secondary data to understand the SWM of the areas including visual surveys, interviews and interactions with people, workers and Sarpanch. The surveys implied existing issues of solid waste management, finding the gaps in several heads. The study revealed that there is no segregation followed at the source, no door to door collection of waste, the collection efficiency is only 22% of the surveyed population only to some specific colonies in the study areas by the private waste collectors. Present practice of SWM are very weak. Local authorities or panchayat don’t have proper resource to tackle this issues immerging fastly. Institutional framework is missing, lack of awareness and community participation is been observed. Analysis is been done on the basis of primary and secondary survey, population projection and future waste estimations has been done. Comparison with the service level benchmarking parameter to the current situation and gap identification analysis is done. Suitable solution, recommendations, suggestions and proposals such as inclusion of informal sector for door-to-door collection, introduction of 3R principal (reuse, reduce, recycle), introduction to decentralized approach of solid waste management, improvement in capacity building to overcome the identified issues. Land requirement calculation for composting and biomethanisation is proposed according to the future projected population. The study and process adopted for preparation of waste management plan will be helpful for Bhopal Peri-urban areas and for the other authorities with peri-urban area.