Training on Integrated Waste Management, AAETI

November 20-24, 2018

A five-day training program on “Integrated Waste Management” was organised at Anil Agarwal Environment Training Institute (AAETI), Nimli, and Rajasthan from 20-24 November 2018. The training witnessed 27 diversified participants from Lohia Swachh Bihar Abhiyan, Municipal Corporations of Sikkim, Howrah, Hisar, PSUs, Academician and Private waste management companies. The programme discussed in detail the regulations, technical processing options and case studies in Solid, Plastic, E-waste, Biomedical and C&D waste. The training maintained a balance of theory and practical sessions with signature sessions, group discussions, class exercises and site visits.

The objective of the training was to enable participants understand the essential legislation and compliance in implementation of solid waste management at the local bodies and allied waste management issues.The course incorporated two site visits and practical hands-on exercises to help participants learn and design an integrated waste management model.

The class exercises encompassed Do It Yourself (DIY) of upcycling of waste to increase the lifetime of materials. Famed as trash art, the participants learned to make dream catcher out of trash. Know your plastics was a group activity to identify the plastics used in common. The participants were taught to identify the plastics based on origin, usage and recyclability.

The participants could learn the actual implementation status of waste management and behavior change at Ishroda villagethrough site visit on day three. During the closure session, the participants presented their ideal plan of integrated waste management at village level based on the class learning and observations on field. The training discussed different technologies available in market for decentralized composting and centralized waste management options like waste to energy, sanitary landfill and reclaiming landfill.

A visit to common biomedical facility helped participants to recognize the challenges in execution of biomedical waste management rules in tier 2, 3 cities, and villages.

The training could augment the awareness level and participants realize the importance of source segregation and committed to reduce the waste, think and consume sustainably. Some key take away for participants from this training were: existing status of waste management in India, major provisions of the new Waste Management Rules 2016 and their status of implementation, role and responsibility of different stakeholders, inventorisation and Extended Producer Responsibility, decentralised waste management, use of IEC for behaviour change and site visits to learn about best practices. The concluding session of the training: Resource Efficiency in waste management shifted the focus of waste management from collection and transportation to processing close to the source and resource recovery in an efficient way with minimum utilization of resources.