Winds of change: Right steps taken towards better food waste management in India

Every month we tell you how waste management is a problem in India, every week you can read it in your local newspaper or TV channel, every day you can see it as you take a walk across your neighborhood. No state in India is yet to fully tackle this problem, no government has shifted their full attention to realize the long-term casualties of this problem. Not all is lost yet because we do see the winds of change every now and then.

To refresh our hopes of a sustainable future for all, this month, we saw two landmark decisions being taken, one at the state level and the other at the national level. Supreme court recently put out a stay notice to all construction activities in states and union territories without a solid waste management policy. The government of Kerala has decided to take away the authority of municipalities to handle their own waste management.These two decisions are landmark decisions and are welcome steps in the direction of keep in a clean, well-managed nation. Let’s look deeper into these two steps to know how they prove to be in the right direction and what can come out of these.

The supreme court’s decision to stay all construction activities without a solid waste management policy comes as a dual slap, one to lazy local governments that have failed to putout or enforce a policy system and the other to the greedy developers who forgoes all policies to make some quick buck. The premier court has intervened and is indirectly telling us that this cannot go any further.India is still a developing country and our population has been rising for a long time. Our cities are choking up and the amount of waste generated every day is increasing exponentially.Existing systems are running clueless on how to tackle the generated waste. It is no secret that food waste management in India is the single biggest challenge that our policymakers are facing now. In this condition, more constructions with no provision for solid waste management is equivalent to deliberate negligence. Of all wastes generated, food waste is the easiest to identify and therein lies the importance of having a dedicated waste management policy. Supreme court’s stay order should act as wake up call to officers and the builders to properly use this window to incorporate waste management plans into their constructions. Local governments should use the court order as their front line defence to make the more deviant ones to bend and adopt waste management systems.

Looking into the Kerala state government's decision to take over urban waste management from municipalities might seem like a step back from self-governance at the first glance, but a finer look into it will prove that it is a well-made decision from years of experience. For years food waste disposal and waste management of urban areas were under the jurisdiction of municipalities and sadly their performance in relation with waste management has been a by small. Taking lessons from this, the state government modified the Kerala Municipality Act, section 326 to take back power from the local authority. This will enable the state government to act directly on the issue and authorize private agencies to set up waste management services. In many parts of India private players have been very successful at creating a dependable and effective waste management system.The two instances here are just the beginning, a lot more decision making in the same tune will be needed to propel our country to be a sustainable nation. As the push for waste management is gradually increasing the new technologies and products in the market of waste management must be noted. All those developers now running around to find a waste management solution because of the court order can look into groundbreaking product solutions like Solwearth’s SE food waste converter. Solwearth is India’s largest organic waste converter manufacturers in India.

Solwearth’s SE food waste converter is a versatile machine that takes care of food waste disposal effectively taking minimum floor space, making it the ideal solution for many developers and realtors. Due to its 15 hour processing time and odorless action, SE food waste converter is very popular among the consumers.States of Goa and Maharashtra has already started using Solwearth products to create a better waste management regime. It is important that we maximize our attention towards the growing problem of food waste management in India. Every time a breakthrough in the form of a policy change or court order comes, the opportunity must be seized by everyone concerned to make better use of technology and to implement them. Only through meticulous planning and constant push, we as a community can reach our goal of creating a sustainable future.