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Worming away: Indian women revolutionise solid waste disposal

Could vermicomposting (using worms to compost waste) be the answer to urban environmental degradation? As environments deteriorate is it realistic to expect municipal authorities to be able to collect and safely dispose of rubbish? Can civil society organisations help establish sustainable community-based solid waste collection systems?

A paper based on doctoral research conducted at the University of Cambridge chronicles how a women-led civil society organisation has transformed rubbish collection and disposal in a neighbourhood on the outskirts of the southern Indian city of Chennai. Aiming to improve understanding of the processes by which ad hoc practices and civil society-municipal partnerships are established, the author highlights the global replicability of an inspiring instance of local innovation.

Pammal generates seventeen tonnes of solid waste daily, ten tonnes of which are collected by the municipal sanitation force. The Pammal council, like town panchayats (local governing bodies) across India, has inadequate capacity and funding and is hampered from employing new staff by a cumbersome process of obtaining approval from the state government. Lacking a solid waste disposal facility, the panchayat dumps trash on a dried-up lake bed within the town’s boundaries.

In Shri Shankara Nagar, a middle-income neighbourhood of Pammal, residents used to strew rubbish on vacant lots as the panchayat failed to collect waste left at official collection points. In 1994, ten energetic women determined to clean up their streets founded a 'Mahalir Manram' (‘women’s association’ in Tamil.) It took time to sensitise neighbours to the need to pay for the house-to-house collection service they set up. Undeterred by abuse from male residents (who felt waste collection should remain a solely panchayat responsibility), the women persuaded more than two thirds of residents to pay.

The election to the panchayat in 1996 of an unsupportive councillor led to the panchayat ceasing to pick up rubbish the Mahalir Manram took to collection points. Residents living near the mounting piles of refuse blamed the organisation. In response, the women resolved to turn waste into manure and traveled widely to learn techniques of vermicomposting. After convincing sceptical residents that this would not create odour and insects they were given land on which they built a sustainable facility, which has:

led to the composting of over four fifths of all solid waste generated in Shri Shankara Nagar
generated income by the sale of compost and recycled paper, plastic, metal, glass and rubber
reduced the quantity of neighbourhood waste dumped at the town’s disposal site to 10% of total waste
created a cleaner environment persuading people of the benefits and sustainability of community-managed waste
generated employment for two households.

News of the composting success story in Shri Shankara Nagar has spread far and wide. The Chennai mayor has become a vermicomposting enthusiast and relations between the panchayat and the Mahalir Manram have greatly improved as solid waste is now taken seriously by local politicians and bureaucrats.

The women of Shri Shankara Nagar have demonstrated that:

Local-level civil society innovation can have dramatic ripple effects, improving not just environments but also urban governance.
Strategic networking with higher-level political functionaries is vital to build consensus for public action.
The emergence of civil society organisations, harnessing the spirit of voluntarism and self-help, is sure to create antagonism in some quarters.

Source(s):
‘Hard struggle and soft gains: environmental management, civil society and governance in Pammal, South India’ by Bharat Dahiya, Environment and Urbanization, vol 15, No 1, April 2003 Full document.

Funded by: Cambridge Commonwealth Trust, Cambridge, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 3 February 2004

Further Information:
Bharat Dahiya
The World Bank
1818 H Street NW
Washington, DC, 20433
USA

Tel: 1 202 458 7940
Fax: 1 202 522 3232
Contact the contributor: bdahiya@worldbank.org

Contact the contributor: bharatdahia@yahoo.com

The World Bank

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