INDIA: ECO-LEGISLATION

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INDIA ECO-LEGISLATION PRODUCER RESPONSIBILITY

• Mrs Almitra H Patel,
• Member, Supreme Court Committee
• for Solid Waste Management
• almitrapatel_at_rediffmail.com

2
India has a 3000-year-old sustainable-ecology
culture

• This has been eroded in the last 100 years.
• We are writing new laws to restore it
• 1972 Wildlife Protection Act
• 1974 Water Act to control pollution
• 1981 Air Act ditto

3
1986 Environment Protection Act is the most
powerful.

• It allows the making of Rules on a wide range of
  topics without needing Parliament approval.
• It also can delegate powers under these Rules to
  individual States.
• But our Pollution Control Boards have no teeth
  unlike EPA in USA

4
1984 Union Carbides MIC gas leak tragedy at
Bhopal led to

• 1989 Five Rules for Hazardous Waste
• 1991 Public Liability Insurance Act
• 1998 Biomedical Waste (Management
• Handling) Rules
• 1991 Fly Ash Notification, amended 2003
• (compulsory use within 50 now 100 km)

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Public Interest Litigation led to

• 1999 Supreme Court Committee Report on Solid
  Waste Mgt in Class 1 Cities in India, which
  was a blueprint for
• 2000 Municipal Solid Waste (Management Handling
  Rules) daily doorstep collection of wet waste
  for composting. Dry recyclables to informal
  sector (waste-pickers, traders)

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First Producer-Take-Back responsibility

• 2001 Lead-Acid Batteries (Management
• and Handling) Rules
• Requires manufacturers, importers,
• assemblers, reconditioners, dealers to
• set up collection centers, file half-yearly
• returns on take-back, and register
• themselves with Pollution Control Boards

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Poor enforcement and monitoring of Batteries Rules

• Only 8 goes as Original EQuipment.
• 92 is grey market, cash transactions
• without bills, and part-wise repairs.
• Lead-battery imports are banned under
• Basel Convention but still sneak in for
• clandestine recycling in v poor conditions.
• USA failure to ratify Basel Convention
• (along with only Haiti and Afghanistan) is
• not helping receiving countries like ours!

8
Much more take-back legislation is expected,
mostly PIL-driven through the Supreme Court of
India

• A High-Power Committee has already
• recommended this for PET bottles but
• compliance is lagging despite industry
• promises of self-regulation.
• Clamour for e-waste take-back is growing.

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PET bottles cause huge environmental problems

• Un-recycled bottles lie around, choking drains
• sewers , hence flooding of low-lying slums.
• Upto 30 empty bottles are re-used for
  filling
• with spurious soft drinks each summer.
• A Pesticides in Coke and Pepsi scandal has
• just rocked the industry, causing huge losses,
• yet they still resist voluntary take-back
  schemes.
• Compulsion may follow.
• New Water Standards are being formulated.
• Track the story in www.cseindia.org

10
Small precedents bring large changes

• A Coke plant was over-drawing ground-water,
  aquifer
• levels fell, farmers and villagers suffered. Also
  surface
• water pollution. Enviro groups took up the
  cause.
• The village refused to renew Cokes plant
  licence.
• The Kerala High Court upheld this.
• The Kerala Govt has ordered them not to draw
• any ground-water till the rains come.
• Parliament wants Coke, Pepsi and others to now
• pay for ground-water drawn for commercial use.

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Urban Waste is enormous

• Indias population is over 1.06 billion.
• One more is added every second.
• 28 300 million live in cities and towns
• 35 metros of over 10 million population
• 400 Class 1 Cities with over 100,000 pop.
• 4000 more with over 20,000 population.
• 65 urban dwellers live in 10 of these towns

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Farmers used city wastes till 1960s for on-farm
composting. Now compost plants are needed to
remove thin plastics only 7 by weight but 50
by volume
13
Carrybags are Banned in some hill-towns,
forest areas, Sikkim State, Bangladesh. But
what about bread wrappers, milk pouches and
omnipresent sachets?
14
Recycling solves the problem 8 by weight
of bitumen greatly improves tar roads.
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Inerts are also a huge problem

• Road dust, drain silt, odd debris makes up
• 40 of the waste transported out of town.
• This makes biomethanation or incineration
• totally unviable in South Asia, though foreign
• firms aggressively pursue this for subsidies.
• Only composting can handle such
• high inerts, but compost quality suffers.
• Compost standards are being laid down.

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Door-to-door garbage collection can help keep
inerts out of waste
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Recyclables go to waste-pickers waste traders

• They form 0.5 -1 of a big citys population
• and are now recognised and legitimised
• MSW Rules ask cities to
• promote recycling or reuse
• of segregated materials.
• A great opportunity for suppliers
• of all types of simple, low-cost
• recycling processes equipment.

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India as worlds recycler? Pros, Cons, a Win-Win
option

• We have no laws yet to prevent dumping of
• imported non-hazardous waste from the West.
• So collecting our own waste is now unviable.
• We are excellent at recycling everything.
• We dont need costly automated eqpt.
• Send us clean technology concepts,
• process know-how, specs, blueprints.
• Our innovative fabrication will benefit you!

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Help us frame good laws for packaging and
take-backs

• Worldwide, social responsibility
• is only awakened by legislation.
• India must begin to promote waste
• minimisation, toxics-free production,
• product stewardship, producer
• responsibility till end of life-cycle.
• Please lead by example, behaving in
• India as your industry does at home!

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Thank you !

• almitrapatel_at_rediffmail.com