Indore ranks first in waste segregation amongst cities with population over 1 million

• Indore conferred the Four Leaves Award at CSE’s Convention on Urban Solid Waste Management held in New Delhi while Bhopal receives the Three Leaves Award
• The Municipal Corporation of Indore joins hands with 4 NGOs for segregation at source and 2 for plastic waste management
• An integrated waste management facility is under construction in Bhopal - spread over an area of 65 acres
• Balaghat, a small city with a population below 0.1 million has 50 per cent segregation at source 

New Delhi, June 7, 2018: “Sweeping cities is only a small part of the solution to the problem of keeping our cities clean – what is more important is sustainable treatment, recycle and reuse of the waste that they generate,” said Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), while announcing the awards for most efficient management and segregation of waste by Indian cities which are members of the Forum of Cities that Segregate. 

CSE has been working with cities to promote and implement source-segregation and decentralized model of waste management. To scale up its impact, CSE had launched the ‘Forum of Cities that Segregate’ on December12, 2017. The Forum now has 26 members – from Madhya Pradesh, Indore, Bhopal and Balaghat feature in the list. 

CSE released here today the 2017-18 assessment report of the performance of 20 of these 26 Forum cities. Based on the findings of the assessment report, the best performers were selected and the Leaves Awards conferred on them. 

The cities were assessed based on their performance in the six months since the Forum was launched. The parameters included segregation at source, collection, transportation, wet waste and dry waste processing, adoption of decentralised systems, the inclusion of informal sector in municipal systems and adoption and enforcement of SWM bye-laws and enforcement of Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016. 

The Madhya Pradesh report card

• All households, commercial establishments and bulk generators practice source segregation in Indore. The city scored a perfect ten for a highly robust collection and transportation system.
  
  
• Sarthak and Basix are the 2 NGOs that the city of Indore has collaborated with– this has further integrated the informal sector to sort waste.
  While the plastic waste is sold to be recycled; non-recyclable waste is sent to a cement plant at Neemuch and to the M.P. Rural Road Development Corporation to be used in the construction of roads.
  
  
• Bhopal receives the Three Leaves Award in the CSE assessment – is segregating 45-50 percent of its waste at source
  The city has 5 decentralized composting units, each with a capacity of 5 tonnes per day (tpd). The Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) has installed a biogas plant in one of its vegetable markets.
  
  
• Huge concerns over the Bhanpura dumpsite – construction of an integrated waste management facility underway in the Adampur Chavani area of the city – to be spread over 65 acres – the facility will have a waste to energy plant, compost plant, Refuse Derived Fuel Centre, sanitary landfill and leachate treatment plant. 

• Balaghat, a small city with a population below 0.1 million has 50 per cent segregation at source. The city has also started to push all the commercial areas to segregate. City authorities have transformed the Nagar Palika dumpsite into a material recovery facility; 21 tonnes of wet waste is composted through aerobic composting technology. 

• Although Indore has adopted bye-laws as per the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, its enforcement is lax. As far as the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 is concerned, both Bhopal and Indore are yet to enforce them.

For more details and to access CSE’s resources on waste management, please contact Parul Tewari of The CSE Media Resource Centre, parul@cseindia.org / 9891838367.