VISUALS VOICE OVER - Introduction

Waste management being a serious problem, requires equally serious

solutions. Attingal which is a municipality bordering Thiruvananthapuram
is pulling out all guns to tackle the waste problem they faced by
leveraging on technological interventions and innovations that is rare in
India.

Attingal incorporated and started implementing the decentralized waste

management model in the year 2008.
Current they see around 17 MT of waste generated per day out of which
an estimated 300 kg/day is plastic.

They have leveraged on several innovative methods in order to build an

efficient system for collection, transport and processing of all kinds of
waste.

Stakeholders The primary public stakeholders in this initiative include resident welfare
associations, schools, elected members, the Karitha Karma Sena (Green
Warriors), and the general public.

The stakeholders, from the government, include the Suchitwa Mission for
technical assistance and infrastructure finance who have supported the
municipality with a grant of 1.45Cr.

CKCL for non-biodegradable waste management, and Haritha Keralam for

guidelines on waste management.

Both wet and dry waste are collected by a 43 (Cross check) member
Harita karma sena under a collection fee model on a calendar system
where dry waste is collected on monthly basis for households and bi-
monthly for commercial establishments.
Door to door collection coverage of 86% coverage for households and
100% for Commercial has been achieved.

The wet waste collected is transported and processed under three

different technologies.
ORGANIC Windrow composting - Windrow composting is the production of
WASTE compost by piling organic matter or biodegradable waste, such as animal
manure and crop residues, in long rows. This method is suited to
producing large volumes of compost and is used very efficiently by the
city to manage its organic waste. A special inoculum is also used to
supplement the process.
The compost is sold to farmers which the leachate and rejects is sent to
the sanitary landfill or the biogas plant.

Vermicomposting – Vermicompost (vermi-compost) is the product of the

 decomposition process using various species of worms. The process turns
kitchen scraps and other green waste into a rich, dark soil that smells like
earth and is extremely fertile and healthy for plants to grow.
Market waste especially the banana fruit stems collected on a daily basis
and processed through a vermicompost unit which uses hybrid worms
(Earthworms) to digest and breakdown the organic waste. The compost is
then sold to farmers which any left over reject or leachate is transported
to landfill or biogas plant.

And if two solutions were not enough, the municipality also uses
Anerobic Biogas plant to support the wet waste management. Biogas is
an environmentally-friendly, renewable energy source. It’s produced
when organic matter, such as food or animal waste, is broken down by
microorganisms in the absence of oxygen, in a process called anaerobic
digestion. For this to take place, the waste material needs to be enclosed
in an environment where there is no oxygen.
Organic waste and the leachate from Composting is processed here, and
the methane gas produced is routed to nearby commercial
establishments to be used as fuel.

Home To encourage home composting, a portable indoor composter (Bio Bin)

composting costing around Rs.1400 is distributed to households that segregate
garbage at the source and are interested in composting.

Mini biogas plants, with capacity to process 5 kg of waste a day, to

households have been given to households. Each plant cost Rs.8,800. As
much as 75 per cent of the total cost of the plant was borne by the
Suchitwa Mission and the municipality.

Dry Waste The Haritha Karma Sena collects all segregated dry waste once in 30 days
from the residents and once in 15 days from commercials.

The dry waste is collection is built on a smart system with focused

approach by using various types of vehicles like pushcarts for small lanes,
LMVs for streets, and HMVs for commercial areas.

The waste is taken and temporarily stored at transfer points like the three
Material Collection Facilities that are present around the wards.

From the transfer stations the dry waste is taken to the material recovery
facility where by the use of several high tech machines, the dry waste is
processed and made ready for recycling.

The conveyor belt helps in secondary sorting of dry waste.

The air-blower or phatka machine for cleaning the LDPE plastic waste.
The Shredding machines to reduce size and volume of plastic waste.
Incinerators for eliminating sanitary and household bio-medical waste.
 Following this the non recylable plastic waste is used in road construction
and recyclable plastic waste is sold for a profit to authorized recyclers.

Non-recyclable and non-usable dry waste is either sent to cement

factories for incineration or to the landfill.

A showcase of the innovative spirit of the city is the hair waste treatment
plant which was started on a pilot basis at a cost of 20 lakhs. Waste hair
from saloons were collected and converted into liquid fertilizer.

Thermocol or Expanded Polystyrene which is a plastic and 100%

recyclable is processed using Acetone chemical based system to remove
the air and reduce its volume. The output which is in the form of granule,
which is used as a raw material for the production of plastic and is sold
for recycling.

Women empowerment case study,

A stable salary of Rs.10,000/- from Ayankalai Urban minimum wages
scheme for Kundumba Shree and Haritha Karma Sena members.
This is combined with incentives and LIC pension scheme.

Public Awareness activities and citizen involvement is given a large focus by the
Involvement municipality.
- Green protocol is implemented in all offices, schools, institutions
and public spaces like auditoriums.
- Utensil rentals through kudumbashree for events are provided
and encouraged.
- Schools utilized steel bottles instead of disposable ones. Also
special dustbins are provided to encourage kids to take up
segregation at source.

Enforcement The Municipality strictly enforces best waste management practices

through warnings, fines, notices to those to do not follow.

Issues Segregation at source is only around 70% in residential households and

needs improvement.

Despite ban on single use plastic, it is continued to be used. This coupled

with mask and gloves from covid are burdening the waste system.

Future A tender is already in circulation for the scientific biomining process of

13,000 Meters cube accumulated legacy and historical waste, which is in
the vicinity of the present waste management campus.

Sanitary landfill is under construction at a cost of 1.13 crore to assist in

waste disposal and has got approved by the Kerala Pollution Control
Board.
The Kerala Pollution Control Board has given its approval to set up the
landfill. In a sanitary landfill, waste is deposited in thin layers in a
protected pit and compressed using machinery. Several layers of waste
are placed inside and then compacted on top of each other to form a
refuse cell. Finally the refuse cell will be covered with thick soil.