Solid Waste Management- Webinar Series

This webinar was also a part of the Youth Impact Crucible 2020 and focused on the importance of solid waste management. The aim was to make people understand various aspects of sustainable waste management practices. The opening remarks of the webinar was given by Sourav Mukherjee, one of the co-founders of YfGG who introduced the panelists, Dr. Shanthi Tummala and Mrs. Anu Govind.

Dr. Shanthi Tummala gave up her career and practice as a doctor to educate the citizens of her locality, HSR Layout in Bangalore. She spreads awareness about waste segregation and management and has also won the Karnataka Women's Achievers Awards for environment activism. In 2012, when she started advocating for waste management practices, she had zero knowledge of the same. The conditions of the waste pickers saddened her. When she saw the landfills where the garbage of the entire city of Bangalore was dumped which affects everyone indirectly through air contamination, underground water table contamination etc., it motivated her to work on the issue of waste management full time and dedicate herself towards this cause. It made her realise that advocating for this cause is extremely important. She started taking one step at a time beginning with door to door awareness campaigns. That's when she met the like minded people of SWMRT (Solid Waste Management Round Table). It gave her the power and strength to intensify her campaign. SWMRT is like a collective think tank where individuals work towards spreading awareness focusing on waste management practices. The collective ensures policy changes and works towards implementing those policy changes on the ground level. Across cities there are SWMRT practitioners who believe in the same cause and work towards it. Few campaigns of SWMRT are 2 Bins 1 Bag, Swachh Agraha, and Trashonomics. 2 Bins 1 Bag is the rule of segregation of waste in Bangalore ordered by the High Court and SWMRT works towards implementing on the ground level. Swachh Agraha is the campaign that works towards promoting composting. Trashonomics focuses on education on waste management for children. This generation needs to be taught their roles and responsibilities in waste management practices which SWMRT does by educating the young generation.

Mrs. Anu Govind has a background in Operations Management who is an environmental activist and a member of SWMRT. She is also a core part of Whitefield rising which also works towards sustainable waste management. She highlighted that whenever we talk about waste management, we should focus on the need of segregating waste at source. Cleaning up streets or public space isn't waste management. It only cleans up a space temporarily but isn't a sustainable way to deal with waste management. What is needed is to deal with the waste at source which most of us aren't aware of. It is very important that waste is segregated into different streams. Only then can it become a resource. The more you segregate, the better value it has. Waste management should be more decentralized because the smaller the source is, the easier it gets to handle. Behavioral change is another important aspect. There are solid waste management laws in place that states the need for segregation but just for the sake of convenience, people tend to ignore these aspects. That is where the role of youth comes in where they can motivate others by taking the first step. Each person taking a step forward would create a ripple effect thereby leading to a change in the society.

The webinar was an insightful one and the audience took back a lot of information on waste management practices.