Welcome to another Trash Talking Friday, the only trash talk that calls you home for dinner, makes you cook and does not feel bad about it! 

Each week, I send you Ideas to ponder about. Ideas that have the potential to change your life, and hopefully help you become a better human being by understanding yourself.

This week I share a long-standing battle that I personally have been fighting to bring about change in the waste management sector here in India. This battle is being fought on many fronts including writing to our Honorable Prime Minister over 150 times in last year and a half. 

In this newsletter I share my latest communication with our PM and give you a brief about why these changes need to be implemented urgently. 

Let’s get into it!

Shri Narendra Modi

Honorable Prime Minister of India

South Block, New Delhi

India

September 15, 2020

Subject: Recommendations for the Waste Management Sector in India

Dear Honorable Prime Minister,

I have lost count of the number of letters that I have written to you in the past year and a half (approximately more than 150 letters) but have not lost hope in your in your ability to deliver change. 

I write to you again requesting you to intervene and stop the corruption, crony capitalism and vested interests of both government officials and private parties from high jacking your Swachh Bharat Abhiyan which is at the cost of the tax-payer’s money and our shared environment. 

Sir, I continue to write to you because state governments, even in states ruled by your party do not entertain small businesses, nor pay heed or respond to views of professionals in the field of waste management. They want grand projects that will make headlines, little realizing that micro, small and medium businesses are the back bone of any successful economy. To say that the global economy is going through a tough time would be an understatement and we know that the effects of CIVID 19 have had a severe impact on the Indian economy and its social fabric. Yet, innovative projects that provide mass employment and have proven their worth practically are not being allowed to operate. The entire waste collection, aggregation and processing business in India is being stifled, monopolized and cartelized by policies and tenders that are purposely killing competition by favoring a few vested interests who have long established financial understandings with government officials who are in-charge of these projects.

It is evident and visible across the country that mounds of garbage are only growing as current policies incentivize dumping of waste based on the flawed tipping fee model. The tipping fee model is flawed in more ways than one, as not only does it incentivize dumping of increased amounts of unsegregated waste since companies get paid on the amount of waste they dump on a per ton basis, but it is also open to massive manipulation. The tipping fee model is not only a gross waste of taxpayer’s money, it is also the reason why there is so little organized private participation, in the collection, recovery and processing side of the waste management sector. The tipping fee model is being promoted across the country to safeguard the interests of the certain parties, not allowing competition to enter on legal grounds citing provisions mentioned in the tender documents. 

Sir this is organized well planned robbery of the taxpayer’s money. There are numerous successful models present across our great nation that have been delivering fantastic results without any government support, yet these models are not being allowed to grow. Sir, I hear by request your intervention on the following matters: 

1.     Stop the tipping fee model.

2.     Introduce a reverse tipping fee model that will help the government generate revenues.

3.     Provide “industry status” to this sector. It is astonishing that a sector that provides mass employment and is responsible for ensuring the health and wellbeing of a nation does not have an industry status till date. 

4.     Open the sector up completely and allow private companies to participate in cleaning India through a non-tendering route, based on simple easy to follow guidelines and permissions.

5.     Remove GST that is levied on private firms that provide waste management services to other private companies. Remove GST from sale, purchase and processing of recyclable materials. Government contractors providing waste management services to government agencies are exempt from GST so why are private companies serving private enterprises being made to pay. 

6.     Implement a plastic tax on virgin plastic and make products made of recycled waste tax free.

7.     Allow the use recycled PET in the production of food grade plastic.

This country needs entrepreneurs to enter this sector in hordes, but the current policies are not business friendly, in fact they have the complete opposite effect in terms of attracting talent and money to this sector. Sir, it is not a hidden secret that 90% of door-door waste collection in our country is undertaken by the unorganized sector, even in cities where the work has been tendered out to private contractors. The municipalities, through vested interests are incapable of managing municipal waste efficiently, so I fail to understand why the sector is not being opened up to competition? Why do you continue to allow those with vested interests bury your flagship project and the dreams of young entrepreneurs wanting to enter this sector under heaps of garbage?

I sincerely hope that at least a dialogue can be started on these points as a first step towards bringing about change. Atmanirbhar Bharat will only be possible when micro, small and medium enterprises are allowed to become Atmanirbhar by reducing red tape, bureaucracy, corruption through a fair policy regime and implementation that promotes competition and innovation.

Jai Hind!

Sincerely,

Manik Thapar 

Founder & CEO

Eco Wise Waste Management Pvt Ltd. 

www.ecowise.net.in

So, there you have it! Firstly, I would like to set a few things straight. I have been in the waste management sector now for 15 long years, collecting, segregating, aggregation, processing municipal waste from homes, industries and commercial establishments. When I moved back from America, after living there and in Canada for close to 19 years to start this business, most people laughed, called me a kabari and could not comprehend as to why I would make such a stupid move. Not much has practically changed in this sector in regards to how waste is managed since I first started Eco Wise. 

The reasons have been purely selfish both for moving back and for continuously taking up this cause to bring about change that along with benefiting my organisation will also benefit the entrepreneurial and environmental landscape of our country. There are seven points on which I have requested our Prime Ministers intervention and here is the why behind each of those points.

1.     Stop the tipping fee model: Tipping fee simply means to get paid on a per ton bases to collect from place A and dump in Place B. In essence this model promotes and incentivises private contractors to dump increased amounts of unsegregated waste in our over flowing dump sites, which are visible for all to see. All government tenders in regards to waste management are based on this flawed model, that continues to cost the tax payer and the nation both financially and environmentally. This system is also open to massive manipulation, where by contractors fill their trucks with construction material to increase the weight and their billing. All this cannot happen without the involvement of government officials. 

2.     Reverse tipping fee: The opposite of a tipping fee. This means that the contractor pays the government to tip (dispose) their waste on public land, earning the government revenues and incentivising maximum recovery, recycling and processing of waste. Implementing the reverse tipping fee model is a vital part to reducing the amount of waste being dumped in landfills, minimising environmental disasters and putting an end to manual scavenging by children on landfills.

3.     Industry status: Well our Prime Ministers Swachh Bharat abhiyan is meant to tackle sanitation, of which waste management is central theme. Astonishingly, this sector does not have industry status! What would the benefits be? Will too many, but I will touch on few key points here. Industry status will hopefully provide the sector with one nodal ministry responsible to deal with all matters pertaining to waste. As of now, you have the ministry of urban housing and development, ministry of environment and forest, the Jal shakti ministry, Swachh Bharat urban, Swachh Bharat rural, CPCB, SPCB, NGT, all responsible for various aspects of waste management from policy formulation to implementation on the ground level. Talk about ease of business, oh, hold on did I forget to throw the municipalities in the mix who seem to have their own verbal laws and regulations in place. 

Makes access to funds a lot easier and cheaper for small and large businesses operating or looking to enter this sector. Waste management is a capital-intensive sector requiring investments in trucks, machinery and warehousing. As of now most of the sector in the unorganised and relies on private financing which charges interest rates ranging from 3-5% per month! On the organised side also, since the sector lacks industry status the going rates of interest are upwards of 17% per annum (without collateral).

Organising the unorganised, by helping them transition into an organised way of operating. The unorganised sector is a vast untapped source of information and data that the government has no access to. Leveraging their knowledge and data will only help in greatly improving the current system. The sector employees’ lacs of individuals from collection to processing and has further potential of generating vast amounts of employment and wealth, which will not only increase the standard of living for individuals at the bottom of the pyramid but for the entire country. Did I forget to mention increased amounts of tax collection for the government. Currently numbers are just thrown around about the size of the sector and about the amount of waste the country produces as data is neither transparent, traceable nor credible in the manner that it’s collected. An added benefit of providing industry status will be that of gaining access of too valuable data.  

4.     Opening the sector to competition: As of now the sector is being monopolised and cartelised by a handful of private government contractors based on the tipping fee model. Why is this a problem? Imagine you had only four brands of chocolates to choose from, only four models and brands of cars to choose from, only four restaurants that you could eat at. Well some of us reading this mail have experienced this first hand and others have heard stories about how India use to function prior to reforms being implemented, the most prominent of which was opening up the market to competition. The waste management sector is stuck in the dark ages in terms of how it operates and the control of the government over who it allows into this sector through ill planned and most of the times purposely planned policies that assist only a few. As of now, the sector works in a hybrid model, organised and unorganised, with the unorganised sector doing most of the heavy lifting of collection, segregation, aggregation and processing. 

Now think about this for a minute. The government tenders the entire cities waste management to one company, who is responsible to collect, segregate, transport, process and dispose your waste. The challenge is that most of these companies are only doing collection from secondary points and dumping the waste in landfills, with the informal sector doing collection from door to door, segregating your waste and dumping the rest on road side garbage houses from where the government contractor collects and dumps the waste in landfills, getting paid on a tipping fee model. If a private company like ours wants to enter the collection, transportation, segregation and disposal of waste (on a reverse tipping fee model) we are denied permission to operate on the grounds that the work has been tendered to one entity. It’s immaterial whether the entity is able to manage the waste effectively, its immaterial what they are doing with the waste, it’s immaterial if their process is causing grave harm to the environment and costing the tax payers financially; competition will not be allowed so that a corrupt system can be protected. 

A single entity is incapable of managing the complexities present in the waste management sector in India, as evident from 20 years of this flawed model being in operation and not being able to deliver. The mounds of waste have only increased. Opening the sector to competition from collection to processing will only benefit the consumer of these services whether industrial, commercial, residential or the government. Not only will create mass employment, it will help bring in innovation and a better way of doing things, reduce the burden of funding waste management operations on the government while providing them a revenue stream through the reverse tipping fee model. It will also help stream line this fragmented sector, helping organise the unorganised and ensure maximum recovery and processing of waste. 

So, when there are companies that are willing to invest their own money from logistics to processing and willing to pay a reverse tipping fee to the government to utilise its landfills to dump waste that cannot be recycled (20%) why is there such a push back? The reason is simple, maintain status quo to protect vested interests of a few, both in the government and the private sector. 

5.     Remove GST: As of now the private companies and the unorganised sector is working in the grey area when it comes to providing waste collection services. The law may not allow them to operate, but it does so by closing its eyes as municipalities and their contractors are incapable of delivering. This ties in directly to what I have mentioned in my points above in regards to granting the sector industry status and opening it up to competition. As of now the playing field is completed tilted. Private contractors who provide waste management services through the tendering route are exempt from paying GST, while private contractors who service private establishments are liable to pay 18% GST. In order to encourage entrepreneurs to enter this sector, a ten-year GST holiday must be given to new and existing entrants.  

6.     Tax virgin plastic and incentivise recycled plastic: This will help reduce the overall use of plastic in the economy and promote re-use and the use of recycled materials in manufacturing processes. By making products made of virgin plastic a lot more expensive than those made from recycled plastic, we can help drastically reduce the production of ever increased amounts of virgin plastic. This of course can only be done when there is proper infrastructure in place to collect and process post-consumer plastic waste at scale, when policies are in place to promote such break throughs and products and packaging is developed keeping their recyclability at their end of life in mind. The major reasons and benefits of a virgin plastic tax are the following: 

a.     Change behaviour through a carrot and stick approach 

b.     Move the cost of environmental damage to those who cause it 

c.     Increase revenues for the government, that can then be spent on nation building. (How this money should be spent or is spent in India is a completely different topic of discussion) 

7.     Allow recycled PET (R-Pet) in production of food grade packaging: All those bottles of mineral water, and more when disposed are mostly down cycled into making fibre for clothing. The FSSAI (Food safety & standard authority of India) as of now does not allow the use of recycled PET in the production of food grade packaging due to various reasons inducing lobbying by brands and some health and safety issues. Bottle to bottle recycling is the need of the hour. Not only will it reduce the amount of virgin plastic but also help our economy and environment. It will be a real boost for the recycling sector and help move our country closer towards a circular economy. 

The technology to do this is available, but investment will only start pouring in once there is clarity on policy and directive to brands to start using certain percentage of recycled pet in their bottles or packaging with the understanding to keep increasing the recycled content in their packaging till the entire packaging is made of 100% recycled PET. 

As of now there is bottle to bottle recycling happening in India too, but it’s happening unofficially. The neck portion of the bottle which has a higher IV (intrinsic velocity) is being used as of now to manufacture small country made liquor bottles (what we call addha, paua in local slang) by the unorganised sector.  

This has been a long article and for those of you who have made it this far, congratulation and thank you! As always, I am available to answer any questions that you may have, but would suggest you check with google baba first, as it will be a lot quicker than me! 

Until we meet again next week, have a fabulously sustainable weekend! 

Welcome to another Trash Talking Friday, the only trash talk that wears the same pair of jeans for weeks and still makes them look and smell fresh! Each week, I send you Ideas to ponder about. Ideas that have the potential to change your life, and hopefully help you become a better human being by understanding yourself.

This week I talk about:

1. The cause of plastic pollution.
2. Corporate hypocrisy     

 Let‘s get into it!

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 Using A Band-Aid to fix a broken Dam: Plastic Pollution & Corporate Hypocrisy 

To start off here are some mind-boggling figures that some of you may be aware of, while others may be oblivious too. Facts about how mismanaged post-consumer plastic waste, cosmetics, washing clothes & keeping the tap open to ever increasing production of virgin plastic have created a herculean man-made problem that we call plastic pollution.

Facts: 

 1. Every minute the equivalent of 1 truck of plastic waste is dumped in our oceans 

2. Plastic has been found in more than 60% of seabirds and 100% of turtles 

3. By 2050 nearly every sea bird species will be eating plastic 

4. 11 Million tons of plastic as per latest reports make their way to our oceans 

5. 150 million tons of plastic is currently in circulating in our oceans 

6. Plastic production & consumption is expected to double over the next 10 years 

7. More Than 5 trillion pieces of plastic are floating in the ocean as of today 

8. Packaging material is the largest market for plastic, accounting for nearly half the plastic waste generated globally 

9. 73% of beach litter is plastic, with food packaging wrappers now taking the top spot from cigarette butts as the most littered items 

10. Fishing nets abounded accounts for 10% of all plastic in our oceans 

 Here is another fact that you don‘t get to hear too often:

No amount of beach clean ups, ocean clean ups, plogging or segregation of waste will solve the problem unless steps are taken to first drastically reduce & over a short period of time stop the production of virgin plastic. 

While billions of dollars and millions of man hours are being spent on cleaning up our beaches and oceans, mismanaged plastic waste continues to make its way to landfills, street corners, drains, rivers and oceans at rates that far exceed what any clean up can achieve. 

This is something that we all wished would happen to our bank account. Imagine all it did was grow exponentially every day, no matter how much you spent. Unfortunately, this is not our bank account, but something much more important than that. Something that, once taken from us will be next to impossible to replace no matter how much money we throw at it. Something that we all share and is a vital part of our existence, in fact it is the reason we are able to exist as a species on planet earth. If you have not figured out what this something is, go out and take deep breath, take your kids to the park, go for a swim in the ocean, visit a wildlife sanctuary or simply close your eyes and imagine the last time you were with nature.

I am not saying that that you should not partake in such activities, or that companies should not invest in finding solutions to rid our oceans of plastic present in them. Rather, these activities should be treated like a desert after the main course. Why? Well because we need to start treating the cause and not the symptoms.

The Cause of Plastic Pollution

 Increasing amount of Virgin production: Global production of plastic has soured from 25 million tons in 1970 to over 400 million tons in the year 2018. This number is expected to double by the year 2030! Petrochemical companies including Reliance industries & and the Indian Oil company are investing heavily to set up petrochemical refineries to manufacture and flood the markets with ever increasing amounts of virgin plastic. Unless this bleeding is not stopped, mopping the blood-soaked floor is simply a cosmetic exercise. This requires increased consumer awareness through civil activism and shareholder activism, both of which are negligent in our country.

 Design & Material selection: Packaging material is now the largest market for plastic manufacturers. Brands such as Coca Cola, Unilever, P&G, Mars, Nestle, Danone, Mondelez, Colgate Palmolive are amongst the top polluters. This year has bought more disturbing news, with multi layered plastic packaging overtaking cigarette butts as the most polluting item of litter found on beaches. It‘s imperative that at the development & design stage special consideration be given to material selection to ensure that the packaging is recyclable using conventional tried and tested mechanical recycling technologies available in the market as of today.

The definition of recycling: Many of us think that recycling simply means taking a plastic item and converting it into a new item through a mechanical process. The truth is that most of the plastic is downcycled. Recycling in essence means, take a product and through a mechanical or chemical process creating the same product again, to be used for the same purpose that it was first manufactured for. For example, a PET mineral water bottle once recycled should be converted into a PET mineral bottle again to package water. As of now PET is mostly downcycled into fiber used to make clothing, which then ends up in the landfill once it reaches it end of life. This is what we call elongated linear consumption, where the original product is given a different from to elongate the pain and propagate a false sense of doing the right thing. True recycling is always circular, such as in the case of metals, or converting organic waste into compost, or the extraction of precious metals from E-waste, Lithium, cobalt and other materials from lithium ion batteries. For plastic, we need a similar system in place, but first we need the above three points to be implemented along with investing in infrastructure from collection to processing. 

Infrastructure: The entire world needs to invest heavily in waste management infrastructure, from collection to processing of not just plastic waste but also many other types of waste such as organics, textile and E-waste. But let‘s stick to plastic for now. Globally there are many loop holes in the waste management system, take for example what the west has been doing for decades, by asking its citizens to segregate their waste and then shipping it to Asian and South East Asian countries including India for processing. In essence they have been lying to their own population, and this structure of cards came crumbling down with China imposing strict restrictions on importing waste into its borders. Since then many countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and India have imposed their own bans on Imported waste. Majority of these countries including India were struggling to manage their own waste and the influx of foreign garbage has been a tipping point of sorts. The reason the west has been shipping waste to Asia is because it‘s cheaper for the to do so than to invest and set up infrastructure to manage it within their own borders. You may find their streets clean and garbage collection organized, but that does not mean it‘s being managed properly, much of it also ends up in landfills, incinerators and on foreign shores. There is also a massive increase in the instances of Fly tipping (illegal dumping) in countries like the UK, US and whole host more across the western world. 

 Asian countries such as India find themselves in a precarious position. There is lack of infrastructure on all sides from collection to processing. The fact that there are two parallel systems operating (organized and the unorganized) add to the complexities. Though the unorganized sector is greatly responsible for collection, recovery and processing of plastic waste in India, it hardly solves the problem. Unregulated, unorganized collection, segregation, dumping and processing is a major cause of plastic pollution in the country. Remote areas of the country, small towns and hill stations are in the dark ages when it comes to waste management infrastructure, with urban areas having a slight edge. There is need to start managing waste on land where its generated through planned investments in the entire life cycle from collection to processing. 

Distraction:

Beach clean ups, plogging, ocean clean up, segregation, recycling, introduction of new materials such as bio-plastic, new technologies such as chemical (Advanced) recycling are all distractions too by time and influence policy by polluting brands, oil, gas and petrochemical companies. Simply put, it‘s against their interest to move towards circular consumption as this would adversely hamper their finances. For brands, proclaiming their sustainability commitments, where is the transparence and traceability? Proclaiming their love for all that‘s green through far reaching media campaigns is another way to distract and green wash consumers. Here are a few examples of corporate greenwashing:

 Natural All Bottle Alliance: Nestle, Danone and Pepsi are all part of this initiative which is working to make 100% bio based, recyclable beverage-based bottles from natural materials. The companies have neither committed to any time frame not have they reported any progress since 2018.  

The Ocean Clean Up:  The majority of the plastic in the ocean is below the surface and already fragmented. This system, through advertising on social media and popular platforms like TED has managed to siphon off not only the public‘s attention from viable solutions but also vast amounts of money. The project has industry partners such as Danone, petrochemical giant SABIC, industrial plastic manufactured Agru, all of which are heavily invested in plastic production.  

Alliance to End Plastic Waste: Fancy name not so fancy intentions. This alliance was started in 2019 and has a total of 47 members predominately oil and gas companies, chemical and plastic manufacturers, consumer goods companies, retailers and waste management companies. The Alliance has pledged $1.5 billion to tackle the plastic pollution problem over the next 5 years. This may seem impressive at the face of it, but according to a recent damming report the cap is blown of this bottle. The very same companies that are supporting this alliance have invested $186 billion in setting up new petrochemical facilities between 2010 and 2017 to facilitate the production of plastic. The American Chemistry council reports that the US alone is investing $202 billion to set up 340 new projects, adding 28 million tons of plastic production capacity within this decade.  

Here in India, reliance continues to be the largest petrochemical company in the country and the largest polyester yarn production company in the world. 18% of all plastic produced is used for polyester production. Not to be left behind is Indian Oil Company, which is investing close to $2 billion to set up a petrochemical facility in Odisha, with a production capacity of 800,000 tons per annum to facilitate the textile sector. This when the government owns 51.5% of the company and is aggressively advertising the ban on single use plastic and propagating a clean pollution free India through its flag ship project of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.  

These distractions are meant to have another purpose, that of shifting the onus of the plastic pollution problem onto the consumer by repeatedly telling them not to litter and too segregate and assist in recycling. It‘s evidentially clear that just because you segregate your waste it does not mean it‘s recycled. It‘s also very clear that just because its collected does not mean its processed. If companies continue to produce packaging that‘s non-recyclable, no amount of segregation is going to help. 

 Further, if the disposed of waste has zero commercial value it will not be recovered by the unorganized or organized sector. Since these materials cannot be recycled, most of them will be dumped in landfills, incinerated and a lot of it will enter our oceans through our rivers. If the system for collection of waste is nonexistent or broken as is the case in many parts of the country, citizens will have no option but to dispose their waste in open drains or empty tracks of land. If garbage collectors who come to collect your waste, mix it all up after you put in the effort to segregate, what‘s the point? If the system of processing plastic waste is broken, unorganized and severely deficient in its capacity to deal with the current volumes, what hope is there for the future where demand and production is most likely to increase incrementally? 

The problem is on land and must be solved on land, not by landfilling or incinerating, but by making brands and producers legally and financially responsibly to first ensure that they don‘t produce any packaging that cannot be recycled using existing mechanical technologies, reduce drastically the production of virgin plastic at a rapid pace with stringent timelines in place and facilitate and finance proper waste management systems from collection to processing not only in the developing or under developed world, but also in the countries of their origin. Moving the blame, first to consumers and then to the developing nations as a reason for plastic pollution, while continuing to invest in production of virgin plastic and shipping waste across oceans is a game plan that now stands exposed.

As a nation, we need to start asking tough questions both of our government and businesses, through public forums, filing PIL, RTI‘s, asking questions in shareholders meetings, on social media platforms, on social media pages of large and small brands etc.  From a government perspective there is lot to be desired on the policy front, just demanding that consumers segregate and not litter is passing the buck due to your own incompetence‘s that stem from poor regulation/enforcement and ill planned policies that fail to hold the real polluters accountable for their action both legally and financially.

We live in a world full of hypocrisy, hell I will be the first one to say that I have caught my self being one numerous times, specially when I have had an audience, hence I tend to stick to my lane now and speak about only what I know, but more Importantly what I practise and or endeavour to change through action. Everything is not what it seems to be and as consumers we must make the effort to proactively lift the veil of corporate and government hypocrisy, for its making a fool of you while charging you money for it. 

Until we meet again next week, have a fabulously sustainable weekend!

Eco Wise Waste Management Pvt Ltd

 

Scrap Mafia: Last week, I wrote about small time hoodlums, the type you can swat like flies if you have a little local connect or are willing to report them to local authorities. The scrap mafia is a different ball game! Welcome to the Gangs of Wasseypur (Bollywood Movie) where murders, extortion, physical violence and intimidation, corporate, political and police corruption run rampant. You don‘t only need a set of big balls, but also brains to be in the collection side of this business.  

12th October, 2017:  My phone rings waking me up from a deep sleep. It‘s 1:30 am in the morning and the call is from my supervisor from Bangalore. I have always been wary of getting work calls at odd times such as these, as more often than not, only occur when something bad has gone down. I answer the phone with a groggy hello and on the other side, I hear my supervisor crying, asking me to save his life. Before I can compose myself, someone else jumps on the phone and asks me to come outside the warehouse of a large e-commerce company within thirty minutes or the supervisor will be face grave consequences. Fuck, I am in bed at my home in Delhi, this guy wants me to show up in Bangalore within thirty minutes or him and his boys are going to go town with my supervisor who belongs to a small town in Bihar. 

We had just secured a large contract to manage the waste generated from the warehouse of a large e-commerce company and despite getting threats on numerous occasions, I had taken an executive call to continue with the contract, after all we were used to such elements and had dealt with them in states like UP & Haryana, and this was Bangalore, my thoughts were that nothing serious could come of this. All those beliefs come tumbling down over the next few days as we encountered the wrath of the Bangalore scrap mafia with deep political connects. 

The scrap mafia is ever present, especially in the areas where there is bulk generation of recyclables. Railway and other government tenders, large manufacturing units, E-commerce and other large warehouses etc. If you take look at where most of the large industries and warehouses are located in India, you will find that they are mostly in rural areas on the outskirts of large cities. Tier two and three cities have many such industries where locals have either sold their land to large companies directly or through the government or in some cases leased parcels of land by building warehouses on them to large national and multinational organizations. Once land is sold or rented most of these individuals in rural India either enter local politics or the business of property dealing. Along with that they also start exerting their control on whom the company can and cannot sell their scrap too (they also control the movement of construction materials, water, transportation) and the rates that they can sell their material at. They do this through intimidation both physical and political. In the case of physical intimidation, they would first start off by calling you and harassing you verbally. If that fails, they would show up at your office or facility, hold up your trucks or threaten your employees with dire consequences. As they are from the local region, the police know them well and it‘s easy for them to collect people in masses from their village as support, not to mention their political contacts are ever willing to help.  

On the political (many local politicians are directly involved in the scrap business) side support is provided by local politicians on the pretext of keeping outsiders at bay and give the opportunity to locals in the area to earn while generating employment. The truth is that all this is done to make money, while benefiting only a handful of individuals, most of whom are well to do anyhow. There is also a massive involvement of employees working in many of these companies for personal financial gain, which I shall speak about in next weeks newsletter. In majority of the cases local politicians/mafia don‘t get involved in the process of collection, transportation or processing directly. They have local scrap dealers do all the work. These individuals then pay a fixed fee or a per kilogram fee as protection money that is then distributed amongst local goons, politicians and police. In essence, the local scrap mafia is a middleman, ensuring that rates are kept low, outsiders remain at bay and companies tow their line. It‘s a great way for them to earn hard cash, part of which then fund political campaigns and life style.  

Large companies such as LG, Samsung, Yamaha, Vivo, Oppo, Flipkart, Amazon, Future group, Arvind, Mahindra, Tata, McGrawhill, the Indian railways and many more are under the grip of the local scrap mafia. Let‘s take LG for example. The company has a manufacturing unit located in the city of Greater Noida since 1998. For the last twenty years the contract to collect scrap has been firmly in the grips of one individual family, that‘s supported from the outside by the likes of the Sundar Bhati Gang and the local police and politicians. Two murders have taken place over the contract of scrap for the said company, with the individual who has been collecting scrap from this facility for over a decade being charged under the gangster act, yet its business as usual. At his daughter‘s wedding, two years ago a total of two crore of cash, over fifty lac of jeweler and three Audi cars were presented to the groom‘s family as a gift. When you work in Greater Noida, there are certain companies that you just stay away from for your safety, LG is just one such company in a list of companies that is long. It‘s just not scrap, it‘s the entire ecosphere that‘s controlled by the local mafia. From transportation of goods, busses that transport employees, supply of construction materials, hiring and firing of local employees the mafia has a big say in company decisions. 

Another recent example is OPPO, where in the beginning of this year a security guard of the company was shot dead by an aid of the Sundar Bhati Gang over contracts relating to scrap, supply of drinking water and construction material. Across the country from Bangalore, Mumbai, chennei, Kolkata, cities in Haryana, UP, it‘s the same situation. From controlling rights to segregate and recover recyclables from landfill dumps to controlling the scrap trade from large, midsize and small companies, this is well oiled nexus between politicians, local authorities the mafia and employees of certain private companies. Money from the proceeds is used to fund political campaigns, bribe the police for protection and fund small developers in the real estate market. 

The recent boom in the countries E-commerce market has caught the eye of regional mafia groups. The story at the beginning of this article relates to one of many such instances where local mafia has started to make inroads into the E-commerce sector across the country. Housekote, in rural Bangalore has many large warehouses, including those of prominent E-commerce companies and the presence of the local mafia is ever present and growing in terms of controlling the scrap business. Either you work with them on their terms or you don‘t work at all. In Bangalore, the scrap business from large warehouses is controlled by locals affiliated with national or regional political parties. They either are directly involved in politics or have someone in their family or friend circle who is engaged in the business of politics. There have been a few companies from outside of Bangalore who have tried to work in Bangalore scrap business, with all of them forced to work with regional mafia players, by outsourcing the work to them or their henchmen. We are the only North Indian company that has set up operations in Bangalore in the year 2015 and continues to work there till date. Large players like Ramky on multiple occasions have dipped their fingers in this business of collecting scrap from large E-commerce ware houses and failed, due to many reasons, one of which being the involvement of regional mafia players. The truth is that in most cases the contract may be in the name of reputed or may not so well-known company but it‘s being serviced indirectly by the local goons. (Read other reason of why this happens)

We have serviced each and every large E-commerce player across India and in the city of Bangalore and as a result have had numerous run ins with local mafia figures, who have continuously tried to upend our business mostly through intimidation and cartelization. What has worked for us is supporting the local economy by financially assisting local strong men, not by giving them money, but by renting land from them to build a warehouse, renting rooms from them to house our employees and staying as far away as we can from hiring locals either as supervisors or drivers. All our employees are hired in UP and sent to these cities to work. Even though we don‘t service many of these warehouses any more, mostly due to reasons mentioned in this article, we continue to get most of their recyclables delivered to our warehouse, which saves us tremendous money when it comes to reducing our collection and labor costs. 

Mumbai, Kolkata, most parts of UP and Bangalore are notorious for Mafia involvement. Bhawandi, located in the state of Maharashtra is one market that we have not been able to crack without outsourcing work to locals and on many instances have had to walk away from contracts. From future group to H&M, from Flipkart to Amazon, they are all being serviced by local goons in Bhawandi. The company may be able to help you within their premises (Happens rarely) but it‘s what happens when you leave the premises of the company that is of serious concern. In one such instance, our loaded truck with cardboard was forced to stay within the premises of large E-commerce company in Kolkata, as over thirty men waited outside the gates of the company to give our truck, driver and labor a very special welcome. We had to fly one of our employees to Kolkata to negotiate terms and after days of negotiation we reached a pact and were allowed to service the said facility through outsourcing the work to locals who belonged to a TMC (ruling political party in the state of Bengal) faction.  In other instances, we have seen first-hand goons‘ barge into warehouses and threaten the manager and employees of dire consequence. In many instances a complaint is not lodged out of fear and in some cases its due to corruption within organizations. Those working in India know very well how the police works. In my personal opinion and through experience what we have found is that the police play a role of a mediator after the incident has occurred and in rare cases may act prior to the crime being committed. There are many reasons for this, from political intervention to not get involved, to corruption and also the fear of locals creating a problem. 

The nexus between local and central politicians, police and employees of some corporations and companies has ensured that only those with coercive vested interests stand to gain. Life is not fair, and that‘s the system that we operate within in the scrap market. You can either standup to them, join hands with them or quit. That‘s said, there still remain many companies where you can secure scrap contracts, but that comes with its own set of challenges that we shall cover next in next week‘s newsletter. 

As far as the story at the start of this article is concerned, our supervisor escaped on foot and hid in the nearby bushes for a good four hours. He only left once the commotion our side settled. For the rest of the month he stayed in his room our fear only to come out once we sorted the said matter. How did we sort the matter? We have a couple of problem solvers in our organization who due to necessity have become experts in dealing with such situations. One was dispatched to Bangalore on an early morning flight the same day, the other a women and key employee of our organization worked the phone to garner local support to counter the offensive. Calls were made to our landlord where we rented rooms for our employees, where we built our warehouse, to individual who supplies up water (a local congress party strong man) to the individual from whom we rent our generator from and they were told that there will no more business from us if the situation at hand is not resolved. We were after all paying them money every month and that took over the prevailing market rates, it was in their interest to ensure that our business and employees remained safe. For over a month our trucks were accompanied by locals from the area to ensure their safety and that of our employees, on occasions there were heated confrontations between them and the local mafia goon, but in the end a resolution was arrived at that we would be allowed to work the contract for a period of few months post which we would need to let go of it. That was enough time for us to make inroads into the local market to help strengthen our arms. 

The Bangalore and certain other market was starting to get big for us and it was important that we had our own safety network in place to counter any future episodes of such kind, so we decided to give birth to new local entrepreneurs who would work as sub vendors for us. Like only a diamond can cut a diamond, only locals can deal with local goons in their own way. Many of these individuals continue to work with us till date and some have grown their business to a respectable size, with one of them becoming one the largest in the region. We still get majority of the waste from these warehouses, only we don‘t do the collection, it‘s now delivered to our warehouse hassle free.  The point to note is that the mafia element involved here holds the contract in his name and has subcontracted the contract to the vendor who then sells the scrap to us. Similarly, in other warehouses where the contract is in the name of an outside party from a different city, the contract is executed on the ground level by locals some of whom continue to sell their scrap to us. 

Collection of waste and scrap remains one of the most pressing challenges faced by the waste management sector in India. With the government now realizing that there is wealth in waste the battle has moved towards controlling the ownership of waste. The recent EPR draft, prevailing tendering policies and the government dragging its feet on giving the sector industry status and showing little interest in implementing transformational policy changes are efforts to maintain status quo. 

On the scrap side the business as detailed throughout this article remains mostly controlled by regional and local mafia, with collection being one the most pressing challenges. 

Here are some links detailing the names and notorious characters involved in the business of scrap in India: 

1.  Attack on Oppo (Greater Noida) 

2.  Gangsters & The Scrap business 

3.  Mukhtar Ansari: The UP DON 

4.  The Scrap Mafia Queen of Mumbai 

5.  Pune Chakan Region Mafia 

6.  Garbage Gangs of Deonar: Mumbai 

7.  Bloody Gang Wars: UP: Bihar: Bangal 

8.  The Iron Mafia: Video Documentary 

9.  Bangalore’s Garbage Mafia 

10. Chennai 250 Crore Scrap Mafia Don 

11. Noida &Greater Noida Sunder Bhati Gang 

12. Ragpickers Shanties Destroyed 

13. Rising Crime In Noida & Greater Noida 

14. The Enemy Within 

Next weeks newsletter will cover the involvement of corporates and government employees bringing together the entire syndicate by connecting all the dots. 

Hope you have enjoyed this weeks newsletter. Until next week, have fabulously sustainable weekend!

Welcome to another Trash Talking Friday, the only trash talk that day dreams all day and still gets all its shit done! Each week, I send you Ideas to ponder about. Ideas that have the potential to change your life, and hopefully help you become a better human being by understanding yourself.

This week’s article is part one of a series of three articles covering the involvement of the mafia in the waste management business. This week I cover 1) Unorganised rag pickers syndicate 2) Kabadi Syndicate 3) I touch on this briefly with details disclosed in next weeks article 

 Let’s get into it!

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be gangster. That’s the beginning of the movie “Goodfellas” and the character narrating the dialog in first person is Henry Hill, a real-life gangster turned informant on whom the film is based. But I am no gangster, and this is no movie; this is India’s waste management sector where the mafia is ever present, getting increasingly organized and now corporatized. 

This article will shed light on five different types of mafia and the waste management sub-sectors within which they operate. 

 1. The unorganized Rag-Picker Gangs

2. The Kabadi Syndicate 

3. The Scrap Mafia 

4. The organized Corporate Mafia 

5. The Political, Administrative and Bureaucratic Mafia  

May 2006: A man dressed in a white shirt, white pants and white shoes barges into our small office in the city of Noida, in Uttar Pradesh, asking for me by name. His name, Satpal Nagar, a relative of a local political big wig belonging to the Gujjar community, who historically have been engaged in farming and other activities, many of whom had become multi-millionaires overnight by selling their land to the government and private developers. Mr. Nagar was an intimidating fellow, 6 foot 2 inches with a heavy frame and big thick hands that looked like they could crush stone. He plonked himself down on the only chair I had in my office and asked me if I was collecting waste from a newly built society located in Noida. I tentatively answered yes, and he proceeded to tell me to stop collecting waste from the that site. When I asked why, he fidgeted a little in his chair and pulled out a country made revolver and put it on the table. No matter how tough you think you may be, the thought of getting shot, that too, over garbage was scary enough for me to defuse the situation by offering him something soft to drink (Coke, Pepsi etc. are called soft drinks in India, as they have no alcohol content). 

Over a conversation, Mr. Nagar revealed that he had the contract of distributing newspapers in the said locality along with the contract to collect scrap  and that he was in the business of trading paper scrap and since many households were giving their paper to our waste collectors, it was affecting his business adversely. A concession was made and I happily accepted not to collect any paper from the said location, with instructions passed down to the collection team. For a period of one-week Mr. Nagar’s hench men stood outside the society and checked the bags in our truck to ensure paper was not being collected. 

 It’s been almost 15 years since that incident and we as an organization have encountered far more scary run-ins with local goon and the mafia, from an kidnapping attempt on one of our employees in Bangalore, physical and verbal assaults on our supervisors, our trucks hijacked for ransom in UP and being forced to pay protection money to operate in Kolkata. This is a brief story of the murky underbelly of the waste management sector in India. 

The unorganized rag picker gangs: There is a hierarchy amongst rag pickers, the have and the have-nots. Most individuals who collect waste from your homes in their rickshaws fall somewhere in this category too, and come predominately from Assam, West Bengal, Eastern UP and Bihar with an overwhelming percentage of them being Indian Muslims, and a small percentage being Bangladeshi Muslims. This hierarchy is broken down as mentioned below:  

Those who walk on foot and collect recyclables from drains, side of roads, dustbins & landfills. These individuals usually work under a contractor, and are bonded to continue working under them as the contractor either pays them advance or keeps part of their payment with him or her. Further, most of those employed by the contractor are from his or her village so if they do run, they can be found with ease. These individuals collect waste in the wee hours of the morning and sell it to their contractors at predetermined rates. The situation at landfills is a completely different ball game, with local mafia elements and contractors controlling who gets the right to segregate waste dumped at landfills according to a fixed charge. Many landfill fires are a result of burning waste such as PVC coated wires, e-waste to recover precious metals.  

Those who use a manual rickshaw to collect recyclables from the side of roads, drains, parks, markets etc. Many of these individuals are either self-employed family operations or work for contractors. They are higher up the ladder and have greater freedom to move around within the contractor network. If they work for a contractor, then the contractor provides them with the rickshaw and living accommodation in most cases. The contractor pays these individuals for the waste they collect on pre-determined rates. In some instances, individuals are self-employed, which means, that they have their family members such as brothers, sisters, wife, kids, brother in-laws, sister in-laws etc. all working on the same cause of collection of recyclables. They set up crude warehouses in urban villages and live in shanties there. What they segregate, they sell to small or large aggregators for cash. 

Those who collect waste from your home, hotels, and malls. This again, is a complex mix and can be broken down into two sperate fragments. Those who work for a contractor and those who are self-employed. From homes, traditionally the practice has been of RWA’s tendering the waste management contract out to a single vendor for door to door collection. But this is not a tender where the RWA pays the collector, it’s where the collector pays the RWA. Though this practice has reduced, substantially, it is still prevalent in many parts of the country. Contractors fight over the rights to collect waste by bidding the highest price, which leads to them then taking on debt from local financers at rates as high as 5% per month. Many are unable to pay, close down over night and head back to their village or a new city to start the process again. In areas where the households pay a disposal fee to private contractors, the collection fee is kept by the contractor and the labor is made to segregate the waste and then sell back to the contractor at fixed rates. The waste that cannot be recycled, such as complex plastic like MLP and other materials that are not of high value, including food waste is dumped on road side dumps from where the it’s then collected and disposed of at landfills by government contractors on a tipping fee model. In many instances, waste which is of low commercial use is burnt at the contractors’ warehouse at night or dumped in drains or open plots of land. Recyclables such as wires with PVC coating is also burnt at these warehouses to recover the valuable metal contents within them.  

Many of these so called shanty warehouses are located in urban villages and the land is owned by local strong men, who provide protection for such activities to take place, as they derive rental income from these contractors on which they pay zero income tax as its all collected in cash. 

 Similarly, hotels and malls all sell their waste in a mixed form to the unorganized sector, which ends up paying these entities either directly or to proxies such as NGO or other private firms. 

There is shift in this system, but not for good. As more and more cities privatize waste management contract’s the model in which the unorganized sector operates is now shifting. It is becoming a hybrid model, where by the municipal contractor, the unorganized sector and the municipal officials work together to benefit each other financially. The government contractor is responsible to collect waste from homes, segregate it, and only dump waste that cannot be recycled, but this rarely happens. In some areas, where private government contractors have made make shift material recovery facilities, the unorganized sector is again engaged to recover the recyclables on fixed fee model, where the unorganized sector pays the private contractor a fixed fee for the right to segregate and recover recyclables. 

 The Contractors: Contractors can be considered either the individuals for whom the waste collectors work for or organizations who have government contracts for an area or with companies, or simply a strong man individual who controls a certain area. In all cases these are the chaps who make the real money. Their goal is to secure their business in a certain area, either through intimidation, bribery, entering into verbal contracts with government contractors in exchange for money to secure rights to collect recyclables from a certain area or by forming a cartel that makes it next to impossible for new entrants to enter the market. From illegal disposal to open burning of waste, it’s all managed through a complex web financial transaction. Everyone is on the pay roll, from police to government employees, without whose collusion very little can happen. Keep in mind, that nobody in this chain is paying any tax whatsoever despite making a minimum of rupees thirty thousand monthly for the really small contractors to tens of lakhs for the bigger ones. 

This system, although operationally efficient, it is a major reason why many MSM’s find it hard to function in this sector, as they can’t compete by offering money for waste; recyclable or not. Zero taxes, no employee welfare, minimum overheads, almost negligent disposal or processing costs make competing the unorganized sector unviable, when you have to incur all the above-mentioned costs and more to operate. 

The Kabadi (Scrap dealer) Syndicate: Who does not love the neighborhood kabaddi? He comes to you house collects your recyclables and pays you for it. Let’s look at this system properly. The kabadi system can be broken down into two components. One servicing the residential side and the other servicing the industrial and commercial side.  

Residential Sector: Local kabaddis servicing residential sectors in many communities across India, both gated and open access colonies have their areas marked. The RWA provides them permission to operate within their societies and in majority of the cases this done through a contract where the kabadi pays the RWA a fee to get access to segregated household waste within a community and then fixes rates accordingly for the defined period the contract at which he buys waste from individual houses. Kabadis are generally interested in only certain types of high value waste, such as newsprint, cardboard, metals and certain types of plastic waste such as HDPE and PET.  

Most if not all of the kabadi’s work for a contractor who ensures that the contract is secured and that no one else enters the said society. Kabadi contractors are notorious in the use of strong-arm tactics such as intimidation to maintain a strangle hold on their areas of operations. These contractors either buy the contract from RWA’s at X rates and then subcontract them to Y for X+ something or have the kabadis sell them the waste that they have purchased from households. In majority of the cases work is subcontracted as it ensures a fixed income with no overheads and also removes all possibility of pilferage from the collection site to the contractor’s warehouse. Kabadi’s who service their contracts themselves, have small little warehouses where they don’t stock goods for more than two days due to space and cash flow limitations. These individuals have to pay households in cash at the time of purchasing the goods. There could be multiple kabadi’s servicing a locality, and this is especially true in large open colonies, but for gated colonies it is one contractor servicing the entire colony. 

Kabadi’s in many cases get the stiff end of the stick. They pay the RWA a fixed yearly fee and then pay household to purchase their recyclables. Most roam neighborhoods on their cycles or rickshaws with a crude weighing scale on which they weigh the waste and pay a fixed fee per kilogram to the household. To compensate for the money that they pay RWA’s and households, these individuals manipulate the weight of goods that they purchase from your homes. Many have now moved to digital weighing scales, that come with a wireless remote, that has the ability to alter the weight without you ever knowing.

There small or medium size make shift warehouses are also places where stolen goods specially those made of metal are sold with ease and for this reason their warehouses are the first place the police checks if there is theft in the neighborhood (mostly grills, metal drain covers, plastic street dustbins, etc). Another way that kabaddi’s get recyclables, especially on highways and within cites is through truck drivers, who often make a quick stop at their make shift sheds to sell items that may be loaded in their trucks. For example, we have caught some of our drivers, on numerous occasions selling small amounts of scrap to kabadi’s en route to our warehouse returning from the client’s site. They will sell small amounts such as ten kilograms of cardboard, five kilograms of iron etc, but they do it on a consistent basis and it all adds up. 

They also act as informants to the police, providing them information about what is happening in a said neighborhood. These individuals rarely do any segregation of waste, as most waste is provided to the in a segregated form and most of not all kabadis at who service housing societies or neighborhoods, simply sell the waste to larger traders or aggregators.  

Commercial/ Industrial Sector: I address this in the next section under Scrap Mafia as there is much overlap and interconnectedness in the way industrial scrap is collected in India. 

Scrap Mafia: Until now, I have been speaking about small time hoodlums, the type you can swat like flies if you have a little local connect or are willing to report them to local authorities. The scrap mafia is a different ball game! Welcome to the Gangs of Wasseypur (Bollywood Movie) where murders, extortion, physical violence and intimidation, corporate, political and police corruption run rampant. You don’t only need a set of big balls, but also brains to be in the collection side of this business.  

12th October, 2017:  My phone rings waking me up from a deep sleep. It’s 1:30 am in the morning and the call is from my supervisor from Bangalore. I have always been wary of getting work calls at odd times such as these, as more often than not this only occur when something bad has gone down. I answer the phone with a groggy hello and on the other side, I hear my supervisor crying, asking me to save his life. Before I can compose myself, someone else jumps on the phone and asks me to come outside the warehouse of a large e-commerce company within thirty minutes or the supervisor will be face grave consequences. Fuck, I am in bed at my home in Delhi, this guy wants me to show up in Bangalore within thirty minutes or him and his boys are going to go town on my supervisor who belongs from a small town in Bihar. 

We had just secured a large contract to manage the waste generated from the warehouse of a large e-commerce company and despite getting threats on numerous occasions, I had taken an executive call to continue with the contract, after all we were used to such elements and had dealt with them in states like UP & Haryana, and this was Bangalore, my thoughts were that nothing serious could come of this. All those beliefs come tumbling down over the next few days as we encountered the wrath of the Bangalore scrap mafia with deep political connects. 

To be continued…

As mentioned in the beginning of this article, this is part one of a series of three articles on this subject matter. Next week the story will continue with information on how the scrap mafia operates and who they are, their links to political parties and corrupt employees of private companies both national and multinational. 

Note: All events mentioned in this article are real and experienced first-hand by our organization and its employees. Further, all information mentioned in this article is from first-hand experience of working in the field of waste management for over fifteen years, both as a private and public contractor, servicing residential, commercial and industrial establishments.

Until we meet again next friday, have a fantastically sustainable weekend!

Welcome to another Trash Talking Friday, the only trash talk that smells like roses and looks like Brad Pitt right after it’s finished cleaning a gutter! 

Each week, I send you Ideas to ponder about. Ideas that have the potential to change your life, and hopefully help you become a better human being by understanding yourself. This week, in the third and final article of the Gangster Paradise series I talk about, 1) Corporate corruption, 2) Government corruption     

 Let‘s get into it!

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Part 3: Gangster Paradise: The Murky Underbelly of the Waste Management Sector India

The third and final article of this three-part series covering the murky underbelly of the waste management sector will cover, organized corporate mafia and the political and bureaucratic mafia present in the Indian waste management sector.

April 2010: I entered a large room with a massive oval conference table. Seated on chairs in this room were about twenty individuals from a private company that many of you may have heard of off, Moser Baer. Moser Baer was in the business of manufacturing CD‘s, TV and solar equipment and this meeting was to discuss rates for a scrap tender that the company had floated. I was pretty impressed! This organization had amassed so many bodies in a room to discuss rates openly with vendors. The idea at the time seamed to point towards getting vendors to offer the best possible rates for the vast amount of scrap that the company generated on a daily basis and on the face of it, the process looked transparent. I took a seat at the end of the table and an elderly gentleman opened our company‘s quotation and started asking us how much higher could we go from the stated quotes. He then started disclosing rates offered by other vendors which were considerably higher than ours. For certain items the rates being quoted by other vendors were so close to what recycling facilities were offering that it made little sense when you calculated you cost of collection and logistics. I left that meeting perplexed, wondering what it is that we as an organization were not doing to be able to compete. Little did I know that the system was rigged to ensure that certain darling vendors get the contract for financial kickbacks paid to management. 

So how does it work? Well there are many ways that companies continue to lose money due to internal corruption and vendors manipulating the system or process. Here is how it‘s done. 

Weight Manipulation: In many organizations that are generating large volumes of recyclable and don‘t have an internal weigh bridge, this practice is rampant. In order for this scam to be successful you need the involvement of the security guard and someone in midlevel or lower management. The vendor wins the contract by offering rates that are much higher than the prevailing market rates. He or she knows that at these rates their business will not be financially sustainable. Someone from within the organization often discloses existing rates for scrap to their preferred parties and them tell them to quote substantially higher to secure the contract, knowing that the company does not have an internal weigh bridge. The vendor deploys his truck and collects the said material and then proceeds to weigh the truck at a local private weigh bridge located outside the company‘s premises. The truck is always accompanied by a security guard to ensure that there is no weight manipulation, but money corrupts absolutely. Five tons is reduced to four, and the spoils distributed amongst all concerned. This is a common practice taking place across the country with few being spared including large multinational companies.  

Rate Manipulation: The inverse happens here. Rates quoted are on lower side with commissions being paid to employees of the company who have helped secure the tender by approving the rates, or helping in the approval process.  

The Gatekeepers: Security guards at large, midsize or small companies know exactly what is happening in the company, especially in terms of movement of goods. They know who the vendors are, how much of a certain material leaves the premises, at what rates and who the decision makers are. Not only do they work as informants, they are a vital part of a corrupt system, including allowing the movement of materials out of the company without paying from them, assisting in theft and wrongly logging the name of materials being loaded onto trucks (For example mixing aluminum with Iron and recording the entire lot as Iron). They are easily corrupted and readily provide information pertaining to rates the current vendor is offering, the amount of scrap being generated, how the internal system works, providing names and numbers of key employees within the organization. They also act as gatekeepers by ensuring that information does not reach concerned within the organization. How? Through numerous articles of mine, I have already informed you that the sector remains mostly unorganized from collection to processing. Most vendors who want to quote rates, do so by handing them rates written on a piece of paper. Guess who this piece of paper is delivered too? The security guard, whose responsibility it then becomes to deliver the rates to the concerned department. In many cases not only are the rates not delivered, the existing vendor is also informed and the cycle of intimidation starts.  

Housekeeping, security, garbage & theft: Garbage is mostly a separate contract and most companies are very reluctant to pay for garbage disposal. They usually have the scrap vendor remove the garbage for them for free. Such is the case with many leading multinational companies, including E-commerce firms. Garbage in many cases is used as a concealing agent much like make up! What hides inside is known by only to a few. Garbage is used to transport materials like cell phones, shoes, clothes, and various other electronic items from within the facility to the outside world. As garbage is mostly not checked & if checked not thoroughly enough, there have been many instances where the vendors in cohesion with security and housekeeping staff engage in this practice. Housekeeping staff is responsible for bringing out the waste from within a facility or warehouse to the loading docks and without their involvement this process cannot and will not work. At the loading docks there are cameras and security personals who are responsible to check the garbage to ensure that items of values from within the facility are not being stolen, so they act as a second line of defense. Since the garbage is not weighed and taken away for free on a gate pass the security at the gates lets the vehicle through. Millions of dollars of goods from electronics to clothes are stolen in this manner every year.  

Tendering Process Scrap: As the story began in the beginning of this article, some companies hold elaborate meetings, others ask for quotes over E-mail and few use the services of auction houses such as Ariba. In most cases it‘s the procurement department of large companies that‘s involved in the process and for the mid-size companies it‘s the finance department. The ultimate sway is in the hands of the procurement department. They have all rates in front of them and the ability to convince legal and finance to close a contract based on the rates that are provide. In our personal experience, procurement specially to do with construction, air-conditioning, transportation and scrap are very lucrative financially for many working in the procurement department of large and mid-size companies. Companies can mention whatever they want in contracts including elaborate anti bribery policies, the fact is that money exchanges hands more often than you would like to think. Rates are disclosed to darling vendors, rates are ignored of new vendors, weight is manipulated and partnerships are forged that help some vendors expand their reach to new companies as employees shift their loyalties or start working for new companies.  

Partnership Model: I had only heard of this till I got a chance to sit across the table with an executive of a large Chinese company manufacturing electronic devices pitching to me as to why we should join hands with him, form a company and start exporting E-waste abroad to certain preferred vendors or set up a facility ourselves. To him it made sense, with the vast volumes of E-waste being generated by this firm, little or no E-waste recycling happening in the country and most of the E-waste being exported abroad anyhow it was a win win for all. This too is more common than you would care to know. Many large Korean and Chinese companies engage in this practice. They form a company with a local partner, assure the contract and flow of goods and start diverting the waste to companies that they are indirectly connected to and benefiting from financially.  

Corruption has always been ever present in the corporate sector and unfortunately is on the rise, though for those engaged in these practices, both business and professional life could not be better. You can say, its asymptomatic, its present but a very few know about it, those who know about it are either involved or don‘t speak up, it happens yet is hidden, it‘s a virus that‘s spreading, yet most are ok with it. It‘s part of doing business in India for many. The company that I referred to at the start of this article is no more, it filed for bankruptcy in the year 2018 as vast irregularities were found in its book of accounts. In 2019 the central bank declared the companies accounts fraudulent. There are many such stories that continue to play out across our great nation. 

There is also another massive scam that is unfolding under our feet. That of fake sustainability propaganda and EPR scams by PRO‘s, NGO‘s and their corporate supporters, which I will leave as of now and cover in another article in the coming weeks. 

I have been a government contractor for a good five years, sweeping roads, cleaning drains, collecting garbage, making roads in urban villages, making drains within residential sectors and selling organic products that can be sprayed on garbage to reduce smell and help decompose the organic matter. The system will help you make money, but its rotten and if you have self-respect and a decide to grow a conscience like I did you will exit, as fighting this system will only lead to self-destruction. The corrupt rule, the few honest officers either toe the line or are shunted from place to place where they can cause no real harm. The waste management and sanitation system within the government ecosphere has its own unique way of functioning, with some hysterically innovative ways of implementing corruption. 

The tipping fee model: I have written about this rotten model numerous times, the fact that the government is paying and incentivizing the disposal of waste is not only a gross waste of the taxpayer‘s money but can also be seen as criminal negligence against the environment and the health of the population at large. Tenders are floated with terms that only large organizations can full fill. Most of the terms within the tenders are already manipulated to ensure that certain private contractors get the said work. In many cases, the contractors form multiple companies or get others in their network to submit tenders with higher rates (Minimum three bids are needed). Most of these tenders require the contractor to collect, segregate, process (in some cases) and dispose waste at landfill sites that belong to the government for which these individual companies get a paid a fee. I have covered this subject matter in numerous articles so will not go into details here. Here is how these functions. Garbage is collected from point A and dumped at point B, with the contractor getting a tipping fee per ton to dispose waste. As it‘s in the interest of the contractor to dump more as he would get paid more, garbage in trucks is watered to increase the weight, construction debris is loaded in them and of course, there is manipulation at the weigh bridge. Tipping fee rates wary from Rupees 400 – 2400 rupees a metric ton dumped. In larger metros, the rates average between 1400 – 2200 rupees a metric ton and reduce substantially as you move to smaller cities.  

Commission rates to government departments on billing vary from twenty percent to as high as forty five percent depending on the type of work that you are undertaking. Rates are fixed for what will go to the big boss, the accounts department, the health inspectors, the supervisors, the senior and junior project engineers with other miscellaneous expenses such as paying peons and lower level staff to pull out files. Though the tendering system has moved online, corruption has not stopped, it has just forced competing contractors to start working together by forming a syndicate. 

The Contractor mafia: The contractor mafia‘s prime role is to protect its interests and that of its members. They act as a syndicate, that dictate rates that need to be put into tenders, who will partake in tenders, providing support such as helping fellow contractors win bids by submitting their own bids at higher rates and ensuring that outsiders are kept at bay. The group decides on one or two individuals as their mouth piece, whose responsibility it becomes to communicate the concerns of the consortium to the requisite government departments. They even negotiate on commission rates! That‘s right, corruption is negotiated in government offices. These contractors are mostly engaged in a different side of the waste management business, that of road sweeping and drain cleaning.  

Contractor & Government Partnership: Yes! Many government employees are in partnership with contractors. The partnership is simple, they fund the contractor and assist him to get work and get a percentage of the profits over and above their commission. Funding is provided to the contractors for earnest money deposits, salaries (government payments are mostly delayed), performance guarantees etc. Partnerships are usually done in two ways, as experience is a must in government contracts in order to be eligible to partake in large tenders. So, either a sole proprietor company is formed through a trusted source (Usually a relative or someone from a weak background from the officers village) or a joint venture is formed with a bigger contractor where he provides all supporting documents such as financial and technical qualifications on paper.  

The Sweeping scam: In Indian, many of our roads and public areas continued to be cleaned manually by individuals using a long stick broom. There are three parallel systems in play here, those individuals who are directly employed by the government, those who are employed by private contractors under their direct management and those employed by labor contractors who work for the government but are not considered permanent employees. The basic concept of the employee scam is that non-existing employees are shown on rosters of private contractors, third party contractors and the government and the tax payers‘ foot the bill for salaries and benefits of these ghost employees. For private contractors, this is a way to cover costs of commissions paid to the government and make a profit. Occasional checks are done fines are levied and threats of black listing are made, that rarely see the light of day.  

The mechanical road sweeping GPS scam: My favorite! Mechanical sweeping is increasingly being introduced across the country to clean roads. The reason behind this is to curtail the use of ghost employees that scam the tax payers, safety issues pertaining to manually sweeping of roads on highways and to curtail dust pollution arising from manually sweeping roads. The challenge with mechanical road sweeping in India are manifold, such as state of our roads, uneven surfaces and large amounts of debris found on the roads including stones and bricks. In many cases this entails that a person walks in front of the manual sweepers to first manually collect large debris so that the machines don‘t get damaged. Getting back to the scam, these mechanical sweeping machines are fitted with GPS trackers to monitor their movement, as they are also paid on a per kilometer basis. The scam is basic, fit a GPS tracker on the scooter or bike and make it run along the route that the mechanical sweeper is supposed to service and then bill the government for work that was not done. In many cases mechanical sweepers will run on part of their routes, and the rest will be substituted through stand by arrangements such as these.  

The Equipment scams: Of late there is new way to scam RWA‘s and companies by pushing technologies onto them that are neither proven nor effective in treating organic waste. The SWM rules state that any organization that covers an area of over 5000 meters or generates more than one hundred kilograms of waste per day must treat their organic waste within their premises. This is given birth to many startups and technology companies peddling their solutions as the answer solve Indian‘s waste treatment challenge at source. The government hires big consultants to assist it in determining what technologies are best suited for the job at hand. Most of these large consultants have little practical knowledge of the technology or how the waste management sector in India works. There employees are also now ever present in government meetings and have been given space to sit within government offices. Some if not all of these employees have out side agreements with these technology peddlers to promote the said technology. As of now in some cities in India, only a handful of technologies that are expensive and don‘t really deliver results are being promoted and authorized by local administration. The registration window was opened for a short period of time and has now been closed. If you happen to have a solution that is cheaper, and better than what is being marketed, you are out of luck. Case in point is the organic waste converter, a unit that has been sold in the thousands across the country, a unit that has been forced upon RWA‘s and industrial units to buy. You can read more about this on google, including PIL‘s filed against the company and government bodies for promoting and forcing the purchase of flawed technologies. May organizations buy the said piece of equipment to just ensure that they comply with the laws, while the equipment lies in their premises and rots.   

Unorganized, corrupt, mafia dominated and lacking progressive policies, the waste management sector in our country is in dire need of an overhaul. There is tremendous potential both in terms of generating employment, innovation and contributing to the country‘s GDP that this sector holds. Of late, there have been many startups that have popped up in this sector, though most of the are trying to solve the challenge through technologies such as apps and catering to the industrial sector in terms of meeting their EPR needs. What is required is more competition at the grass root level, from collection to processing, we have enough middle men in our country and don‘t need more technology middle men entering the sector. Practically speaking, corruption cannot be removed, but it can and should be reduced drastically, the sector must be provided with industry status, the mafia dealt with strongly and policies should be formulated that will promote competition, innovation and ease of doing business in the sector. We need to tackle the cause and start building the sector from ground up. In order for us to do that we must confront the uncomfortable truth that is ever present across this sector and have the courage to make progressive change on ground, not just on paper. 

I absolutely love road trips! Actually, to be honest I love driving and a road trip is simply an excuse for me to do what I love doing. I also love travelling, specially within our great country and the mountains are always calling! There is just something so majestic about being up there amongst the clouds and mountain people, its hard to explain and is something that must be experienced. 

So mid this month, I decided to take a break from work and head to Manali via road from Delhi, a route that I have travelled numerous times while making my way to Leh and beyond previously. Not only was I looking to get away from Delhi and get a much-needed break, I also wanted to experience driving through the newly built Attal tunnel which connects Manali to Lahaul and Spiti valley, while holding the distinction of being the highest tunnel ever constructed in the world (10000 feet above sea level). 

 

Above Tara House In Manali: A beautiful home stay property

Manali as a town has the notorious distinction of being the hashish capital of India. Manali Cream as it’s known popularly is actually officially called Malana Cream and is widely considered the best and purest hash in the world with high THC content and winning the High Times Cannabis title twice in 1994 and 1996 for the being the best hashish in the world. Named after the village that it grown in, Malana hashish is grown in the isolated village of Malana located at 9500 feet. An interesting fact of this village is that its residents consider themselves to be the direct dissidents of Alexander The Great and you are not allowed to touch them or any of their possessions. The village has been closed to tourists since 2017, though people do still make their way up there. 

Manali as a town is like any other hill station in India, crowded and increasingly getting polluted. The city is divided into two half’s, Old Manali and new Manali, with the town center being located in New Manali (Mall Road) and old Manali mostly a hippy and youngster hangout with numerous pubs, restaurants and bars. The river Bias runs through Manali giving the town a romantic and calming charm. Over the last decade, like many other towns and cities in our country, Manali has seen a steady increase in population and visiting tourists. There are numerous hotels, guesthouses, restaurants, home stays and self-service cottages catering to the ever-increasing influx of tourists either visiting the city or using it as a transit point to break journey on route to Leh. All this has led to a massive waste management problem not only in Manali, but across the entire Himalayan region of India. 

In this personal opinion piece, I will talk about how as Indians we are progressively fucking ourselves by destroying some of the most pristine and beautiful places on Earth by not leaving foot marks, but a trail of trash that is nauseating to all our five senses.

Above: The Rugged Beauty: Enroute towards Nubra Valley Located in the North Most Part of Jammu & Kashmir

What’s That Smell? 

Who does not want to get away from the city and catch a breath of fresh air? Specially if you live in Delhi or any of the satellite cites around it, where breathing fresh air is now increasingly becoming a distant dream. I love my workout routine, weather at work or at vacation the one thing that never changes is me getting up at 5:30 Am to start my day off with a cup of strong coffee followed by a rigorous workout. Perched at 6500 feet in a beautiful rented home called Tara House (Tara in English Means Star) I started off the first day of this vacation by deciding to do a short five kilometer run down to the city center and back. It was about 7 Am and I started my descent downhill and the air started to smell of smoke. Throughout my decent, I found homes, hotels and shops lighting their garbage on fire, wood being burnt to keep homes warm and plastic bottles, Tetra pack juice cartons and MLP packaging strewn on the side of the roads and in drains. It’s unfortunate, that despite the massive amounts of money being pumped into the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, finding a dustbin was a task. In the seven days that I spent at Tara House, I saw the garbage collection vehicle arrive at the rented accommodation only once. Part of the blame can squarely be laid on the severe lack of infrastructure from collection to processing, but a bigger problem is that of a lack of accountability being taken by brands that manufacture, distribute and sell their products packaged in single use packaging (some recyclable, most non-recyclable) in these mountainous and eco sensitive regions of India. Similarly, individual accountability is also missing, both from locals and visiting tourists. Instagram is full of beautiful pictures taken by individuals, depicting the beautiful scenic views that they encounter on their visits to towns such as Manali. What is not shown is the trail of trash many of these individuals leave behind, or how the town manages its waste. 

In the case of Manali, you can see how the town manages its waste when you are entering from the Kullu side. A beauty highway running along the Bias river and then bang, on your right you see the towns garbage being dumped right along the bed of the river Bias. You can’t miss the sight! 

Full of pride, joy and awe and then my heart sank! 

It’s a different world altogether once you leave Manali and head towards Leh on the Manali Sarchu road. This is also the road that you take to access the newly built Attal tunnel that leads to Jannat (Heaven) called Lahaul & Spiti! Those who have visited this part of India will stand by what I say next. It’s a visually orgasmic experience! The Attal tunnel in itself is an achievement that will make every Indian proud! Spanning 9.2 kilometers in length, it’s the highest tunnel of its kind in the world being constructed at an altitude of ten thousand feet! The drive up to and through the tunnel is beautiful and once you emerge out of the other end the landscape changes completely.

Above: Inside The Attal Tunnel

The Bias is flowing in front of you and tall rugged Rocky Mountains greet you with stunning visuals. Also present there to greet you are crowds of people, automobiles and a lineup of make shift stalls selling tea and Maggie (Made by Nestle and one of the most prominently found littered packaging item in the mountainous regions of India). Once you cross the tunnel, you cross a bridge over the Bias and you entre Lahaul and Spiti. The Bias was running about one hundred meters to the left of me when I saw a small opening that led straight to the river bed, where cars were parked and people were busy clicking pictures. I decided to stop and explore the area, as it looked beautiful and the thought of dipping my feet and splashing some icy cold water on my face was too tempting to pass. I parked my vehicle and from the moment I stepped out, all I could start seeing mineral bottles disposed, MLP wrappers of biscuits and chips and even discarded food on the banks of the beautiful Bias. What the fuck is up with people, how hard is it to just carry your garbage back with you when you know that you are in a remote location and there are no dustbins in the vicinity. How bloody hard is it for the brains of these individuals to simply just put their trash in a bag and carry it back with them? Hard, apparently really hard! The Attal tunnel has been a bitter sweet development for the area as it has made this region of India a lot more accessible to lacks of individuals, but has already started to take a toll on the sensitive ecology of the area. Open defecation and urinating in the open (A common sight in India) is common, burning of garbage along small villages is common, littering by tourists is common, the only things that is not common is common sense and civic sense.

Granted, that when nature calls you have to go, that’s not a choice you can ignore for too long. What you do have a choice in, is that of using a toilet. Granted that in this remote area, public toilets are nonexistent, but there a few shops, gust houses and villages which have both small restaurants and homes with washrooms. How hard is it to apply your brain and use one, even if it means you may have to pay 100 rupees for a cup of tea! 

Pollution, in whatever way of form is man-made problem, you can’t blame plastic, food waste or excreta as the cause, when they simply are symptoms of over production and consumption of materials and products that never should have been developed and manufactured for human consumption in the first place. We feel great being one with nature, but if nature could speak it would squarely let us know that it definitely doesn’t feel great when we visit and that it would great if we never showed up again till such time as we learned to respect our shared environment.

India is blessed with natural beauty, flora and fauna and some of the best wild life sightseeing available in the world! Unfortunately, many amongst us are also blessed with a feudal mindset and a complete lack of accountability when it comes to many things and specially when it comes to managing our own waste. Blame it on lack of education and civic sense, blame it on our upbringing, blame it on the fact that manual labour in our country is looked down upon, blame it on the fact that a simple task like making our own beds, polishing our own shoes, emptying our plates in the dustbin and then rinsing them, taking the garbage out, mopping or cleaning our own house ourselves is all believed to be some one else’s responsibility. You may even blame it on the government, or other people or the simple fact that cheap labour is ever present and willing to do tasks that we find menial and in many cases below our dignity. The simple fact is that there is no one but us to blame! 

Above: The River Bias: Lahual & Spiti

The condition of our country will not change till such time as individuals start taking accountability for their own actions. National pride only ignites when we win in cricket, have a conflict with Pakistan or a person of Indian origin becomes someone important abroad. How about building pride in keeping our country clean through individual and collective action that will create actual sustainable impact for our future generations. India as mentioned above is a country that’s blessed with natural diversity and we as children of this country are visitors who must ensure that we pass on to the future generation a better, cleaner India than that has been handed to us by our predecessors. Every Indian family focuses on providing a sound financial future for their children, how about adding a sound sustainable natural environment to the list also. We escape the cities we call home to get closer to nature to be able to breathe and are now in the process of ruining what we so desperately seek. We travel abroad only to come back and tell tales of how beautiful and clean it is over there, we quickly adapt their ways of not littering, carrying a trash bag in the car and only disposing our garbage when we see a garbage bin. We so desperately want to fit in, yet we forget all that the moment we land back in our great nation, whose natural beauty and diversity is second to none. Why do we call everything mini Switzerland, mini Singapore? Why don’t we aspire for Switzerland to call its self Mini Kashmir, Leh, Uttarakhand or any of the numerous scenic states, town and cities spread across the length and breadth of our nation? 

Above: Pangong Lake Leh

It’s because we don’t take pride in our natural assets, rather we are consumed by material possessions, which somehow make us think that we can create or buy our way to a healthier and cleaner environment. We have it all twisted, human prosperity in the long run has always and will continue to depend solely on how we treat our natural surroundings. Responsible tourism must be the responsibility of every Indian. Our Prime Minister’s new slogan of vocal for local is not only constrained to buying products, but must also extend to preserving and healing our natural environment by not only educating people but by monitoring our behavior and that of those who are in our immediate sphere of influence.

I would love to hear back from you on your opinion on this article, about why you feel certain people litter and what can be done to stop or at least reduce this practice. 

Have a fantastic weekend and week ahead!