MoHUA organises City-Recycler Connect workshop

Launched by Union Minister for Housing & Urban Affairs and Petroleum & Natural Gas, Shri Hardeep Singh Puri on May 15, 2023, the nationwide campaign ‘Meri LiFE, Mera Swachh Shehar’ campaign is witnessing a phenomenal nationwide uptake. The campaign has the principle of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, (RRR) at its core. It aims to nudge cities to set up one stop ‘RRR Centres’ for citizens to contribute clothes, shoes, old books, toys and used plastic to be reused or recycled.

In line with SBM-U 2.0’s vision of Garbage-Free Cities and to support cities in effectively undertaking the recycling and repurposing of material and strengthen their forward linkages, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in collaboration with the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) organised a City-Recycler Connect workshop on June 01, 2023.

The workshop brought together cities, States and agencies working in digital space, as well as recyclers and recycling associations who have a very strong network for collecting recyclables from cities. These agencies and associations are related to plastic, glass, rubber & tyre, and paper recycling. The panellists included experts and officials from TERI, GIZ, and private players like Kabadiwala Connect, Recykal and others. The discussions focused around enabling conditions for recyclers to work with cities and possible opportunities and roadmap for establishing forward linkages for sourcing materials from city RRR and MRF centres.

During the workshop, Secretary, MoHUA, Shri Manoj Joshi said, “We need better equipment for recycling and a more organised involvement of both recyclers and organised and unorganised ragpickers. The quantum of waste generated is so large that there are more opportunities to generate wealth from the waste. Let’s engage to complete the chain of RRR.”

Cities have owned up the key messages of the campaign and so far over 15,000 RRR Centres have been established and still counting. Over 20 lakh citizens have participated actively, voluntarily donating their unused items, old books, clothes, shoes, toys, etc. These items are to be refurbished by the cities for recycle and/or reuse. Till date cities have collected 188 tons of plastic, 315 tons of cloth and around 200,000 old books.

Dr. Dominik Wallau, Counsellor, Financial Affairs, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany said, "India and Germany are proud of joining this program today, which aims to bridge the gap between the cities, private sector and recyclers diverting more of the generated waste to effective recyclers and thereby mitigating waste leakages into the marine environment. I am hopeful that the session today spoke of words like circular, digital, material traceability in the front and centre. That is exactly what is required for the world to accelerate recycling quantities and mitigate waste leakages in the environment.”

Urban India generates about 1.45 Lakh tons of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), out of which nearly 35 to 40 per cent is dry waste. Most fractions of dry waste can be reused or recycled. For instance, studies have shown that approximately 60 per cent of the plastic waste generated is recycled in the country. Plastic waste is the major fraction in the dry waste. India's recycling rate is higher compared to other countries due to the age-old practice of reusing and recycling. However, due to limited collection channels and high transportation charges the full recycling potential of dry waste is yet to be achieved. Under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0 (SBM-U 2.0) the upscaling and recycling of discarded items is being channelised through the RRR Centres and the recyclers, to improve the recycling value chain.

A best practice document on 3Rs – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle for helping cities and States to formulate appropriate strategies, was launched in presence of Mr. Manoj Joshi, Secretary, MoHUA and Ms Roopa Mishra, Joint Secretary, MoHUA. A digital platform “Sansaadhan” enabling city and recycling market connect was also showcased during the workshop.

(With Inputs from PIB)