CSE webinar on Dumpsite management in India

Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) organized a webinar to present the findings of its report- Clean it Right- Dumpsite management in India on 3rd December 2020 under its initiative- “Forum of Cities that Segregate”. The closed-door webinar was attended by officials from various Urban Local Bodies (ULB’s) who are either a part or are willing to be a part of the Forum of cities that segregate. Altogether, 48 officials from different ULB’s attended the programme.  

The following sessions were taken during the meeting: 

1.  Inaugural Session:The welcome address was given by Atin Biswas, SWM, Director, CSE, and further moderated the programme. Addressing the meeting, Mr. Biswas highlighted the objective of the webinar and also set the context for the discussion to be carried out during the webinar. He also highlighted the agenda of the CSE’s initiative- “Forum of Cities that Segregate” under which the webinar was conducted.

First session: In the second session, Siddharth Ghanshyam Singh- Deputy Programme Manager at CSE presented a few key findings of the report.  

2.  Second session:Officials from GHMC, spoke about the bio-capping operations carried out at Jawahar Nagar dumpsite in Hyderabad along with the gaps and challenges.

• Soma Bharath, Project Officer, Swacch Bharat Mission, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), Government of Telangana demonstrated how bio-capping was carried out at Jawahar Nagar dumpsite and the status of the dumpsite at present. 

3.  Third Session: Official from Ambikapur Municipal Corporation talked about the bio-mining and bio-remediation operations carried out at their dumpsite in Ambikapur.

• Sourav Roy, City Mission Manager, Ambikapur, spoke about how the Ambikapur Municipal Corporation carried out the herculean task of reclaiming the dumpsite land by bio-mining and bio-remediation activities in their city. 

4. Fourth session: This session focussed on how Kerala managed one of its city waste using a new approach of decentralized waste management and became a near zero-waste city.

• Shibu Nair, India Coordinator, GAIA, shared ‘How Thiruvananthapuram, India became a zero-waste city and explains how strong monitoring, policy and active participation by the community plays an important role in sustainable waste management. 

5. Q&A session: The sessions were followed by a round of questions and answers which were diligently answered by all the panelists’, this session received a very heavy number of questions which were regarding bio-mining and bio-remediation, bio-capping, and also around decentralized waste management systems. CSE representatives and the panelists tried to answers most of the relevant questions. 

6. Concluding session: The session was concluded on the note that we have come far from where we started and most of the cities are putting in a lot of effort into managing their dumpsites. While fresh waste reaching dumpsites was a cause of concern, the bio-mining and bio-remediation activities being carried out in various cities were appreciated. It was also pointed out that the need to transition to a decentralized waste management model was much needed and cities should start thinking in this direction.