Indian waste workers fear loss of income from trash-to-electricity projects

In New Delhi — For five hours every day, Ranjit Kumar and his 10-year-old son rummage through a giant pile of rotting trash with their bare hands, filling bags with ­pieces of metal, plastic and glass to take by cart to the recyclers market nearby.
But an incinerator under construction not far away may mean that he and other waste workers will lose access to the trash, he said, which fetches his family a little more than $5 a day.

The incinerator is one of two projects in New Delhi aimed at turning the city’s trash into electricity and earning carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol, the global climate pact designed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Local politicians have hailed the projects for addressing the city’s chronic problems of excess untreated waste and a shortage of electric power.
But for almost 300,000 workers in the city engaged in waste collection, sorting and recycling, the plants mean the loss of their livelihood.
“If all the trash goes to the plants to be processed, how do we feed our stomachs?” Kumar said as foul-smelling fumes rose from the trash and dark-brown water trickled past him. “My work may look dirty, but it keeps my family alive.”
A worldwide campaign
Waste-worker communities have mobilized in Brazil, Colombia, South Africa and India to campaign on behalf of trash dumps and the livelihoods they provide, and against the idea of burning waste. The United Nations, however, has been encouraging incinerator projects that burn waste — rotting trash produces the potent greenhouse gas methane — to produce energy.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, nations can earn carbon credits for such projects; the credits can be used to offset the emissions of coal-fired power plants elsewhere.
This month, hundreds of waste workers gathered outside the U.N. office in New Delhi to protest 21 municipal waste projects for which India has applied for carbon credit. The projects, not all completed, use biodegradable, combustible and inert waste. They include trash-to-compost, incinerators and refuse-derived fuel.
Waste-worker groups appealed to climate negotiators when they met in Mexico, Germany and China in the past year, and they are preparing to protest at the climate meeting in Durban, South Africa, set to begin next week.
Waste workers want access to the United Nations’ $30 billion Green Climate Fund — the effort by developed countries to help the developing world prepare for climate change — for their role in mitigating climate change by recovering recyclable materials from waste.
But advocates of the trash-
to-energy projects say that India’s growing population, changing consumption patterns and urban boom have created a waste problem that must be addressed in a scientific manner.
“It is not an us-versus-them situation. We must frame the debate differently. Do we want the ragpickers to continue working in inhuman, hell-on-Earth, unhygienic conditions at these untreated dump sites? Should their sons and daughters do the same, too?” asked Mahesh Babu, chief executive of IL&FS Ecosmart, which heads several trash-to-energy projects across India, including the incinerator near Kumar’s neighborhood. “The solution lies in integrating some of the waste-workers into the processing activities of the plants.”

But India has a staggering 1.7 million waste workers, and any effort to mainstream them is often just a drop. Babu’s project in the central city of Nagpur has given jobs to 70 people to collect trash, out of a total of 1,700 waste workers in the city.
“The waste pickers are at the lowest rung of the occupational ladder and often the most marginalized, hence they do not have alternative livelihood options to which they can move,” Prema Gera, assistant country director of the U.N. Development Program, said in an e-mail, referring to a study.
Bhojahari Paramni, 41, has worked with waste for 25 years. He removes dirt and twigs from balls of human hair in his home in a large slum of waste workers.
“You cannot take away my job and expect me to become a successful electrician, plumber or mason overnight,” he said. There is no regulatory protection for waste workers in India.
Waste workers say that 80 percent of Indian trash is wet, organic waste and that 30 percent contains recyclable material.
“To run an incinerator, they will burn everything, including the recyclables like plastics. Is that good for the environment?” asked Shashi Bhushan Pandit, secretary of the All India Waste Workers Union. This year, New Delhi residents protested another new incinerator because they feared emissions of dioxin and other toxic gases.
Two Indian waste workers will represent their country at next week’s protest in Durban, which will demand that poor people be factored in climate policies.
Carbon trading’s future
Although the Kyoto Protocol, which the United States has not signed, is facing an uncertain future when it comes up for renewal in 2012, analysts say that its key component, carbon trading for emissions reductions, may survive in some form.
Countries such as China, Japan and New Zealand are developing carbon markets. California recently announced the nation’s first state-run cap-and-trade program. This year, India launched an exchange program for renewable-energy certificates.
“We are hoping that the carbon-trading market will continue in some [form] — both within India and bilaterally with other countries, even if the multilateral arrangements under the Kyoto Protocol are not renewed,” Babu said.
He said carbon credit prices have fallen more than 50 percent in the past year because of the euro-zone economic crisis.

WHY NON VEGETARIAN FOOD IS NOT GOOD FOR ENVIRONMENT

source : useecofriendlyproducts
Wasted Resources :

1. LAND :Vast tracts of land are needed to grow crops to feed the billions of animals we raise for food each year. According to scientists at the Smithsonian Institute, the equivalent of seven football fields of land is bulldozed every minute, much of it to create more room for farmed animals. Of all the agricultural land in the U.S., nearly 80 percent is used in some way to raise animals—that's roughly half of the total land mass of the U.S. More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals.

2. FOOD : It takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just one pound of meat, and even fish on fish farms must be fed 5 pounds of wild-caught fish to produce one pound of farmed fish flesh.All animals require many times more calories, in the form of grain, soybeans, oats, and corn, than they can possibly return in the form of animal flesh for meat-eaters to consume.The world's cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people—more than the entire human population on Earth. About 20 percent of the world's population, or 1.4 billion people, could be fed with the grain and soybeans fed to U.S. cattle alone.

3.ENERGY: Respected environmental magazine, noted in 2002 that more than one-third of all fossil fuels produced in the United States are used to raise animals for food.
Simply add up the energy-intensive stages: (1) grow massive amounts of corn, grain, and soybeans (with all the required tilling, irrigation, crop dusters, and so on); (2) transport the grain and soybeans to manufacturers of feed on gas-guzzling, pollution-spewing 18-wheelers; (3) operate the feed mills (requiring massive energy expenditures); (4) transport the feed to the factory farms (again, in inefficient vehicles); (5) operate the factory farms; (6) truck the animals many miles to slaughter; (7) operate the slaughterhouse; (8) transport the meat to processing plants; (9) operate the meat-processing plants; (10) transport the meat to grocery stores; (11) keep the meat refrigerated or frozen in the stores, until it's sold. Every single stage involves heavy pollution, massive amounts of greenhouse gases, and massive amounts of energy.

4. WATER : It takes 5,000 gallons (18,900 Litres)of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of wheat only requires 25 gallons (94.5 Litres).A totally vegetarian diet requires only 300 gallons (1134 Litres) of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons(15,120 Litres) of water per day. You save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you do by not showering for an entire year.

ANIMAL SUFFERING : Caring for the environment means protecting all of our planet's inhabitants. Animals on modern factory farms are deprived of everything that is natural to them, and they are treated in ways that would warrant felony cruelty-to-animals charges if the victims were dogs or cats. Chickens' beaks are sliced off with a hot blade, pigs' tails are chopped off and their teeth clipped with pliers, and male cows and pigs are castrated, all without any pain relief. The animals are confined to crowded, filthy warehouses and dosed with powerful drugs to make them grow so quickly that their hearts and limbs often cannot keep up—they frequently become crippled or suffer from heart attacks when they're only a few weeks old. Finally, at the slaughterhouse, they are hung upside-down and their throats are slit, often while they are still conscious. What kind of environmentalist can support any of that?

ECO-Products International fair in New Delhi, India to Promote Green Consumerism and ECO-Culture Across Nations

Source: washington bangla radio

By Sameer  Pushp

New Delhi, India, Feb 9, 2011 (Washington Bangla Radio / PIB-India) Growing population resource imbalances and looming threat of global warming demands rising concerns for sustainable living, the choice is to go for eco-powered technologies, eco-products and clean eco-energy.  The need of the hour is to adopt an eco-powered life style and provide clean eco-energy with zero co-generated pollution. Clean energyenergy efficiency products and exchange the newer, cleaner and greener technology with the rest of the world. generation products wean you off the polluting or wasteful forms of energy and ensure our eco footprint enough to stomp out global warming.  As India graduates into a pulsating and growing economy, we are mindful of the pressing need to go for clean and green products. We also realize that the traditional methods and principles may become increasingly ineffective, therefore, need is to augment eco-productivity both at micro as well as macro level to realize our global competitive edge. Hence, India is organizing The 7th Eco-Products International Fair (EPIF-2011) to showcase its eco and

EPIF-2011 – to be inaugurated by Shri Anand Sharma, Minister for Commerce and Industry – from 10th to 12th February, 2011 in New Delhi at India Trade Promotion Organization (ITPO). This fair is being jointly organized by Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Asian Productivity Organization (APO) –Tokyo, National Productivity Council (NPC), and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). This edition of EPIF would spin around the theme – “Green Productivity for Sustainable Energy and Environment”- with a parallel International Conference on the theme.

At the core, EPIF-2011 will revolve around eco-efficiency considerations and energy efficiency perspectives, which will be supported  by  principles  of  ecological  economics  and impinged by equations  of eco-financing and  investments  and returns  cycles. Strategic action by firms and stakeholders including consumers is increasingly focused on eco-design initiatives including product improvement, product– redesign, functional innovation and system innovation, etc. With a growing pull arising from accent on green procurement by firms and public sector entities. The future-scopes are green consumerism and green growth dynamics and emergence of eco-cities and eco-industrial parks that would foster an eco-culture across boundaries within one earth.

Eco-products are  defined  as  “products  and services  that   comply  with environmental regulations or are environment-friendly, reflecting manufacturers’  voluntary  efforts to  care  for  the environment.”  If we take a glance at the budget of India, at present, the contribution of renewable energy to the total energy production is under 4 percent.  The share of renewable energy in India’s energy output can increase to 10 per cent by 2015 and 15 per cent by 2020. As our conventional  energy  resources  are  getting  scarce, renewable  energy  sources  have  assumed  greater importance. So we need to change fast to balance our growing energy need and sustainable life.

EPIF-2011 is one of the largest international environment exhibitions in Asia and it will be showcasing the most advanced environment friendly technologies, products and services that enhance sustainable productivity and competitiveness. This Fair would provide opportunities to explore business collaborations and promote awareness of environment friendly products and services. This Fair will establish Green Purchasing Network and the launching of Eco-labelling schemes. A significant development would be to promote eco-materials, eco- components and eco-products; in this process, India will not only be helping environment but also be gaining a green corporate image in the market

The broad range of expected benefits that may arise from EPIF-2011 are:
·    Enhanced  scope  for  networking,  marketing  and  sales opportunities  with  global  Eco-product  producers  and information & media coverage to the products/services of the exhibitors  and  potential  ideas  for  innovative  green entrepreneurs.
·    Obtaining greater awareness and knowledge for identifying and using eco - products/services in day to day life for citizens and society at large.
·    Stimulating  industry,  governments  and  public  agencies  in devising/formulating schemes and policies to promote green procurement  mechanism  and  use  of  clean  and  green technologies.
·    Bring in focus on carbon and water - foot print actions for sustainable energy and environmental considerations.
·    Would lead to the release of  products produced by Asian Productivity Organization, Tokyo.

The lifeblood of EPIF-2011 is the concepts of sustainable development and sustainable living. Benefits of these energy efficient technologies and products ranges from: reduced production and operating costs to reduced environmental impacts. EPIF -2011 seeks to achieve not only ecological but sustainable harmony between growth and development. Our globally shared concern is we live qualitatively and each one uses his/her own share endowed by nature.  India by hosting EPIF-2011 is taking a strong step in this direction. More and more these kinds of events will promote a mass culture of sustainability which is without doubt a prudent investment for the future generations.

- PIB Features

Disclaimer:  The writer is a freelance journalist and the views expressed by the author in this feature are entirely his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of PIB or WBRi.