Master of Science Thesis

Decision support framework for a sustainable

waste management system in Ahmedabad, India

Graduation Committee
Chair Prof. Dr. K. Blok
Chair of Energy Systems Analysis, TPM
st
1 Supervisor Dr. ir. R.M. Stikkelman
Director Center for Port Innovation and Regional Development
nd
2 Supervisor Dr. ir. U. Pesch
Technology Dynamics and Sustainable Development

External Supervisors
st
1 Supervisor Ren Eijsbouts (Witteveen+Bos)
nd
2 Supervisor Martin van Nieuwenhoven (Rijkswasterstaat)
rd
3 Supervisor Rob Dijcker (Witteveen+Bos)

Sagar Bharambe 4301293

9/28/2015

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Executive Summary
Rapid Urbanization has been the recent trends observed across all the countries of the globe.
With the rising levels of global population, the global consumption and hence the rate of waste
generation has also simultaneously increased. Hence, one of the key roles of the local
municipalities is to decide, develop and maintain a waste management system that can deal
with these rising levels of waste. In addition, these local bodies also have to tackle the problems
of insufficient budgetary funds, lack of human resources, lack of technical expertise and
presence of a large unaccounted informal sector. Hence, this research focuses on the decision
making aspects of these local bodies.

One of the primary motives of such decision making processes is to arrive at a collaborated or
negotiated solution for problem at hand. The pursuit of such a motive, on one hand requires
development of structured and compartmentalized approach to arrive at the final aim, but on
the other also pin-point the systemic nuisances in the system that prove to be barriers against
successful implementation. Hence, decision making in waste management presents a case of a
Multi-criteria decision making. Although, multi-criteria decision making has been previously
researched in detail, there is a lack of detailed research of a holistic decision support
frameworks that can be applied to municipal corporations in developing countries.

City of Ahmedabad, in state of Gujarat, India, has been chosen as a case study location.
Ahmedabad is a thriving city of 5.5 million residents facing rising levels of solid waste. This
study intends to improve the existing conditiosn of the waste management system in the city, by
highlighting the systemic nuisances and provide practical solutions while improving on the
existing base knowledge in the field of decision making in waste management. The outcome of
the research is a set of strategic and tactical suggestions and guidelines for implementations and
system changes needed for these strategies. Also, on the scientific side, a holistic decision
support framework is provided with adequate guidelines and directions on further usage and
implementaion across other cities.

In an attempt to address this gap in the academic literature, this masters thesis project aims to
investigate the formulation of a decision support framework based on three major aspects of
the waste management system: 1) analysis of the system flows (material, cash and information),
2) structured decision making approach and 3) consensus analysis.

The thesis project has been divided into three main aspects: The analysis of the systemic flows
associated with the waste management system, a structured decision making approach and
finally analyzing the levels of consensus among the stakeholders for success during the
implementation phase. The proposed decision support framework intends to facilitate the
transition of ad hoc practices of decision making processes towards a new holistic accountable
decision making processes. The perspective adopted during the complete analysis is that of the
Municipal corporation for a time period of the next 3-5 years i.e. if I was the chieft decision
maker in the municipal corporation and I wanted to find system changes that could be
implemented within coming 3-5 years, what are the strategies

This research has been conducted with support and aid from Witteveen en Bos (a leader in
Engineering and Consulting) and Rijkswaterstaat (The Dutch Ministry of Environment and
Infrastructure). The collection of the data for this research has been done by means of semi-
structured interview with 12 stakeholders of the city that are directly associated with the waste

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management system. A review of the reports and organizational documents has also been done
that were made available by stakeholders during field visit. The interviews conducted by my
colleague Kedar Jani (the second Masters student working on this project) as a part of the data
collection effort for his thesis Sustainable Solid Waste Management, Ahmedabad also have
been used as an additional source of data. The structured decision making part of the decision
support framework was facilitated by a stakeholder workshop with 5 attendees from various
sections of the waste management system.

No scientific methods have been employed for analyzing the data. But there were some
important findings from the data gathered that needed immediate addressal and formed a set of
primary issues regarding waste management in the city. These issues were as shown in the
table below. The selection of these problem definitions were based on the collaborative efforts
with Mr. Prashant Pandya, who helped in understanding which particluar problems needed
immediate addressel. Also, based on the system analyis, strategies were proposed to target
these primary issues. These strategies were result of the focus group discussion done with the
stakeholders.

Problem Definition Proposed Solution Actors needed

Problem-1: Opportunistic Altering the system cash flows AMC, Transport Contractors,
Behavior by transport contractors (Section 3.4.1) Treatment Plants
Problem-2: Contamination of Bin-less waste collection system AMC, Transport Contractors, General
waste at secondary collection (Section 3.4.2) Public
points
Problem-3: Poor coverage (44%) Polluters pay principle (Section AMC, Private H&K Contractors,
of H&K waste collection system 3.4.3) Hotels and Kitchens, Treatment
plants
Problem-4: Need for source IEC (Information, education and AMC, General Public, NGOs and
segregation and no littering in communication)/BCC (Behavior CBOs, Media
public places change campaign) (Section 3.4.4)
Problem-5: Unreliable data on GPS system installation in the AMC, GPS suppliers, IT Support
daily waste collection collection fleet and inspection at
weigh bridge (Section 3.4.5)
Problem-6: No data about Re-mining of dump yard using AMC, informal sector, NGOs,
recyclables recovered from the informal sector (Section 3.4.6) Recyclers
Pirana Dump Yard
Problem-7: No data about Formalizing itinerant waste buyers AMC, Itinerant waste buyers,
recyclables recovered by itinerant for source segregation (Section General public, Recyclers
waste buyers 3.4.7)

Additionally, there were three main target areas that were of main concerns for the targeted
improvement in the waste management system. These were:
Collection of waste in unsegregated form
The waste collected on a daily basis was in mixed form i.e. the wet and dry
fractions of waste were stored, collected and transported together. Presently,
only 13% of the waste in the city was source segregated. Also, segregating a mix
waste stream at a later stage is a costly affair and infeasible due to the higher
presence of moisture content (40-50%) of the wet waste. In addition, the mixed
streams cannot be directly treated without segregating at the present installed
treatment facilities. Hence, almost all of the waste is directly dumped in the open
dumping ground.
Insufficient treatment capacity
It was found that presently the city was capable to treat only 550 metric tons
(13.75%) of waste out of the 4000 metric tons of daily waste generation. Rest of

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 the waste was diverted to the pirana open dumping yard. Also it was found that
these plants were operating at 30% efficiency due to the mixed nature of
incoming waste.
Absence of markets for end-products
It was found during the study that the market sale of the end-products (compost
and pellets) was reported to be lower. The major reason found was lack of
customer awareness about product knowledge for e.g. the compost is repeatedly
being compared by farmers with chemical based fertilizers. Compost is a soil
conditioner while fertilizers are sources of nutrients (NPK-Nitrogen, Phosphorus
and Potassium) and both are equally important. Also some of the recyclables like
thin film plastics were not picked up by the informal sector because the efforts
made in collecting were not sufficiently justified by the monetary returns
through its sale.

The main goal for the research was identified as increasing the landfill diversion rates in the
city. The above three main concerns were showed to be directly linked with the landfill
diversion rates. As shown in the image above, a problem hierarchy was developed to address
these three main concerns to achieve the goal. It was concluced based on the stakeholder
workshop that creating a market for compost in the city was a viable strategy to move ahead
for the intended goal of increasing the landfill diversion rate in the city. Based on this strategy,
consensus analysis was developed to identify systemic drivers and barriers and critical success
factors necessary for successful strategy implementation. Recommendations are made for
future research along the similar lines of proposed decision support framework.

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 Contents
1 Problem Introduction...................................................................................................................... 8
1.1 Problem Statement ................................................................................................................. 9
1.2 Research Question ................................................................................................................ 10
1.3 Theoretical Background ........................................................................................................ 12
1.3.1 Decision making theory................................................................................................. 12
1.4 Case Study Background ......................................................................................................... 13
1.5 Research and Case Study Scope and Limitations .................................................................. 13
1.6 Outline of this research thesis .............................................................................................. 14
2 Literature Review .......................................................................................................................... 16
2.1 The Waste Ontology ............................................................................................................. 16
2.2 Scope and Activities within a Waste Management system .................................................. 18
2.3 Integrated Solid Waste Management (ISWM) ...................................................................... 20
2.4 Decision Making .................................................................................................................... 22
2.5 Decision making in waste management ............................................................................... 25
2.6 Discussion and Applicability to the case study ..................................................................... 26
2.7 Proposed Decision Support Framework ............................................................................... 28
3 Decision Support Framework Step 1 Snapshot of the system ................................................. 33
3.1 Landfill Diversion rates.......................................................................................................... 33
3.2 Flow of Waste and Cash stream in the system ..................................................................... 34
3.2.1 Inconsistencies observed in waste and cash flow streams ........................................... 39
3.3 Flow of Information in the system ........................................................................................ 40
3.3.1 Inconsistencies observed with flow of information...................................................... 43
3.4 Analysis of System flows ....................................................................................................... 43
3.4.1 Problem-1...................................................................................................................... 44
3.4.2 Problem-2...................................................................................................................... 46
3.4.3 Problem-3...................................................................................................................... 47
3.4.4 Problem 4 ...................................................................................................................... 48
3.4.5 Problem 5 ...................................................................................................................... 49
3.4.6 Problem 6 ...................................................................................................................... 50
3.4.7 Problem 7 ...................................................................................................................... 51
3.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 52

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4 Decision Support Framework Step 2.......................................................................................... 55
4.1 Institutional Framework for MSWM system in Ahmedabad ................................................ 55
4.2 Stakeholder Map of the system ............................................................................................ 57
4.3 Stakeholder analysis ............................................................................................................. 59
4.4 Deriving Criteria for Analysis................................................................................................. 62
4.5 Solution Space and Strategies ............................................................................................... 65
4.5.1 Solution Space 1 Source Segregation ......................................................................... 65
4.5.2 Solution Space 2 Market for waste treatment........................................................... 72
4.5.3 Solution Space 3 Market for recyclables .................................................................... 76
4.5.4 Solution Space 4 Waste Reduction ............................................................................ 79
4.6 Analytical Hierarchical Process ............................................................................................. 80
4.6.1 Problem Hierarchy ........................................................................................................ 80
4.6.2 Results ........................................................................................................................... 81
4.6.3 Discussion of Results ..................................................................................................... 83
5 Decision Support Framework Step 3 - Consensus Analysis .......................................................... 86
5.1 Generation ............................................................................................................................ 87
5.2 Collection & Transportation.................................................................................................. 88
5.3 Treatment and disposal ........................................................................................................ 88
5.4 Critical Success Factors ......................................................................................................... 89
5.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 95
6 Usability of the framework ........................................................................................................... 96
6.1 Operationalizing the Decision Support Framework .............................................................. 96
6.2 Lessons Learned .................................................................................................................... 98
6.2.1 General lessons learned from framework .................................................................... 98
6.2.2 Lessons learned from AHP .......................................................................................... 100
6.3 Limitations........................................................................................................................... 100
6.3.1 Limitations of the flow mapping ................................................................................. 100
6.3.2 Limitations of the AHP methodology .......................................................................... 100
6.3.3 Limitations of the Consensus Analysis framework ..................................................... 101
7 Conclusion and Recommendations............................................................................................. 102
7.1 Implications for the real world problem (the case study learnings) ................................... 102
7.1.1 Snapshot of the system ............................................................................................... 102
7.1.2 The Decision making ................................................................................................... 104
7.1.3 Consensus Analysis ..................................................................................................... 105

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 7.2 Future work ...................................................................................................................... 106
8 Reflections................................................................................................................................... 107
8.1 Reflection on framework .................................................................................................... 107
8.2 Reflections on methodology ............................................................................................... 107
8.3 Reflections on research process ......................................................................................... 108
9 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 110
Appendix A Case Studies using MCDM in Waste Management ...................................................... 116
Appendix B - Material Flow in the MSWM system in Ahmedabad..................................................... 118
Appendix C - Cash flow within the waste management system ......................................................... 126
Appendix D - Information flow within the waste management system ............................................. 132
Appendix E Questionnaire for Interviews ........................................................................................ 134
Appendix F Stakeholder Workshop Details...................................................................................... 135
Appendix G AHP Computations ....................................................................................................... 137
Appendix H Plots from Sensitivity Analysis for AHP results ............................................................. 147
Appendix I Informal Sector & Organizational Hierarchy .................................................................. 149

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1 Problem Introduction
India, a land of 1.3 billion people, is regarded as one of the fastest growing developing countries
of the East. Each year Urban India generates 68.8 million tons of Solid Waste and this generation
increases by 50% with each Decade (1). More than 80% of this waste is inappropriately and un-
hygienically disposed of at dump yards. Lack of appropriate measures for treating such
increasing solid waste leads to public health problems and increased pollution. In addition, if
such uncontrolled dumping of waste is continued, then the required new lands per year would
be in the range of 1240 hectare per year (with 10 meters high waste pile) which the country
cannot afford (2).

The responsibility of waste management in Indian cities lies with entities called as ULBs (Urban
local bodies) due to the public and local nature of the service as dictated by the 74th
Constitutional Amendment. For effective management and delivery of services, the city of
Ahmedabad is divided into six municipal zones and these municipal zones are further divided
into 64 wards that are responsible for waste collection from their respective regions. However,
limited monetary funding from the Central Government (4) (5), lack of an accountable waste
disposal strategy (6) and a large share of un-accounted informal sector (7) are the three major
hurdles that the ULBs have to tackle.

The budgetary allocations from the Central Government to provide an affordable & sustainable
waste management services is limited. Ahmedabad has a spread of 466 Sq. Km with a
population of almost 6 million; however the budgetary allocation for managing solid waste
during the year 2012-2013 was 64.78 million (i.e. 10 per capita as against 150-200 per
capita in Netherlands) (8). Considering the span of activities under the wide scope of waste
management system and the amount of people employed by the ULBs, this amount falls short of
the requirement for a sustainable system. The lack of efficient source segregation and storage
mechanism makes it extremely difficult for ULBs to manage the waste management activities.
On an average, 85% of the municipal waste management budget is spent on collection and
transportation activities (5). On the other hand, the population in the urban sector that demand
services related to waste management is increasing at a much higher rate as compared to the
financial resources needed to provide these services (4). To facilitate the constant increase in
the population, ULBs are forced to increase the infrastructure simultaneously. In absence of
adequate funding, the ULBs are generally forced to adopt a public private partnership (PPP)
model (9). Presently, the wide spread use of PPP model is restricted to collection and secondary
transportation from the communal bins to the landfill sites. Implementation of the PPP model in
other aspects of waste management activities like treatment facilities and source segregation
mechanisms are limited due to under developed institutional and regulatory structures, weak
institutional settings and lack of understanding about market linkages (5).

Lack of source segregation restricts the yields of composting or mechanical biological

treatments plants to 6-7% only. Such figures renders the plants highly infeasible economically
and ultimately shutdown (1). In addition, the presence of a large unaccounted informal sector
creates additional hurdles for the successful implementation of PPP. The informal sector
comprises of waste pickers, waste buyers, waste dealers and wholesalers, and small and large
recycling enterprises. The role of the informal sector in the overall waste management system is
still not very clear. The accountability of the informal sector forms an important aspect since
this sector harbours 1-2% of the workforce employment in large cities (10). The informal sector
works by diverting valuable recyclables like plastics and glass from the waste streams towards

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the recycling industries. Hence, the informal sector works in parallel with the formal sector,
they constitute an important aspect of the waste management system and needs careful
consideration in associated decision making.

The MSW comprises of stream of ingredients like Organic waste, re-cyclables & inert
substances. Each stream of waste has its own characteristics & different methods of scientific
dealing. Also, in majority of the cities in India, the MSW that arrives at the disposal site is
without segregation i.e. the plastic, paper and organic wastes are all collected and dumped
together (5) (7). Hence, there is no one solution fits all strategy that could be ideal in this
situation. Rather there is a need of a working on a framework that would be able to gauge the
value of each individual stream & treatment solutions based on the co-operation of the actors
involved. The need for such evaluation is apparent since there is variety of industries associated
with the Waste Industry. There is a kind of substitution effect present between Re-cycling
industry & scientific treatment of waste. For e.g. Paper products & cardboards could be either
diverted towards re-cycling industry or they could be used in incinerators to create energy or
RDF (Refuse Derived Fuel). Ad-Hoc practices, that are rampant in the present conditions, lead to
partial decision making towards one particular type of industry thereby leaving no scope for
development of the other. As a result, there is a dire need for creating an integrated solid waste
management system that can facilitate and enable municipalities to deal with pressing concerns
discussed above.

As the level of education and awareness among the people of modern India is rising, there is an
increasing demand for a transparent decision making in the governmental projects.
Acknowledging this fact, there has been new implementation across the country that facilitates
the general populace to access the information about the on-going projects undertaken by the
government. Important details like project funding, involved partners, delays, project stages and
technological details are being made available on the government websites. Hence, it can be said
that there is a demand for a transparent decision making system in the country. A transparent
system not only provides with details but also establishes mechanisms for developing an
accountable decision making process. Accountability of the decision making process is
important when due to some problems, the process is analysed in the hindsight for e.g. a public
interest litigation (PIL) was filed against an 18 MW waste-to-energy by the local communities in
Okhla, Delhi, for excessive pollution in the area, which was functioning since 4 years. The high
court ordered an immediate shutdown of the plant since the environmental concerns had not
been addressed by the implementers. During hindsight analysis, it was found that the plant did
not have an environmental clearance from the Central Pollution Control Board. Similar incidents
have been reported from across many cities of India. Hence, there is a need for a process of
accountable decision making when such implementations are considered.

The structure of the remainder of the section is as follows: firstly a research objective &
research questions are proposed based on the practical problem definition. Secondly,
theoretical background has been provided for the basis of the study followed by the practical
background for the research. Finally, the section ends by providing an outline for the complete
thesis.

1.1 Problem Statement

The above discussed concerns clearly highlight lack of a strategic framework that would be
needed to make decision for establishing a sustainable Waste handling system. Also, the

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presence of the informal sector provides its own set of challenges. At one end, their role is
unclear and unaccounted for by the formal sector but at the other end, their contribution to the
recycling rates in the region cannot be ignored. It would be interesting to consider the role of
the informal sector in this dynamic system of actors. Hence, the primary purpose of this study is
to develop a decision support framework to design a sustainable waste treatment strategy.

1.2 Research Question

In order to understand the idea of a treatment strategy we need to understand the concept of
landfill diversion rate. Landfill diversion rate is defined as the rate at which incoming waste is
being prevented from being landfilled. The waste is then either treated through organic and
chemical processes via treatment strategies or either recycled to be reused by manufacturers.
Alternately, the landfill diversion rates in the city can also be influenced by reducing the total
quantity of waste generated in the city. But the scope of the proposed research does not permit
the inclusion of waste reduction strategies. Hence, it can be said that a treatment strategy plays
a vital role in influencing the landfill diversion rates in the city. Therefore, along the pursuit of
the problem statement, this research will tend to answer the primary research question:

How can the municipal corporation increase the landfill diversion rate in the city of Ahmedabad?

To get a clear answer to the main research question, a list of sub-questions have been designed
that will provide formidable inputs to successfully answer the main research question. These
sub-questions are:
1. What are the social & dynamic aspects of the waste management industry in Ahmedabad?
a. What are the current actor network presence & their perspectives in the
region?
b. What is the material flow pattern of the solid waste stream, the information
flow and the cash flow within the network of actors?
The most important step before a decision support system can be designed is to identify the
actors that will be involved in the network. Actor networks are not only characterized by the
flow of materials between them, but also the flow of information. Based on their position within
these spatial networks, actors will have set of perspectives on the problem at hand and probable
solutions or criteria relevant to the solution or a way to reach a solution. These aspects help to
understand the social and dynamic aspects of the waste management industry. Also important
is the position or power of the involved actor. Hence, to gauge this aspect within the actor
network, we map the cash flow between the involved actors. Such kind of representation will
also give us overview about the condition and barriers within the existing system. A
representation of cash flow stream can help understand the impact of proposed technological
solutions on the existing system and thereby on the involved actors.

2. What is the structural hierarchy of the problem at hand for the intended goal of increasing
the landfill diversion rates?
The mapping of the waste network in the previous step will highlight the problems and barriers
within the existing waste management routine. It is necessary to deal with these barriers in
order increase the landfill diversion rates in the city. To tackle these barriers, it is important to
identify the criteria that need to be satisfied in order to achieve this aforementioned goal. An
example of criteria used for such evaluations are capital cost, operating and maintenance costs,
public health & safety, employment, air quality, land fertility, etc. Some of these criteria are
general deductions (public health and safety, operating costs, etc.) and can be derived based on

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the knowledge and research. However, some of the criteria are highly actor specific for e.g.
employment generated and landfill capacity management, etc. Hence, it becomes relevant to
understand the criteria that are important to each actor involved.

Once acute information about the existing waste situation and criteria relevant to the actors has
been shortlisted, clear guidelines can be evaluated to derive strategies that will be required to
address the main goal. These strategies shall be designed on the basis of two steps. The first step
shall involve a meeting of stakeholders of the involved system in India. Because they have been
working within the system, they will have an understanding of the problems and also probable
solutions to deal with the problems at hand. Hence, a meeting of stakeholders will paint one
such picture of the alternatives that are as per the beliefs of involved actors. A second group
discussion shall be conducted with the expert members of the graduation committee. The team
has experts in waste management systems and also experts in different technological solutions
for these systems. The perspective that the stakeholders in India hold against the ongoing
problems in the system will help the committee identify knowledge gaps in identification of
solutions in India. These meetings will provide excellent brain storming sessions to prepare the
ground work for the preparing a list of alternatives and also to understand the advantages &
disadvantages of each alternative specifically for Indian context. The final outcome from this
research question shall

3. What are the impending changes in the system that is needed during implementation of
the chosen alternative?
One step which is normally missed in all the previous waste management studies is analysing
the levels of consensus among the stakeholders (11). The stakeholders are the ones who have to
live with the proposed system and understanding the level of consensus among them for the
selected alternatives helps in devising the implementation strategies. It is also important to
identify the winners and losers of the chosen alternative in order to find strategies to deal with
the losers. Hence, to facilitate this procedure, we create an additional module called as
consensus analysis. During this step, we shall derive a qualitative narrative of the alternative
voted the best by the stakeholders during the workshop session. This narrative shall be
developed to identify the drivers and barriers for the alternative, the actors who can or are
responsible for these drivers and barriers, personal motivation of actors or degree of
persuasion that influences the goal to eliminate the barriers and finally develop strategies that
can be used to deal with these actors.

4. What are the recommendations for the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation?

a. What are the major sections that need immediate focus in order to increase
the landfill diversion rates?
b. What are main points that aid to the usefulness of the decision support
framework?
In pursuit to answer this research question, this work shall develop main pointers and
recommendations that should/could be adopted by the municipal corporation of the city of
Ahmedabad, in order to achieve the goal of increasing the landfill diversion rates. Secondly, the
usefulness and applicability of the proposed decision support framework for similar
applications shall be enlisted. The findings and the pointers shall be based on personal
experiences and the steep learning curve experienced during the execution of the research.

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1.3 Theoretical Background

1.3.1 Decision making theory

This research builds up on the theoretical concepts from the scientific decision making segment
entitled Multi-criteria decision making (MCDM). There have been several identified approaches
under the MCDM domain but this research specifically employs the theory of Analytical
Hierarchical Process developed by Thomas L. Saaty (1970). Under this methodology, the
problem at hand is developed into a hierarchical structure representing goal at the top, followed
by the criteria that influence the goals and help in selection of alternatives that form the base of
the hierarchy. The theoretical framework for the process is visualized in Figure 1.

The AHP is a technique for analysing and supporting decisions in which multiple, often
competing objectives/criteria are involved. In the AHP, a complex decision problem is
decomposed into simpler decision problems that comprise a decision hierarchy. Quantifiable
and unquantifiable objectives can be included in the same hierarchy. Once the decomposition is
complete, the method requires establishment of cardinal rankings for the objectives and for the
alternatives under each objective. This phase is simplified by using pairwise comparisons and
assigning numerical values to subjective judgments. The pairwise comparisons are then
converted into cardinal rankings. Note that the AHP does not find an optimal solution. It
generates a ranking of alternatives, consistent with the decision makers perceptions. The
process involves quantification of subjective judgments, which may introduce considerable
noise into the model. Therefore the results of the AHP must always be treated with caution.

It has been noted from literature survey that usability of this framework is justified as a tool for
decision support rather explicit use in making the decision itself. A comprehensive list of case
studies has been presented in the Appendix A that represents the usage of AHP as a tool for
decision support. Therefore, a gap in the literature is identified as lack of sound/complete
decision support system that could be applied by the municipal corporations in developing
countries like India. In IT world, a decision support system is defined as application that
analyses business data and provides it to the users so that they can make decisions more easily
(12). Waste management systems in general are characterized by networked structure of flows
(waste, information and cash). Hence, developing a decision support frameworks in these
systems require a comprehensive flow analysis as precursors to the mathematical tools. Such
kind of analysis is missing from the existing methodical framework proposed by Saaty.
Therefore, there is a need for developing a comprehensive decision support framework that will
use AHP as the mathematical tool but simultaneously build up on the limitations inhibited by
the basic formulation. Hence, this research shall contribute to the world of scientific community
by attempting to develop a holistic framework for decision support that encompasses a general
level analysis of flows followed by the decision making rounds.

Another important aspect for decision support is to help the decision maker understand the
levels of consensus among the stakeholders. Though not presented as an integral part of the
decision support tools reviewed in literature, it does contribute significantly in aiding the
decision making process during implementation phase. Hence, the consensus analysis is built up
to aid in decision-making when MCDM methods are utilized and, subsequently, a novel
sustainable decision making model for MSWM is developed.

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 Figure 1 - Theoretical framework for AHP

The research also distinguishes between two distinct approaches identified during the decision
making process: intuitive approach and normative approach. Under an intuitive approach, a
decision maker is motivated to achieve the intended goal by implementing changes in the
system unilaterally (the changes that can be done under his jurisdiction, without a need for
stakeholder participation or meeting). Under a normative approach, the decision maker is
motivated to obtain collaboration points from the stakeholders identified in the system through
stakeholder workshops and interviews. Review of literature on waste management yielded no
such bifurcation in the decision making approaches specifically in waste management systems.

1.4 Case Study Background

This project is a research project under PIB Waste2Value project between Government of
Netherlands and Government of Netherlands. This project consists of consortium of private
companies like Witteveen en bos, GID Milieutechniek B.V., Grontmij and many other private
waste management companies. In addition, government agencies such as Rijkswaterstraat, RVO
and embassy of Netherlands are also involved in knowledge transfer and facilitation process.
This project is sponsored by Witteveen en bos and Rijkswaterstraat as a part of this PIB
Waste2Value project framework.

1.5 Research and Case Study Scope and Limitations

The research is qualitative, exploratory and single case study based and hence the external
validity of the results could be limited. The problem is addressed and alternatives are proposed
from the perspective of some stakeholders in the system. While the concepts from literature are
generic, the conclusions drawn are based solely on the field data gathered from the interview
respondents. This study does not presume to cover all relevant characteristics for developing a
decision support framework or cover all relevant stakeholders belonging to the domain.

The areas of waste management systems and decision making are very broad. The research is
limited to their definitions as will be discussed within the literature study. The research is
constrained to the city of Ahmedabad, India for two reasons. First, the city is regarded as one of
the fastest developing cities in the world and presents accurate set of challenges faced by the
developing cities in India. Second, the researcher belongs to the stated cities and hence well-
versed in regional conversational skills. Some of the documentations are in regional language
and hence easily accessible for research purpose. There are a lot of waste management based
studies, research projects and pilots happening in various cities in India which makes it
favourable for studying the decision making process in waste management system.

The waste streams that will be studied in the research are limited to the municipal solid waste
stream categorized by organic fractions, recyclables and inert content. The bio-hazardous waste
streams and the C&D waste streams have not been considered in the analysis since they have

13
independent waste handling systems in the city. The participation of the stakeholders in the
workshops and interviews shall be limited to their availability and co-operation during the field
visits.

The validity of data about the systemic flows that shall be employed in the research is reliant on
the findings, observations of the researcher and referencing based on the report published by
Urban Management Centre, a consultancy who has been working with the municipal
corporation on several fronts of waste management projects. The report was published in 2012
by the institution and has been regarded till date a near-accurate and the only source of the data
collected from field visits.

The validity of the data collected from the interviews and stakeholder workshops depends on
the subjective judgements and field expertise of the researcher and are native to that only. The
claims made during the following report can be debated based on alternate perspectives.

1.6 Outline of this research thesis

The remained of this report is structured as follows:

Chapter 2: This chapter elaborates on waste and waste management systems, decision making
in general cases and also specifically in waste management world. It will also present insights
into the proposed decision support framework and applicability to the chosen case study.

Chapter 3: This chapter elaborates on the first step of the proposed decision support
framework, The snapshot. A detailed account of the flow of waste, flow of information and cash
flows between the stakeholders will be presented. This shall be followed by inconsistencies
identified in the system based on the flow analysis. Several solutions have been proposed based
on these inconsistencies.

Chapter 4: This chapter elaborates on the second step of the proposed decision support
framework, the AHP. A problem hierarchy shall be developed for the problem at hand. Short
qualitative accounts shall be provided for all the alternatives taken into consideration for the
problem hierarchy. Finally, the chapter shall conclude with the alternative with highest ranking
chosen by the stakeholders during the stakeholder workshop.

Chapter 5: This chapter elaborates on the third and final step of the proposed decision support
framework, the consensus analysis.

Chapter 6: This chapter reflects upon the usability and applicability of the proposed decision
support framework. The reflections and pointers are based on personal experiences during the
research project as well as personal recommendations from the stakeholder workshops.

Chapter 7: This chapter concludes the study by presenting the main research findings, thesis
reflections and future recommendations.

14
15
2 Literature Review

2.1 The Waste Ontology

Waste is broadly categorized into two main categories: Solid waste and liquid waste/sludge.
Solid waste comprises of the municipal solid waste collected from the houses, restaurants,
hospitals and industrial areas. The major waste streams contributing to the Solid waste are
generally organic, re-cyclable and inert in nature. The liquid waste is categorized by the term
grey water generally referred to as the discarded liquid waste from the household kitchen and
lavatories. However, from a scientific point of view, dealing with waste requires a more
scientific approach of classifying the waste. The very first step in this process is to actually
work-out a definition of the word waste. There has been an ever-going debate about a probable
definition for waste. Different legislations around the world have created their own versions to
manage the municipal solid wastes. Table 1 provides a view of three different set of definitions
defined by their respective legislations.

Table 1 - Definitions of Waste (13)

Legislation Definition
EU Waste shall mean any substance or object in the categories set out in
Annex-I which the holder discards or is required to discard (European
Council 1991a)
OECD Wastes are materials other than radioactive materials intended for
disposal, for reasons specified in Table 1 (OECD 1994)
UNEP Wastes are substances or objects, which are disposed of or are
intended to be disposed of or are required to be disposed of by the
provisions of national law (UNEP 1989)

Major debate has been centered on the ontology employed for developing an explanatory theory
encircling the field of waste management. For e.g. though the words discarded and dispose
have the same theoretical meaning, scientific implications have complete different orientation.
Cheyne and Purdue classified discard as a careless act where the owner have no use of the
material anymore and practically gets rid of it. However, they classified dispose as a more
responsible act where the ownership of the material has been transferred from its existing
owner to the next person who has its use (14) (13). The idea of ownership has been defined by
researchers as a probable idea to deal with the complications in the defining waste. The concept
of ownership centers on the usefulness of a given material to concerned person in possession of
the material. Ownership gives certain rights to the person to alter or completely destroy the
form or structure of the material. When the material is rendered useless, the owner chooses to
discard the material i.e. the usefulness of the material to that particular owner has been
satisfied. However, the same material might be useful to some other person who might choose
to take its ownership. For e.g. an empty beer bottle might be useless for the consumer. The
transfer of the ownership of the bottle from the consumer to recycling or re-filling plants de-
classifies the material from the waste category.

The very reason for defining the word waste and non-waste in scientific terms is to develop a
system or regulations to deal with it. EU regulations have created a list of 700 substances (e.g.
EWC-European Waste Catalogue) that are treated as waste and incorporated into their regular
systems of waste management. Developing such a catalogue creates a requirement for
classifying a substance in need of waste management, in absence of which there would be no

16
such need (13). Hence, the basic step in designing an effective waste management system is to
accurately waste, non-waste and waste management system.

We define waste as:

Man-made material that has fulfilled its purpose as a whole or under the present
ownership; and has no usefulness to the present owner; is required careful disposal to
prevent any harm to human health and environment

Defining non-waste is a bit of a complicated procedure and besides the definition provided by
Eva Pongracz perfectly serves the primary purpose of this research. According to her (13 p. 84)
non-waste is:

is a thing, which has been assigned a Purpose by its (or a potential) owner, and this
owner will either use it for that Purpose, or by adjustment of State or Structure, ensures
that the object will be able to perform with respect to the assigned Purpose

As per the definition, non-waste can be defined as a secondary raw material or re-cyclable that
can be derived or segregated from the material termed as waste. These non-wastes, once
completed their assigned purposes, will again be considered as waste and included in the
discarding procedure. In order to deal with the rising levels of waste in Ahmedabad by
developing techniques to deal with it, it is important to understand the core purpose of the
waste management system. The designated system should be able to differentiate between the
materials termed as waste and non-waste and identify the range of owners who can have
purposes for these designated materials. Identifying the owners can facilitate the system to
manage the flow of materials among these owners in such a way that added value can be
created for the entire system. Hence, one of the primary purposes of the waste management
system is to convert the waste into non-waste. This can be accomplished by assigning new
owner to the material or either by assigning new purpose to the material (13). Along the line of
previous analyzed research, following a similar ontology, we define waste management system
as:

A system that identifies waste from the non-waste; creates and identifies potential new
owners for the non-waste or establishes systems for converting the waste into non-waste
by assigning new purposes; simultaneously considering the violation of human safety and
environmental protection norms

Graphically, this composed definition of an ideal waste management system can be illustrated as
shown in the figure below:

17
 Figure 2 - Conceptual representation of an Ideal waste management system

The central idea of establishing waste management system that can recognize the concepts of
non-waste and ownership of the material is that the flow of material shall be higher along the
thicker arrows compared to the thinner one. The flow of material along the thinner arrow exerts
excess burden on the landfill sites that are designated stations for dumping the materials that
have lost its use to any of the listed owners. The creation of ownership actually enables
municipal authorities to create responsible roles for the concerned actors. For e.g. if paper and
cardboard boxes are termed as non-waste, the actors (recycling plants or incinerators) to whom
this bunch of material have a purpose will take adequate steps to ensure the regular collection
and storage, thereby preventing them from ending up in the landfill sites. Hence, a clearly
defined waste management system delineates a clear differentiation of non-waste from waste
under the arching concept of ownership.

The proposed definition of waste management system is consistent to those proposed by the
researchers and those formulated by legislative authorities like EU and OECD. The definition
provides a scientific take at the system involved in dealing with the waste. A more common
legislative definition of the waste management system is provided by European Council. They
highlight the range of activities and scope of the waste management system. They define the
system as (13 p. 104):

Waste management shall mean collection, transportation, recovery and disposal of

waste, including the supervision of such operations and after-care of disposal sites

2.2 Scope and Activities within a Waste Management system

The scope of the MSWM can be described in form of the four primary goals of the system: 1)
health of urban population, 2) environmental awareness, 3) creating employment opportunities
and 4) contributing to the local and national economy. These goals have been formulated based
on the conditions and requirements by the present system and government mandates like the
methodological requirements provided by the Central Government in their Municipal Solid

18
Waste Management Rules 2000. In addition, the contributions of the informal sector like
services to the recycling industry (at really low wages), though unaccounted for by official
system, cannot be ignored. Hence, considering all these objectives in mind, we formulate the
goals for a MSWM system as:

Maintain health of urban population

This goal serves the most basic and primary purpose of the waste management
system. Waste left unattended will result in uncontrolled decomposition and
emission of environmentally harmful elements like methane in the atmosphere.
Also, the left over waste seeps into the ground thereby polluting the ground
water tables that form the source of drinking water for the communities.
Collection of waste in the unattended landfills generally forms the breeding
grounds of harmful mosquitoes. A survey done in July-August13 reported 55
cases of malaria and 61 cases of dengue from the targeted zone (Varanasi, India)
where there was a presence of uncontrolled waste dumping in public zones (15).
A developing country is characterized by lower monthly income. People
surviving in these low income zones generally end up spending a significant of
this income on health services. Another survey reported that urban areas in
India experienced an increase of 317% and the rural areas 363% in their annual
medical spending due to repeated visits to the hospitals (16). Hence, maintaining
conditions that can preserve or even improve local population health forms the
main aim of the MSWM system
Encourage environmental awareness
In absence of a proper management system, local populace would indulge in
unattended incineration of the waste to get rid of the harmful pathogens,
thereby emitting unnecessary carbon and toxic gases into the atmosphere
contributing to air pollution and greenhouse effect. In addition, prevention of
pollution of water and soil are of utmost necessity to the local ecosystems. Urban
cities are generally embedded in the broad framework of networked ecosystems.
Judicious use of the natural resources within this ecosystem contributes to the
sustainability. Hence environmental preservation can be said to be an important
aspect of the under the MSWM system.
Create employment and income for the poor class of the society
Most of the developing countries are also characterized by a rising level of
population. One of the challenges faced by these countries is to create
opportunities for employment in the local economies. Since a large share of the
funding for the local governments is generally spent on managing wastes in the
municipal zones (17), providing an employment and means of income for the
poor of the society forms a natural and logical objective for the system.
Contribution to the national and local economy
Finally, a system that can contribute to the local and national economy is
desirable. The set of resources with any nation are limited. Innovative and
sustainable methods of easing the pressure on these resources are always on the
radar scanners of the environmental scientists and government officials. Hence,
the final goal of the system is to develop ways in which benefits like electricity,
heat, fuel pellets, agricultural compost, etc. can be developed that can generate
additional revenue streams in the economy.

19
A large share of the employment and income for the local residents belonging to the lower levels
of the society is provided by the street-sweeping and waste management activities (17). Also,
there is presence of number of actors or stakeholders who are considered to be an essential
component for the working of a waste management system. To achieve the goals of the MSWM
described above, all the activities entitled under the waste management system can be classified
under four main categories: Waste generation, collection & storage, treatment and disposal.
These four main activities are generally quoted under the over-arching activity of Planning and
Management. The idea of over-arching concept has been adopted based on the conceptual
framework for waste management in developing countries proposed by Schubeler et. al (1996).
He describes planning and management as a cyclical process of setting objectives,
establishing long-term plans, programming, budgeting, implementation, operation and
maintenance, monitoring and evaluation, cost control, revision of objectives and plans and so
forth (18 p. 18). A framework for the scope and activities within a MSWM system that will be
adopted for this research is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 - Activities within MSWM system

2.3 Integrated Solid Waste Management (ISWM)

Integrated Waste Management system involves analyzing local needs; conditions and actor
perceptions; then selecting and combining the best suited waste management technologies for
these conditions (19). ISWMs are highly customized systems designed for the local communities
based on the stakeholder perspectives, waste stream composition and flow; technical contexts
like waste characteristics based on social and cultural norms; environmental and institutional
norms; etc. (20) (21) (22). Implementation of ISWM caters to not only integration of
environmental friendly technological options but also stimulates the development of policies
and programs aimed at measures necessary to manage waste streams (23) (22). Integrated
waste systems lead to the creation of a win-win situation wherein environmentally friendly
measures are adopted to deal with the rising levels of waste as well as the targeted region
benefits from the social (clean surrounding, healthy population), economic (higher job creation
scenario due to creation of a new industry) and institutional (vision towards zero waste e.g. 3Rs
reduction, reuse and recycling) benefits from such implementation.

20
An important concept to be considered is that of Circular Economy. Traditionally, the model of
waste management has been viewed as an increasingly resource constrained i.e. take-make-
dispose model. Contrary to this, Circular Economy is restorative by design, which aims to keep
the resources, products, components and its constituent materials at their highest utility and
value, at all times (24). The circular economy is based on a simple concept: Waste does not
exist. According to Braungart and McDonough, technically waste should not exist if the
constituent components and materials of the products are designed by the intention to fit within
a higher materials cycle, further designed for disassembly and re-purposing. (24)

The basic structure adopted for the development of an ISWM is as shown below:

Figure 4 - Solid Waste Hierarchy for ISWM

The hierarchy is arranged in a pyramidal structure from the most preferred to the least
preferred option. This framework is generally accepted norm across the world. ISWM for a city
can be developed based on this hierarchical structure. Each component of this hierarchy has
implications and ways of dealing with the waste. The basic idea of all the steps included prior
the disposal stage is to incorporate mechanisms that prevent the valuable resources and
recyclables from entering the landfill and incineration sites. Hence, the primary purpose of each
stage is to create additional value from the already existing system.

Reduce is located at tip of the pyramid as the most preferred waste management alternative.
The core idea to waste reduction is target measures aimed at reducing the waste generated
from the source. Primarily the point of focus is the manufacturing institutions that are engaged
in product designing and re-designing to eliminate any excess material to avoid waste
generation. Firstly the amount of raw material and energy consumed during the manufacturing
can be controlled and secondly the amount of waste to be handled towards the end of the
product life cycle will be reduced.

Reuse is the next in line to the most preferred alternative. The core idea is to employ
mechanisms that enable the reuse of the same resources over and over again so that

21
requirement for new products are reduced and thereby raw material and energy is saved e.g.
use of cloth bags instead of plastic bags.

Recycle is the third important pillar for waste diversion. It involves establishing mechanisms to
reuse the discarded the materials again to produce alternate or the same products. Recycling of
plastics, paper/cardboard, etc. are among some common examples. Using of scrap metal during
smelting stage to produce the new metal products is also resource efficient means of dealing
with metallic waste.

Achieving reduction is one of the most difficult tasks since adoption of this system would
require back-tracking the products consumed and urging the manufacturers to alter the design.
Application of reuse has been successful to some extent in western countries and in some food
packaging products. Recycling has been an attractive industry especially for plastic polymers
and glass industries. The recycling of products collected from the waste depots have led to
considerable reduction in the overall manufacturing costs for these manufacturers.

Recovery forms the forth pillar of the waste diversion mechanism and one of the most
important step of the pyramid. Implementation of the above strategies cannot completely
eliminate waste from the system. Hence, recovery mechanisms are needed that can be placed in
the system to increase the diversion rates from the landfill. There are numerous recovery
mechanisms that can be selected based on the regulations, financial constraints, technological
availability and other factors. Some of the most popular recovery mechanisms are anaerobic
digestion, composting, vermicomposting, etc. They majorly belong to the group of biological
technologies for dealing with biodegradable components of the waste streams. Alternately,
waste-to-energy alternatives are adopted where waste is incinerated to generate electricity.
Additionally, RDF (refuse derived fuel) technology is employed where waste is converted into
pellets that are used as substitute/sub-ordinate fuel in coal fired power plants.

Disposal forms the base of the pyramid. This is the least preferred alternative as per the
hierarchy although the most preferred alternative in the developing countries due to financial
constraints. Disposal mainly deals with getting rid of the waste (which has no additional value
to anyone) via dumping it into a landfill specifically designated for that purpose or burning the
waste in an incinerator without any electricity generation. Sanitary landfills are specially
engineered ground pits where the waste is collected and stored until the harmful elements of
the waste are destroyed. The pit is completely maintained in isolation from the environment.
Hierarchically, sanitary landfill is preferred over incineration and finally controlled dumping of
the waste in a landfill is the final alternative.

2.4 Decision Making

Decision making has been one of the primary (underlying) tasks of human life. From selection of
groceries in everyday life to selection of life partner to selecting which planets and solar
systems to explore, decision making is knowingly or unknowingly involved in all important
aspects. One of the primary necessities of decision making in any case is to have an objective.
This objective is then evaluated using a set of pre-determined parameters called as criteria that
are important to the decision maker. The behavior of indulging in decision making can be
attributed to the deep rooted human characteristic of reducing undesirable results or rather
systematic approach of arriving at the favorable results.

22
To clearly understand this human behavior, we introduce the term consequences associated
with each alternative available to choose from with the decision maker. Some alternatives have
positive consequences in the future and some negative. Hence, the decision maker tries to arrive
at an alternative that has more positive consequences than negative by developing a specified
but desirable set of selected criteria by analyzing which he is able to arrive at the best choice.
The decision maker is believed to have made choice rationally. When these consequences are
associated with the quantity of the goods or resources involved or with regards to the personal
satisfaction of the decision maker, we define the process of decision making as utility
maximization. The decision maker has said to have used utility theory to arrive at the intended
consequences. Under Utility theory, the preferences and choices of an individual are studied
towards a common goal of maximizing the utility, be it personal satisfaction, quantity of goods
purchased, etc. An important aspect of such a theory is that when the best alternative is chosen
rationally by the decision maker, there is a possibility to assess the validity of the outcome.
Hence, the outcome of such an analysis could be termed as either correct/in-correct. One of the
basic assumptions about this theory is that the decision maker is aware about all the packages
that are available at his disposal to choose from and that he is able to find the best alternative.
However, reality is quite different and the decision maker is generally not always aware about
all the possible alternatives and the consequences associated with these alternatives. In such a
case, the decision maker is said to be limitedly rational. Hence, rather than trying to maximize
the utility, the decision maker adopts a more satisficing strategy i.e. searching from the available
set of alternatives till the desirable level of decision makers acceptance is reached.

Hence, when the decision making problem involves formulating an optimal selection from a set
of alternatives, an alternate method such as multi-criteria decision making is employed. Optimal
can be defined as the best suited alternative to the specifications or needs of the actor involved
in the decision making problem at that particular instant. Therefore, the final alternative chosen
cannot be claimed as being correct/in-correct but rather the best suited to the interests of the
decision maker. Described in this way, the generic nature and practical application of the multi-
faceted decision making methods are clearly evident.

From the above discussion, it also becomes important to classify the decision making into two
major sections based on the research accounts presented by researchers: individual decision
making and group decision making. Ideally, individual as a standalone unit is assumed to
behave rationally when engaged in the process of decision making. Hence, in a way, an
individual decision maker will rationally engage in optimizing the use of resources or optimize
the outcome from a process. However, when several individuals are clustered together in a
group setting to arrive at a final decision, the dynamics of process differ significantly. Each
individual has his own idea of rational set of criteria (optimization of resource consumption vs
effectiveness in societal setting vs environmental friendly technologies) relevant for the
decision making process and incorporating all of these criteria in decision making proves to be a
complex and costly affair. Hence, a general group dynamics during a decision making process is
characterized by compromises among those involved.

The complex societal problems like waste management, water management, poverty alleviation,
global warming aversion, etc. that are faced by nations across the globes are some of the
exquisite examples of the phenomenon called as group decision making. Generally, under such
circumstances, a group of people are entitled to arrive at common solution to the problems at
hand. The participatory members in the process of group are generally called as actors or

23
stakeholders. By coming together to make decision, they are required to work towards a
common objective taking into consideration the perspectives or judgments from all the actors
involved in the decision making. The final decision that is arrived based on such collaboration
cannot be attributed to a single actors perception since the final decision is developed through
a synergic interaction, co-ordination and compromises between these actors. Hence, one the
most important task under consideration while making a group decision is the way in which the
preferences of individual actors are treated. Two prominent batches of scientific literature
studies have been identified that develop alternate theories based on different approaches.

Forman and Peniwati (1997) identify two different types of groups of individuals based on the
level of co-ordination and synergic interactions during the decision making process. In one type
of group individuals come together to form a new single individual that is now responsible for
the synergic decision making process while in the other, actors are grouped together though
they do not function as a single unit and are prone to promote their own personal interests.
Decisions relating to the introduction of new product in the market where all the departmental
representatives come together to arrive at specifications and design constitute the first kind of
group. While public sector decision making like building a new dam to produce electricity will
need actors like environmentalists, government, political parties and technological experts
within the decision making group. Such kind of decision making constitutes the second type of
decision making group. Based on these pretexts, they theorize that two different methods of
aggregating the preferences of actors: Aggregate Individual Judgment (AIJ), for the synergic
group decision making; and Aggregate Individual Preferences (AIP) for the later type of group
decision making (25). Further they develop a three question model to help decision makers
arrive at proper methods to deal with the involved actor perceptions. The first question deals
with the type of the group involved in decision making, the second answers the mathematical
model that will be used for calculating the resulting co-operative group preferences and the
third question answers the position and power of actors involved. Based on the power and
position, suitable methods are used to develop weights that are assigned to the preferences
from the concerned actors. Using AIJ approach does not require procedure to assign weightage
criteria to involved actors since all the actors are considered as equally important, while AIP is
based on actors perceiving their individual goals and preferences, a mathematical procedure is
employed to develop weightage to be assigned to the preferences from involved actors.

Alternately, Ganesh and Ramanathan (1994) do not acknowledge the existence of the two
different kinds of decision making group. They propose that all the groups are based on the
grouping of individuals to help decision making and facilitate creation of a unique mathematical
model for evaluating decision making members weightages. They identify two different
methods for aggregating individual preferences into group preferences based on the social
choice theory axioms: GMM (Geometric Mean Method) and WAMM (Weighted Arithmetic Mean
Method) (26). According to them, GMM violates the social choice theory axiom of Pareto
Optimality (Societal preferences of options shall be reflective of the choice of individual actors
of one option over the other). Conversely, they theorize to introduce an intermediate stage in
the hierarchical structure of decision making methodology consisting of the actors involved in
the decision making process. At this additional stage, a weightage is assigned to each member
involved in the decision making. However, the mathematical procedure for assigning the
weights can be debated at lengths. Two procedures are highlighted namely, supra decision
maker (A single most powerful actor assigning weights to the involved actors; prone to strong

24
biases and not very welcome in group decision making) and participatory procedure
(questionnaire is filled up by the actors to receive their idea of their position with respect other
actors for deriving the eigenvector highlighting their relative weightages; again prone to heavy
biases and highly time consuming process) (26).

2.5 Decision making in waste management

Waste management system comprises of a complex system where a meaningful mix of
technological and systemic implementations are embedded in the societal structure to deal with
the prevalent problems or concerns as highlighted by the involved actors or stakeholders.
Decision making in a waste management system is not just a set of carefully selected
technological alternatives that satisfy the requirements of the local community. In addition to
these alternatives, important aspects like the social and environmental concerns also require
careful consideration. Traditionally, decisions in waste management were evaluated based on
varied approaches that evolved along the decades of cumulative research. 1970s primarily saw
the applications of decision making in optimizing the waste collection routes and location of
intermediate stations for sorting waste streams (27) (28) (29). 1980s was characterized by the
extended focus on Waste management at system level where efforts were made to minimize the
operating costs and also find ways to recover the sunk costs (30) (31) (32). 1990s saw the start
of a well-planned decision model development where various aspects like environmental
(atmospheric emissions and resource consumptions), economic (system costs, cost
optimization, revenue stream generation, etc.) and technological (new invention, technology
upgrades, etc.) were considered.

After since 1970s, the case studies conducted in waste management systems have been based
on four primary methods: cost-benefit analysis (CBA), Life-cycle Assessment (LCA), mixed
integer & multiple objective linear programming (MIP/MILP) and multi-criteria decision
making (MCDM). The implementation of these methods throughout the research has been
justified by the researchers as serving an important and diverse underlying concern. Studies
conducted using LCA have primarily focused on evaluating the environmental footprints of
different alternatives implemented within a waste management system (33) (34). CBA studies
were basically carried out to justify the amount of money investment required for such
environmental friendly waste management systems against the benefits claimed for the societal
institution. Multi-objective programming and MILPs based methodologies were developed to
suffice two primary purposes; to locate sanitary landfill sites and to evaluate technological
alternatives (35) (36) (37) (38). MCDM has been a very popular method with the researchers
and has been employed by several researchers to analyze and develop a sustainable waste
management system.

The popularity of the MCDM method mainly attributes to the inclusion of multi-faceted, often
conflicting criteria simultaneously in the decision making process. The most important
characteristic of an MCDM methodology is that it provides a platform to evaluate a range of
solution alternatives based on the varied criteria sets proposed by the involved stakeholders.
Evaluating the technological alternatives just in terms of economic or environmental analysis is
not considered a holistic approach in decision making process. They are rather tools for aiding
the decision making process. Some of the criteria are best represented qualitatively and an
economic value cannot be attached to these concerns e.g. the amount of carbon emitted into
atmosphere by uncontrolled incineration of plastics and other polymer products, monetary
value on the life of those affected (humans or animals) etc. US Environmental Protection Agency

25
publishes a list of 21 criteria (both qualitative and quantitative) that need address while
deciding on an appropriate waste management system (39). In addition, for the waste
management system to function properly, the cordial participation and co-operation of all the
stakeholders is required. Hence, a multi-criteria decision analysis, where all these parameters
can be evaluated against the stakeholder preferences, is generally preferred over other decision
making models.

The MCDM method provides a significant advantage over the mathematical formulation based
previous methods since MCDM facilitates the choice of a series of favorable alternatives based
on a definite criteria set that are derived based on stakeholder preferences. When there are
multiple stakeholders involved, often there is a presence of conflicting interests along with often
shared preferences and outcomes. The previous methods fail to incorporate these two
directional relations between the stakeholder preferences. Hence, MCDA proves to be an
important tool in such complex cases to deal with the waste management system using various
dimensions. The robustness of the solutions derived based on MCDA is higher compared to the
previous methods (40) (41). Thus, the aim of MCDA is not just to derive an optimum based on
the evaluation criteria but to create an accommodation space that enables stakeholders to
express their interests and reach a mutual agreement (11).

Multi-criteria decision making has been developed over two decades as a separate discipline
with special conferences and a special MCDM journal dedicated to publishing papers since 1992
(42). Number of practical tools has also been developed along the timeline to facilitate the
application of MCDM in real life problems. Soltani et al. 2015, acknowledges a review of 68 case
studies across the time span of 1997-2013 that have acknowledged the presence of multiple
stakeholders and decision makers in the municipal solid waste management program. These
articles have employed a number of multi-criteria decision making methodologies like
AHP/ANP (Analytical Hierarchical/Network Process), PROMETHEE (Preference Ranking
Organization Method for enrichment Evaluations), ELECTRE (Elimination et choix transduisant
la realite), TOPSIS (Technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution). Some of
these articles have employed a combination of two or more methodologies.

The popularity of AHP among the research is mainly based around the simplicity and ease of
use. Techniques belonging to AHP family employ an optimum selection procedure based on the
weights derived from criteria analysis for each actor (more on this in the next section). Also,
these techniques provide measures to study the trade-offs between different criteria. On the
other hand, methods like ELECTRE and PROMETHEE are based on developing ranking systems
to gauge the alternatives. However, these methods do not discuss any possible trade-offs
between criteria. Hence, a strong favourable response has been recorded in the use of AHP as a
better adaptable tool for performing an MCDM analysis. Out of the 68 case studies that have
been reviewed, more than 70% have predominantly made the use of AHP as a decision support
tool in their analysis (Appendix A)

2.6 Discussion and Applicability to the case study

One important point of concern that was observed during the review of the 68 case studies was
that almost all of them had been applied to the cities in the developed countries. There were
very few applications of the methods to cities in developing countries. Additionally, applications
of methods like MIP/MILP, Input-output analysis, LCA and CBA requires a higher level of
expertise of the decision maker to be able to successfully implement these methods in the field.

26
One major problem faced by the decision makers in Municipal Corporations like AMC is that
they lack people who are knowledgeable and educated to handle such kind of frameworks in
practice. Hence, simplicity and ease-of use has to be an important aspect of the decision
framework developed for these organizations. At the same time, the framework should also be
versatile enough to handle the presence of multiple stakeholders in the waste management
system.

Another important point to be noted is that in India, according to the Bombay Provincial
Municipal Corporations Act 1949 (BPMC Act 1949), the corporations in the country have full
authority to make necessary changes in the system without any need for prior approval from
the central or state government. The decision maker has the freedom to adopt the waste
management system best suited to the local needs. Hence, decision maker can adopt two
different paths during decision making process: 1) unilateral intervention for the changes and
implementations that are within his jurisdiction (or changes that wont require collaboration
from stakeholders) and 2) stakeholder participation and co-operation seeking for
implementations that are outside the jurisdiction of the municipal corporation. It is very much
evident that reviewed complex methods fail to take into account such kind of classification.
Hence, the inclusion choice of decision making pathway as highlighted here is another
important consideration for the decision support framework.

There is a need for a mathematical or statistical model that can sufficiently encompass the
priorities stated by the involved stakeholders. The AHP methodology can sufficiently provide
the base for such mathematical formulation. Hence, one element among the decision support
framework shall be developed taking the concept of AHP as base.

Based on these three major points, a decision support framework is proposed in the following
section.

27
2.7 Proposed Decision Support Framework

Figure 5 Proposed Decision Support Framework

Review of the case studies highlighted a lack of a comprehensive decision support framework
that could be adopted by the municipalities in developing nations. All of the 68 case studies
focused on discussion of technological alternatives pertaining to waste treatment facilities and
decision pertaining to location of these facilities. The solutions that have been adopted for
decision making process by more than 72% of the case studies are exactly the same since the
complete technological options for waste management are limited to technological advances
worldwide. Waste management in developing countries is characterized by a complex supply
chain of waste material involving numerous actors, both formal and informal. In such condition,
the priority should be targeted towards system improvements coupled with technological
solutions. Hence, the proposed framework has been prepared to apply the MCDM analysis for
the improvement of the system as a whole. No other similar study has been found in the
scientific literature reviewed for this research. The proposed framework is divided into three
distinct sections: The snapshot of the system, MCDM analysis using AHP, and finally the
Consensus Analysis

The Snapshot of the system

The snapshot of the system is a representative term to capture the inner working of the waste
management system in its natural state. To do so, three important aspects of the system need to
be mapped: flow of waste material, flow of information and the cash flow between the involved
actors. A comprehensive understanding of the system can be suitably established by creating

28
charts to map out these three aspects of the system. So the ultimate outcome the first step is set
of 3 charts (material flow, information flow and cash flow). These charts finally lead to a
detailed account of actor perception, actor position within the system, the power map of the
system and finally the problem perception of different actors.

Major requirements for such comprehensive system mapping are: 1) to help the decision maker
understand the problem areas in the system and 2) to help the decision maker understand the
implementations to improve the problem areas. Some of the implementations can be single
handedly managed and applied by the authority of the decision maker. As an example, consider
a mayor faced with a decision to improve the tourism in his city. He identifies two major
implementations that can aid his objective: developing recreational parks and themed resorts in
his municipality or developing inter-state roads that get his city well connected with
neighboring cities. The previous solution can be implemented by his jurisdiction while the latter
will require a group decision where the heads from the neighboring cities will collaborate on
the efforts to achieve a common objective.

Mathematical framework

The second section of the framework is characterized by the operation of a generalized AHP
methodology. The decision making problem at hand is formulated into a hierarchical structure
based on all the elements available. Each level of hierarchy represents a step towards final
decision making. The first level of hierarchy denotes the ultimate goal of the decision making
process. Second and third levels in the hierarchy represent the criteria and sub-criteria
necessary to be evaluated for selecting appropriate alternatives. Group of sub-criteria that are
generally related to each other based on geographical, physical or analytical characteristics are
grouped together to form the main level of criteria. The final level in the hierarchy represents
the set of alternatives that are to be evaluated using the said framework.

Technically, there are no limitations to the amount of criteria and alternatives that can be
adopted for developing the hierarchy. The number of pair-wise comparisons executed in the
next step increase by a factor of n*(n-1); where n is the number of criteria selected at second
and third levels of the hierarchy for evaluation. An important point here is that during pair-wise
comparisons, an internal consistency has to be maintained which in turn depends on the
comprehensive and cognitive ability of human mind. Scientific literature quotes the
comprehensive ability of human mind to simultaneously handle alternatives from 7 to 12.

Next, a pair-wise comparison of two criteria compared at a time is established. Majority of the
criteria involved in decision making are intangible i.e. cannot be determined in terms of
absolute value (e.g. love, affection, pollution, social influences, etc.). Trying to formulate an
absolute scale for such factors has been in futile since years. A relative one on one comparison
of such criteria can be useful for decision making since comparative analysis yields a better
understanding of the relative importance of one criterion over the other. Hence, a relative
measurement weightage scale as shown in Table 2 is used for weighing the criteria with each
other. The comparisons take the form of A is moderately important than B or A is extremely
important than B. The reciprocal of this comparison would be B is moderately more important
than A

29
Table 2 - Saaty's fundamental scare for relative comparison

Intensity of Importance Definition Explanation

1 Equal Importance Two elements contribute equally

to the property

3 Moderate importance of Experience and judgment slightly

one over another favor one over the other

5 Essential or strong Experience and judgment strongly

importance favor one over another

7 Very strong importance An element is strongly favored and

its dominance is demonstrated in
practice

9 Extreme importance The evidence favoring one element

over another is one of the highest
possible order of affirmation

2, 4, 6, 8 Intermediate values Comprise is needed between two

between two adjacent judgments
judgments

Reciprocals When activity i compared to j is assigned one of the above

numbers, the activity j compared to i is assigned its reciprocal

Rational Ratios arising from forcing consistency of judgments

The final outcome is a matrix that comprises of all such pair-wise comparisons of the entire set
of sub-criteria. The mathematical formulation of the matrix and the implications to be
considered will be explained by a general example. Suppose a well-to-do family decides to
purchase a new family car. The options that they shortlist after a thorough market research are
C1, C2Cn. All the members of the family place a set of criteria that they feel important during the
selection process. Let A1, A2An represent a set of all such criteria compiled by the family. Now,
let w1, w2.wn be the weights that can be assigned to these criteria based on the relative
perceptions of the family members. A pair-wise comparison matrix based on the decisions of the
family shall take the appearance of matrix A as shown in the Figure 6.

Figure 6 - Pair-wise comparison of criteria weightage matrix; adopted from (43)

30
When this matrix A is multiplied with the transpose of the matrix containing all the weights, i.e.
w = (w1, w2.wn)T , then the resulting matrix is of the form nw; where n is the eigenvalue of A
and w is the eigenvector (relative weights) linked with it. This solution of Aw=nw is called the
right eigenvector of the matrix A. All the entries in the matrix are positive entities and obey the
reciprocity principle i.e. if A = (aij), aij = wi/wj, i, j = 1.n; then aji = 1/aij (43). We obtain the
value of the matrix w by normalizing all the values of the matrix. We derive the sum of all wij and
divide each individual value with the sum to obtain the said normalized form. Besides the non-
negativity of the entries formulated in the matrix the derived matrix should also satisfy the
conditions of consistency. Matrix A is defined as consistent when there exists, a unique or
feasible solution for the set of equations formed from the values of the matrix. To maintain this
consistency, Saaty defines (aij * ajk) = aik; i, j=1.n as the necessary condition to determine the
consistency of the matrix.

The matrix A obtained in the above step is the reflection of the judgment of the family members
when consulted with pair-wise comparisons. Hence, these judgments reflect relative values of
the comparisons based on their knowledge and understanding of the subjects. It is practically
impossible to obtain precise values of these comparisons. Hence, the resulting matrix is prone
to be inconsistent. During such inconsistency, a typical situation is created where Aw=max*w;
where max is the principal eigenvalue of the matrix. This inconsistency leads to doubtful
interpretations of the value of w based on above calculations. However, maintaining sufficient
levels of consistency during each of the comparisons is tedious and complicated task. Saaty
proposes that the consistency of the matrix can be maintained throughout the operation by a
single number max-n (43). max-n measures the variation of the judgment for each pair-wise
comparison based on the consistency approximation.

To facilitate the manipulation of the computations to maintain the consistency level within the
calculations we derive a term called Consistency Ratio (CR). Firstly, we derive the consistency
index (CI) as CI = (max-n) / (n-1). Secondly, depending on the size of the matrix that is obtained
from the previous calculations an appropriate average Random consistency Index is obtained
from the Figure 7. Finally, we obtain the value of Consistency Ratio (CR) as CR = CI/RI. The
matrix is considered consistent and suitable for further analysis only when the CR is less than
0.10. Values higher than 0.10 are indicative of prevalent inconsistency and careful re-evaluation
of the pair-wise comparisons will be needed.

31
 Figure 7 - Average Random Index (RI) (44)

Consensus Analysis

The final section of the framework enables the decision maker to understand the consequences
and support/opposition to proposed alternatives. A narrative account is prepared for the
solution that has been shortlisted using the AHP methodology. This narrative account reflects
on the major criteria that had been shortlisted for the decision making process. Also, the
account represents the necessary changes in the position of actors and/or flow of
material/cash/information. The feedback loop on this narrative account iterates based on the
actor perception that has been prepared as per the guidance provided in the first section of the
framework. Hence, the first step of the proposed consensus analysis shall provide an
understanding of the would-be winners and losers of the shortlisted solution. And the second
step of the analysis shall enable decision maker in association with the stakeholders arrive upon
strategies to deal with the losers. The feedback obtained from the stakeholders shall be in
qualitative format.

32
3 Decision Support Framework Step 1 Snapshot of the system
This section shall develop a picture of the present waste management system prevalent in the
city. This shall include the actors present in the system, their relative positions w.r.t each other
and flow of waste, cash and information through the system. Having mapped this system, we
shall try to identify the inconsistencies observed in this system. These inconsistencies have been
derived based on the field observations.

The first step of the decision support framework demands a comprehensive analysis of the
present waste management system and the practices associated with it. This has been done by
evaluating the complete system based on the three important aspects of the system: flow of
waste stream, flow of information between the involved stakeholders and finally the cash flow
diagram between the involved stakeholders.

The main purpose of the first step of the framework was to understand the system dynamics by
analyzing the flows. It was learned during this process that such kind of representation gave a
good idea about the command and control with different actors in the system. It was also found
that such kind of representation itself could be employed to pin-point inconsistencies in the
system. Here we shall define inconsistencies as the problems encountered during field visit that
are not regular (based on the general idea about waste management systems in developed
world) or erratic (based on the idea of sustainable flows). The complete set of discussion about
these problems and how they translate to system inconsistencies shall be provided in the
following section. To facilitate the representation, an alternate and visibly less complex set of
diagrams have been prepared for this particular step of framework. The complete system
details and the system mapping charts have been presented in Appendix B, C & D for detailed
data review.

The structure of this section shall be as follows: firstly, the research shall provide a general idea
about the concept of landfill diversion rates and the factors that directly influence the landfill
diversion rates. Secondly, the system diagrams showing the flow of cash, information and waste
streams and their descriptions will be followed by identification of inconsistencies in the flow
networks. Then, a set of solutions will be derived targeting these inconsistencies.

3.1 Landfill Diversion rates

Waste diversion or landfill diversion is the process of diverting waste from landfills. The
diversion of MSW from landfill can be defined and measured in two main ways. It can be
expressed as a percentage of the total amount of waste being generated, so that a
recycling/composting rate of 30% means that this percentage of the total waste stream is being
diverted; this is a relative measure. The second way is to express recycling/composting rates in
absolute terms, normally as kilograms per person (capita) or kg per household. Likewise,
residual waste can also be expressed as a percentage of the whole or in kg per person. For the
city of Ahmedabad, based on the data presented in section 3.1, it can be estimated that the
landfill diversion rate for the city is as low as 7.5%. This means that 92.5% of the waste
collected from the city is landfilled.

Four major factors can be identified that directly influence the diversion rates: generation of
waste (segregated or mixed), treatment market, market for recyclables and finally mechanism
for waste reduction at source. The quality and type waste that is generated from the municipal

33
zones has significant effect on the landfill diversion rate. Presently, the city 100% mixed waste
which creates barriers for the recycling industries to collect the recyclables from the general
waste stream. It also creates formidable problems for the composting plants since they have to
manually segregate the waste before treating. Due to the moisture content and mixing of inert
waste, most of the time the organic fraction of waste cannot be treated and is landfilled. Hence,
source segregation has considerable impact on the landfill diversion rates in the city.

Other factor that affects the diversion is treatment market for technologies like composting and
incineration. In addition to reusing materials waste products can go through biological
treatment. There are two types of biological treatments anaerobic digestion or composting.
Simply stated, biological treatment is the breaking down of material through the action of
micro-organisms. Materials are broken down to carbon dioxide, water and biomass. Landfill
diversion can also occur through recycling. Recycling refers to taking used materials and
creating new products in order to prevent the disposal of these products in landfills. Recycling
material can include glass, paper, metal, plastic, textiles, and electronics.

And finally, landfill diversion rates can be also be influenced by reducing the amount of waste
generated at source through reuse of reduction of consumption. Less or controlled consumption
shall generate less waste and hence would to reduced load on the local landfills.

3.2 Flow of Waste and Cash stream in the system

The system diagram for these two flow streams has been presented in Figure 9.

Population of the city of Ahmedabad was at the mark of 5.6 million from the Census 2011.
Ahmedabad has a total of 1,623,188 entities registered with AMC as of 2012. Out of these
1,286,188 are residential properties, 337,000 are commercial establishments (45). Total
number of residential complexes in slums in Ahmedabad is believed to be around 173,151 (45).
The existing system claims coverage of around 93-95% of these entities. The waste generated at
the covered location gets collected through the system. On average 2102.6 MT per day of waste
was being generated by the residential and commercial establishments. 885.36 MT per day of
waste was collected by street sweeping and around 80 MT per day of food waste was generated
from hotels and kitchen. Also, 500-600 MT per day of Construction and Demolition waste was
generated within the municipal zone (45). Hence, a total of 4000 MT of solid waste is being
generated in the city on a daily basis. Presently, there are no provisions for collecting the waste
in segregated form i.e. collecting dry and wet waste in different waste streams. Hence, all of
these entities provide their waste in completely mixed form.

There is no concrete availability of the data on the composition of the waste generated in the
city of Ahmedabad. Presently there are two different estimates of the waste composition (Figure
8). One was provided by Abellon Clean Energy (the contractor for upcoming WTE plant) and the
Municipal Corporation. During the time period 2010-2012, Abellon Clean Energy undertook a
study to gauge the composition of waste for the city. As per Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation,
the average composition of the waste collected by them on a regular basis comprises of 56.23%
biodegradables, 20% inert waste and around 23.77% recyclables. However, the data provided
by the Municipal Corporation shall be used for this research.

The Municipal Corporation is provided with an annual budget of 404 Cr ( 56.94 million) to
conduct the daily waste management services in the city. The breakup of the expenditure and
sections where the money is spent is shown in Appendix C.

34
 Figure 8 - Waste Composition for the city of Ahmedabad (Source: AMC (Left) and Abellon Clean Energy)

The waste generated from these municipal units is collected on a daily basis through two
different channels: door-to-door and gate-to-dump. As the name suggests, the prior is collection
of waste from the door steps while the former is collection of waste from the pre-designated
points called as secondary collection sites. The model adopted by the Ahmedabad Municipal
Corporation is a completely decentralized waste management system. The entire city span of
446 sq. km. is divided into 6 municipal zones and each zone is further divided into 10 to 12
wards. A total of 64 wards are established at the ground level. The zone wise waste collection
statistics for the city are shown in Table 3.

Table 3 - Zonal collection of MSW for December 2011 (46)

CZ WZ NZ EZ SZ NWZ Total
Door/Gate to Dump 7458 5480 7370 5591 5632 6469 37999
H&K 126 744 171 375 80 0 1495
MSW from Secondary 13473 10569 6868 6557 9322 9477 56266
Bins
Total 24846 17859 16293 14313 15931 19213 108454

The collection of waste from these two zones is organized by two actors of the system: the
Municipal Corporation and the private contractors. As can be seen, the two private contractors
together cover around 54% (845 out of 1544 sites) of the waste collection from the city. These
contractors are paid on the basis of per MT of waste collected (Appendix C). On an average, the
contractor is paid around 631 per MT (8.76). The annual payment to the two contractors in
total based on these figures is 163.29 Crores ( 23.08 million).

Table 4 - Zone wise secondary collection sites distribution in the system (46)

AMC Private 01 Private 02 Zone wise total

Zone
Sites Containers Sites Containers Sites Containers Sites Containers

Central 10 16 64 109 0 0 74 125

East 101 112 52 69 0 0 153 181

South 91 108 48 71 0 0 139 179

West 23 24 0 0 121 159 144 183

North 65 79 0 0 43 59 108 138

North West 35 35 0 0 25 25 60 60

35
 Total 325 374 164 249 189 243 678 866

The daily collected waste is weighed at the weigh bridge which is owned and operated by the
municipal corporation. Then the required quantity of waste is delivered to the treatment plants
and the rest of the waste is taken to the Pirana open dumping yard. There are two operating
treatment plants in the city: the composting plant owned by Excel Industries Pvt. Ltd. (Capacity
of 300 MT per day; plant efficiency 30%) and the RDF palletization plant owned by UPL Djai
Power Ltd (Capacity of 250 MT per day; plant efficiency of 30%). The treatment plants pay an
average of 377,881 (5248) per year to the Municipal Corporation in form of 2.5% royalty
charges and the land rent.

Additionally, two private contractors are engaged in daily collection of food waste from the
restaurants and hotels in the city. These contractors together collect around 80 MT of food
waste per day. The food waste is directly supplied to the composting plant. These food waste
contractors are able to charge the restaurants for using the waste collection services. Hence,
financially they have no dealing with the Municipal Corporation. Annually, the contractors are
paid in total around 1.05 Cr (146,011). The inert waste generated from the treatment plants
is directly sent to Gyaspur landfill site. Around 20-50 MT of inert waste is generated by these
treatment plants daily.

The recyclables in the system follow a circular path. The recyclable content found in the system
mainly comprises of plastics (HDPE, LDPE, PP, PVC, etc.), glass, metals, alloys, fabrics and
electronics. There are two ways in the system through which the recyclables are drawn out
from the regular waste stream. The Pirana open dumping yard forms the primary source of
recyclables for the rag-pickers. An estimate of around 100 MT per day is believed to be
recovered by the rag-pickers on a daily basis. Presently, around 80,000 rag-pickers are believed
to be actively working within the system. The second source of diverting recyclables from the
system is through itinerant waste buyers. These buyers are independent working units that
offer door-to-door collection of recyclables for the households and commercial units. The
estimate on the number of itinerant waste buyers and the quantity of recyclables recovered by
them in the system is not known. These two units (rag-pickers and the itinerant buyers) sell
their daily waste collection to one of the middle man in the recyclable supply chain i.e. the junk
shops. Based on the type of recyclables handled and geographical location covered, there are
two or three levels of junk shops namely (small, medium and large junk shops). These junk
shops are engaged in segregating the collected recyclables into component streams. These
individual streams are then sold to the wholesalers. The wholesalers are the bigger players in
the system and control the supply of recyclables to the recycling units. The recycling units in
return are dependent on the manufacturers for the demand of the secondary raw material (the
recycled product). The manufacturers based on the price index of the products sold on the
shelfs in retail shops, adjusts the quantity of virgin material and recycled material. If end-
customers demand a lower priced product, the presence of higher content of recyclable material
is used in making the product. The manufacturers sell their products to the retailers through
whom the general public reuses the recyclable products thereby completing the circular path in
the system.

The accurate prices or quantities of the recyclables circulated in this loop are not known. In
general it is assumed that based on the prices that are offered to the households by the itinerant

36
waste buyers (Appendix C), a margin of 10-15% is added by each of the intermediary actor in
the supply chain of recyclables. The addition of margin varies based on the value added to the
product stream by the concerned actor. Higher the value added, higher will be the margin
commanded by the actor.

In addition to the waste collection system, the municipal corporation is also responsible for
providing the daily street sweeping services in the city. Around 12000 sweepers are employed
by the corporation that conducts sweeping twice a day. The sweepers are responsible for
collecting the waste from the streets and depositing the same in the secondary collection bins.

37
Figure 9 - Waste and Cash flow between the stakeholders

38
3.2.1 Inconsistencies observed in waste and cash flow streams
The details of the set of inconsistencies that have a direct or indirect effect on the landfill
diversion rates shall be considered in this section.

Waste flow

1. The waste collected from the households and commercial units are in unsegregated form i.e.
dry and the wet waste are mixed together in a single bin. Some of the important recyclable
content like paper, plastics and cardboard also get moisture affected rendering them useless
for any further processes.
2. It has been observed that the collection system itself lacks the infrastructure to handle the
waste stream in a segregated form. Even if residents provide dry and wet waste separately,
the personnel are seen mixing the waste while dumping in the transportation truck.
3. The contract between AMC and door/gate-to-dump contractors ensures the payment per MT
of waste measured at the weigh bridge. To get a higher payment, these contractors resort to
mixing of sand, mud and sometimes small pebbles in the collected waste. Such tampering
renders the complete batch of waste inert and useless for the treatment plants
4. The irregularity in the timetable for door-to-door and gate-to-dump services has created
severe loopholes in the system like creation of nuisance spots. Nuisance spots are just like
the secondary storage bin spaces except the waste is spattered around the street corners and
road ends. Once the spot has been created, it becomes simultaneously temporary dumping
grounds for other members of the community as well.
5. The gate-to-dump services provided to society dictates the responsibility of the residents to
ensure the timely delivery of the waste at the gate for collection. This is not always the case
and in case of missed chance, the waste ends up either in nuisance spot or luckily in a nearby
secondary storage bin.
6. Availing the services of door-to-door collection by the hotels and kitchens is given as a
choice. The units that choose to use the service are expected to pay for the service. In
addition, those that dont want to pay, choose to dump their waste in the secondary storage
bins where the food waste is mixed with inert waste making it useless.
7. The waste delivered to the treatment plants is unsegregated with 40-50% moisture content.
A significant time, money and energy is spent in segregating the bio-degradable from the
inert waste.

Cash flow

1. 82% of the complete budget of the Solid Waste Management Department in AMC is spent on
waste collection and street sweeping activities.
2. Funds that are allotted to the SWM department are generally for capacity expansion and
operation/maintenance of the daily activities conducted by the ULBs. No or little funds are
available for establishment of proper treatment facilities as well as for the capacity building
of the employees.
3. Financial sustainability of the SWM department is very poor. According to reports, the
financial recovery for SWM department of AMC is only 20-25% (47). As per following figure,
SWM department is losing an amount of 2994.74 ( 42.17) per MT per year.

39
4. The contractual terms between the AMC and private door-to-door contractors include a
clause for fuel allowance based on the fluctuating fuel prices. However, there are no GPS
installations to monitor any suspicious activity (like extra cash laundering by showing extra
travelled distance) conducted by the contractors.
5. Since the working efficiency of the treatment plants are very low, the sale of the end-
products is affected. In return, lower annual revenue is accrued to the SWM department.
6. The contractual terms with the AMC for H&K and C&D waste dictate no payment to or by the
SWM department. Hence, all the revenues generated from this stream of waste handling are
diverted away from the corporation.

3.3 Flow of Information in the system

AMC appears to be the central node for the entire flow network of information pertaining to the
general waste stream in the system. The amount of waste collected from different zones is
recorded at the weigh bridge by the Municipal Corporation. This data enables the corporation to
keep a check on the amount of waste being generated in the city zone wise. However, no
information was found on whether the data for waste composition was being gathered on per
day or per month basis at the bridge. During the field visit to weigh bridge, there were no signs
of any monitoring mechanisms to ensure the quality and type of waste coming in the trucks.
There might be inspection mechanisms designed through sampling, but such information was
not found during field visits.

One important point to note is that the information about the quantity of waste generated is in a
way supplied by the private agents. Hence, it can be said that these actors control the data. The
type of data supplied by these agents mainly involves the daily waste collection in MTs and the
total distance travelled by the collection vehicles. The municipal corporation through this data
keeps a check on the quantity of waste that is being delivered to the treatment plants and that is
being dumped in the Pirana yard.

The data on the waste collected for a particular month is being communicated to GPCB on a
monthly basis. A monthly data sheet carrying the quantity of waste being collected from each
zone is submitted to GPCB. GPCB also keeps a check on the emission levels registered at the
Pirana dump site and the two treatment plants under the project Ambient Air Quality
Monitoring. The emissions data is collected from a probe deployed at the designated location.

40
The information is not easily accessible and wont be shared without proper mechanisms. AMC
also conducts regular field visits at the two designated treatment plants to understand the
worries and concerns. Contract terms between AMC and Excel clearly dictate the reporting of
annual sales of the compost to ensure the payment of 2.5% royalty. The contract terms between
Djai and AMC involves no royalty payments but field visits are a part of duty performed by the
head of SWM department.

It has been observed that the demand for cheaper products in the retails shops is basically the
driving force behind the recycling industry in the sector. The manufacturers of products like
plastic ware, toys, plastic bags, food packaging, etc. generally use secondary raw material
(recycled material) along with virgin material for the manufacture of the products. A drive to
reduce the price of the products leads to a higher inclusion of recycled material in the products.
Such kind of drive communicates the need for demanded recyclables by the market that is
further communicated down the line. The households and commercial units on the other hand
realize the money they can earn through the sale of recyclables via the itinerant waste buyers.

41
Figure 10 - Information flow between stakeholders

42
 3.3.1 Inconsistencies observed with flow of information
1. There is no direct access to the information about the waste collection agencies hired by
AMC. Hence, the data on the daily travel of vehicles provided by the transport contractors
have to be accepted. The data can easily be altered to earn more in the fuel expenditure
section of the agreement. The only information point is the Weigh Bridge where there is
absence of regular monitoring. Hence, such conditions affect the reliability on the waste data
available at this point.
2. The Ambient Air Quality metering points have been established at many locations in the city.
These points measure the impact on atmospheric air in general. However, the effects from
the Pirana uncontrolled dump sites alone cannot be distinguished on these monitors.
3. The Municipal Corporation has no information about the quantity and type of recyclable
materials that are being extracted from the Pirana dump yard by the informal sector. There is
no communication link between the two actors.
4. Similarly, the municipal corporation has no connection with the itinerant waste buyers in the
system. The amount of materials diverted by this actor in the system is completely unknown
and hence the complete potential of the recycling industry is unexplored.
5. Most importantly, the street cleaning and sweeping are the result of intensive littering
activity undertaken by the public and other street vendors and food stalls. There was no
communication channel found from the AMCs side to make people aware of the problem i.e.
public participation in the waste management activities was found to be absent in the
system.
6. The secondary collection bins are the point of mixing of a lot of streams of waste
(households, shops, hotels, kitchens, construction and demolition waste and street waste). As
observed from the previous section, around 51.7% of the waste from the city is collected
from these places i.e. 51.7% of the waste streams are highly mixed and completely useless
for any further treatment. But there were no means of communication between the actors to
prevent the mixing.
7. There was no information that was being communicated to the households and commercial
units to segregate their wastes. As per regulations the general public is to be made aware for
such implication.
8. The private transport contractors are found to have a great control of the information about
the waste generation in the city. In a way, the Municipal Corporation is dependent on the
flow of information through this particular actor.

3.4 Analysis of System flows

This section briefly summarizes the main points of discussion that were a part of the
stakeholder workshop organized during the field visit. The above discussed inconsistencies
were presented to the stakeholders and later 7 main inconsistencies were identified as major
hurdles that could be addressed in a shorter time span. The following section shall highlight
these 7 problems and what were the probable solutions that were the outcome of the discussion

As can be understood from the previous sections, there have been some internal inconsistencies
encountered in the system. The following section shall deal with these inconsistencies. The main
aim of this section is to address the problems through viable solutions and also find the point of
collaboration between actors of the system. To do so, we shall develop an inventory of the
problems and possible alternatives and the probable actors with whom collaborations can be
achieved.

43
Table 5 - Problem-solution inventory from system flows

Problem Definition Proposed Solution Actors needed

Problem-1: Opportunistic Behavior by Altering the system cash flows AMC, Transport Contractors,
transport contractors (Section 3.4.1) Treatment Plants

Problem-2: Contamination of waste at Bin-less waste collection system AMC, Transport Contractors,
secondary collection points (Section 3.4.2) General Public

Problem-3: Poor coverage (44%) of Polluters pay principle (Section AMC, Private H&K Contractors,
H&K waste collection system 3.4.3) Hotels and Kitchens, Treatment
plants

Problem-4: Need for source IEC (Information, education and AMC, General Public, NGOs and
segregation and no littering in public communication)/BCC (Behavior CBOs, Media
places change campaign) (Section 3.4.4)

Problem-5: Unreliable data on waste GPS system installation in the AMC, GPS suppliers, IT Support
collection by contractors collection fleet and inspection at
weigh bridge (Section 3.4.5)

Problem-6: No data about recyclables Re-mining of dump yard using AMC, informal sector, NGOs,
recovered from the Pirana Dump Yard informal sector (Section 3.4.6) Recyclers

Problem-7: No data about recyclables Formalizing itinerant waste buyers AMC, Itinerant waste buyers,
recovered by itinerant waste buyers for source segregation (Section General public, Recyclers
3.4.7)

3.4.1 Problem-1
One of the major concerns that can be noticed from the previous section is the demonstration of
opportunistic behavior by transport contractors. To fully understand the opportunistic
behavior, we shall develop a small comparative diagram showing the cash flow between three
concerned actors: the AMC, transport contractors and the treatment plants as shown in Figure
11.

44
 Figure 11 - Altering cash flow pattern among transport contractors and treatment plants

The notations employed in the diagram are same as those in the main flow diagrams in the
previous section. The red arrows depict the cash flow and the blue arrows show the flow of
material. The dotted blue arrow shows the value addition done by the transporter. If the
existing system section is analyzed, it can be inferred that the transporter gets paid to execute
the command for daily waste collection. He is being paid per MT of waste collected per day basis
and in absence of proper monitoring mechanisms transporters, to inflate their daily income, is
found to mix sand and mud with waste to increase the weight of the waste collected. In return,
he gets paid from the AMC but the waste is of no use to the treatment plants. The major problem
in this arrangement is that the waste has to be treated as raw material for the treatment plants
rather than simply waste. Hence, the transporter adds value not only by collecting the waste
from various locations of the city, but also by providing raw material to the treatment plants. To
make sure that the later purpose of the arrangement is fulfilled, the proposed modification in
the cash flows as shown in the image can be suggested. As per the proposed solution, the
treatment plants shall be responsible for paying the transporters. Hence, to safeguard their
interests they shall develop adequate monitoring mechanisms against any opportunistic
behaviors. On the contrary the treatment plants shall get paid for the service they deliver i.e.
treatment of waste.

Such kind of system can termed as sustainable system. The flows that are involved in the
proposed system are recycles and ensure self-sustaining relations in the system. The motivation
and chances for demonstrating opportunistic behavior are drastically eliminated from the
concerned chain.

The main actors that shall be required in the arrangements are the municipal corporation, the
transport contractors and treatment plants. The municipal corporation has the power to change
the contract terms as per requirements. It should be noted that the transport contractors can
create opposition to this arrangements since maintaining status quo in the system is a more
profitable deal for them. On the contrary, the treatment plants would be willingly interested in
such an arrangement since in the present system they are losing money.

45
3.4.2 Problem-2
The secondary collection bins in the system prove to be an important point for contamination of
waste in the system. The already mixed waste from the households is generally collected in
these bins from where the transporters and municipal corporations provide secondary
collection services. However, these points, in absence of monitoring mechanisms, also attract
the food waste from the hotels and kitchens, the mud and dirt collected through street
sweeping, construction and demolition debris and sometimes even garden and lawn waste.
Such type of mixing of waste renders the waste completely infeasible for the treatment plants
since segregating this waste is not possible (even through technological implementations).
Hence, the proposed solution calls for a need to completely eliminate the presence of these
secondary collection points in the system. From the previous sections it can be found that nearly
51.7% of the waste collection in the city is made from these secondary collection bins. Hence,
targeting the secondary bins shall prove to save a large share of waste generated in the city
from contamination. The collection of waste in the system then shall be conducted through
door-to-door and gate-to-dump services only. The municipal corporation shall be required to
take rigorous steps to reinforce the daily collection schedule by increasing the daily trips and
number of collection fleet. The same would also require a significant amount of investment. The
implementation of such a system could be termed costly but not unachievable. The transport
contractors in this system shall be interested since the changes shall increase their scope of
activities and hence accrue higher revenues per annum. The treatment plants would also be
interested in this arrangement since the waste would now have a lower level of contamination.

One of the major hurdles in this system shall be of uncontrolled littering on streets in absence of
secondary storage bins. Presently, the bins facilitate the collection of waste at designated closed
spaces. Hence, additional measures shall be required to ensure a tight monitoring mechanism
against the impending littering. Visible the system implementation can be represented as shown
in Figure 12.

46
 Figure 12 - Bin-less waste collection system schematics

3.4.3 Problem-3
To fully understand this problem, lets consider the statistics for the food waste collection and
coverage achieved by the private transporters in the city. As can be seen from Table 6,
only 44% of the units (hotels and restaurants) in the city are covered under the present food
waste collection system. Rest of the units do not choose to use the services provided and are
found to dump the food waste in the secondary collection bins. The contractual agreement
between the private H&K contractors and the municipal corporations provide an option to the
hotels and restaurants to opt for the services of waste collection by paying a user charge. The
result is only 44% of the restaurants are willing to participate in the system. On the contrary, in
the present system, developing a monitoring mechanism is a very costly affair since the number
of units to be monitored is very high and shall require additional personnel for inspection.

Table 6 - H&K Food waste system coverage statistics (46)

Central East North South West New West Total

Units Covered 57 75 79 159 279 368 1017

Total Untis 462 247 258 349 517 468 2301

Coverage (%) 12% 30% 31% 46% 54% 79% 44%

Units not Covered 405 172 179 190 238 100 1284

47
The proposed solution basically again alters the cash flow patterns between the involved actors.
The arrangement shall be as shown in Figure 13. The primary motive of such an arrangement is
to implement a polluters pay principle. The municipal corporation by its instilled power from
government can necessitate all the hotels and restaurants in the city to pay for the waste
collection services. Hence, the restaurants in the city will be obliged to use the collection service
provided by the private H&K contractors. Such an arrangement shall ensure a higher level of
coverage in the system at the same time aid the financial sustainability of the system. One more
advantage of such an arrangement shall be diversion of power from the private contractors to
the municipal corporation. By directly allowing the contractors to control the flow of waste and
cash, the contractors become powerful actors in the system and the municipal corporation in
return becomes dependent on this actor. Hence, proposed solution can aid the present system in
numerous ways.

Figure 13 Schematics for Polluters pay principle for H&K Waste

3.4.4 Problem 4
Another major problem identified in the system is that of source segregation of waste is not
practiced. The waste collected from the households and commercial units are in unsegregated
form i.e. dry and the wet waste are mixed together in a single bin. Some of the important
recyclable content like paper, plastics and cardboard also get moisture affected rendering them
useless for any further processes. What is lacking is a communication link between two main
actors of the system: the municipal corporation and the general public. To aid this solution, the
municipal corporation should undertake IEC/BCC (Information, Education and
Communication/Behavior Change Campaign) campaigns. Important stakeholders that can
prove to be helpful in organizing such campaigns are the NGOs, CBOs and educational
institutions in the city. The city has some really good NGOs like CEE and SEWA who have proved
their ability by conducting numerous public awareness campaigns in the city. Also educational
institutions like CEPT and PDPU (GERMI) can be employed for developing technicalities for such
campaigns.

Through such intervention, the main motive of the municipal corporation will be to encourage a
higher level of public participation. Public participation in policy making related to science and
technology sector has been gaining momentum in the recent decades. Specifically, more
relevance is placed on public participation when the concerns addressed are environmental and
health risks (Rowe & Frewer, 2000). Public participation generally ranges from lower level

48
participation to higher level participation. At lower levels of participation, public hearings and
opinions are elucidated and confronted. At a higher level, people who act as representatives of
the collective judgments of the society are also invited to put in a word during the decision
making process.

Public Participation has been proposed as an increasing beneficial tool in dealing with
municipal solid waste in developing countries. One such case study was conducted in the
metropolitan city of Kolkata where from the community of 250,678 people, a sample of 800
reviews was collected on the best methods for household solid waste management methods
(48). A similar study was conducted in Silicon Valley of India, the city of Bangalore, by creation
of a common platform for interaction Swabhimana. The framework and a short introduction of
the process are shown in Figure 14. However, preliminary search has not revealed any such
community participatory activities in the city of Ahmedabad specifically targeted towards
MSWM. There might have been undocumented activities undertaken by the NGOs in the sector.
Nevertheless, public participation can be considered an important step since the people of the
community are the ones who will be living under the proposed planning and implemented
solutions.

Figure 14 - Community Participation in SWM development (49)

3.4.5 Problem 5
The SWM department in the municipal corporation spends 41% of the annual budget on waste
collection services. Almost all of this money is spent on daily trips made by the private agencies.

49
There are two sections under which the agencies are paid: total waste collected from the city
and the total distance travelled by the trucks from these agencies. The municipal corporation
can monitor the amount of waste collected through the weigh bridge. But the data about the
distance travelled daily is presently provided by the agencies. During visits, it was known that a
considerable amount of money was spent on fuel expenses and there was no way to monitor
these expenses. Hence, ultimately the corporation presently completely relies on the agencies
for provision of the data and the result can be unreliable estimates about distances. According
to the proposed solution, GPS installations can be made in each of waste carrying trucks in the
system. The advantage of such installations will be reliable source of data for the total distance
travelled by the entire fleet on a daily basis. AN important implication for such data collection is
also to reduce the expenses on the waste collection through optimization. The basic necessity
for optimization techniques is the availability of reliable data. Hence, a database can be setup at
this point where the collection services can be regularly monitored and optimization can be
suggested.

A new private actor shall be required for the provision and maintenance of the IT infrastructure
for this system. The transport contractors shall pose a threat to such implementation since they
would benefit more by maintaining status quo in the system.

Figure 15 - Schematics for GPS data acquisition

3.4.6 Problem 6
The presence of recyclables in the waste stream provides an opportunity for the municipal
corporation to earn some financial revenues from the system. The sale of recyclables can be
beneficial financially as well as reduce the environmental burden of dumping the waste in the
open dump. But to do so, there has to be an accurate estimate about the quantity and type of
recyclables present in the system. Before taking any major steps it is wise to gauge the potential
of the resources. The informal sector working on the dumping yard is essentially diverting the
recyclables from the dump yard. However, there is a major lack of information with the
municipal corporation regarding the recyclables that are drawn out of the system by the
informal sector. The information like type of recyclables collection, quantity of recyclables
recovered and the reasons for why some recyclables are not collected even by the informal
sector. The informal sector works outside the jurisdiction of the municipal corporation and the
corporation in return keeps no check on the system. However, through the proposed solution it
is possible to have such implementation where collaboration between the two is possible. The
idea is to conduct a re-mining of the open dump under the jurisdiction of the municipal

50
corporation. The corporation shall barricade the dump yard for a period of 5-6 years and then
conduct controlled excavation of recyclables. The provision of heavy machinery and health and
safety equipment can be undertaken by the corporation. ID cards shall be provided to controlled
number rag-pickers that will be working in the premises. The collected and sorted recyclables
can then be sold to the recyclers directly. The main advantage is that the middle men in the
recycling chain shall be eliminated and higher earnings for the corporation and rag-pickers can
be achieved. A schematic representation of such an arrangement is shown in the Figure 16.

Figure 16 - Schematics for Re-mining of Pirana open dump

3.4.7 Problem 7
The basic idea of the previous solution was to help the municipal corporation develop a
business model from the recyclables in the landfill. The problem that this particular solution
addresses is the source segregation of waste. The itinerant waste buyers are an important
stakeholder in the system which provides valuable door-to-door recyclable collection services
to the households. The driver for market demand of such service provision is that the
households are paid upfront for the recyclables they provide to the itinerant buyers. Hence, for
the low and middle income families, it is financially incentivizing to segregate the waste to earn
monetary rewards in return. Hence, under the proposed solution, the municipal corporation can
collaborate with the itinerant waste buyers of the city to instill an initial or primary level of
source segregation of waste. By formalizing the itinerant waste buyers, they can be provided
with the authority to officially collect the recyclables from the households. Of course, the
households shall also be required to co-operate on the same with these buyers. Hence the three
major stakeholders required from the system for this solution will be the municipal corporation,
the itinerant waste buyers and the households and/or commercial units. A schematic for the
proposed solution is shown in Figure 17.

51
 Figure 17 - Schematics for formalizing the itinerant waste buyers

3.5 Conclusion
There were three major conclusions from this chapter:

First: It was concluded that four major factors influenced the diversion rates: generation of
waste (segregated or mixed), market for treatment, market for recyclables and finally
mechanism for waste reduction at source.

Second: As can be seen from table below, the seven solutions that have been identified from the
system can be applied to eliminate the system inconsistencies identified. The applicability of the
solutions is well within the jurisdiction of the municipal corporation and there is no need for the
decision maker to have a stakeholder workshop or meeting for the same. Hence, as an initial
level analysis of the system, these solutions can be termed as preceding solutions to the main
decision making process that shall take place in the next section.

Problem Definition Proposed Solution Actors needed

Problem-1: Opportunistic Behavior by Altering the system cash flows AMC, Transport Contractors,
transport contractors (Section 3.4.1) Treatment Plants

Problem-2: Contamination of waste at Bin-less waste collection system AMC, Transport Contractors,
secondary collection points (Section 3.4.2) General Public

Problem-3: Poor coverage (44%) of Polluters pay principle (Section AMC, Private H&K Contractors,
H&K waste collection system 3.4.3) Hotels and Kitchens, Treatment
plants

Problem-4: Need for source IEC (Information, education and AMC, General Public, NGOs and
segregation and no littering in public communication)/BCC (Behavior CBOs, Media
places change campaign) (Section 3.4.4)

Problem-5: Unreliable data on waste GPS system installation in the AMC, GPS suppliers, IT Support
collection by contractors collection fleet and inspection at
weigh bridge (Section 3.4.5)

Problem-6: No data about recyclables Re-mining of dump yard using AMC, informal sector, NGOs,
recovered from the Pirana Dump Yard informal sector (Section 3.4.6) Recyclers

Problem-7: No data about recyclables Formalizing itinerant waste buyers AMC, Itinerant waste buyers,

52
 recovered by itinerant waste buyers for source segregation (Section General public, Recyclers
3.4.7)

Third: The simplicity and ease of use of this first step of framework is very evident from the
derivations of intuitive solutions just from physical representations of the flow. Such kind of
representation was not only helpful in identifying inconsistencies in the flow patterns but also
helped in identifying points of collaboration between the involved stakeholders. An important
advantage concluded from this analysis was that the decision maker got freedom to choose
what he as the supra-decision maker needed from the system. He was given a choice for
intuitive decision making. However, an important limitation from the analysis could be quoted
that though the decision maker had the choice to derive solutions addressing the
inconsistencies in the system, there was no built-in mechanism or framework that would help
him prioritize among these solutions. Some of the solutions are really cost intensive and some
are time and effort intensive. Hence, it is completely dependent on the personal judgement and
experiences of the decision maker to choose from these solutions.

53
Figure 18 - Institutional Framework for SWM in India

54
4 Decision Support Framework Step 2

4.1 Institutional Framework for MSWM system in Ahmedabad

According to the 74th Amendment Act of 1992, the Constitution of India recognizes the existence
of Municipal local bodies called as ULBs that are entrusted with carrying out the work of
municipal waste management as a social obligatory service to the community. The guidelines
for these activities have been laid down by the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) in
2000 under the title of MSW (Handling and Management) Rules 2000. MoEF is responsible for
timely improvement and modification to these rules and regulations. Ministry of New and
Renewable Energy (MNRE) is responsible for encouraging state governments to invest and
create more opportunities in Renewable energy sector. MNRE is a national level nodal agency
for renewable energy requirements for the Government of India. The Waste Management
guidelines have been designed under the Environmental Protection Act of 1986 (50). According
to the legislation, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has been assigned the
responsibility of monitoring operational working and rule compliance of the Gujarat Pollution
Control Board (GPCB). The Gujarat Pollution Control Board is responsible for monitoring the
pollution levels and regulation compliance levels resulting from these management activities. It
lays the ground work for monitoring the regional implementation of the guidelines from the
central government.

At state levels, Urban Development and Urban housing Department (UDD) is responsible for the
creation and implementation of regional and national policy directives, promoting
infrastructure development and also ensuring the availability of the funding for these purposes.
Gujarat Municipal Finance Board under the authority of UDD is responsible for providing grants
required for the waste management activities. Another state level nodal agency Gujarat Urban
Development Mission (GUDM) has been created under the authority of UDD. The organization
ensures proper usage and delegation of funding under the Central JNNURM program. The state
Government has created municipal local bodies specific to urban and rural areas. These local
bodies are responsible for the ground work needed to manage the municipal solid waste. These
municipal areas are further divided into zones and wards for effective management of waste in
a decentralized manner.

Whenever a creation of a waste treatment facility or upgrading of the fleet of collection vehicles
is needed, Municipal authorities are required to get the technological and other resource
requirements like land, electricity, water, etc. approved from the GPCB, Standing Committee and
GUDC. GUDC has been established as a state level nodal agency to support and facilitate the
development and implementation of large infrastructure projects. The final authority of
approving a treatment facility project vests with them. They also play a role in providing
management and consulting and technological support to the urban local bodies. To encourage
the local community participation in the waste management activities, regional governments
have created local citizen welfare associations like AUDA (Ahmedabad Urban Development
Association). These associations are responsible for identifying location for implementing the
various activities of the waste management system, their operation and maintenance, etc. So if
AMC has a land requirement of 30 hectare, it is the responsibility of AUDA to identify a suitable
land under its jurisdiction and support AMC in acquisition and other development related
activities.

55
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation hierarchically divided into two distinct sections:
administrative wing and elected wing (Figure 19). The elected wing, headed by the mayor, is
supposedly responsible for approval of policy level implementation, project proposals, annual
budgeting, locating sources of funding, etc. The administrative wing, headed by the municipal
commissioner, is responsible for ground level implementation of projects, management of daily
operations and maintenance work, conducting stakeholder workshops, deriving financial
estimates for the annual budgeting, etc. Municipal Commissioner is an I.A.S (Indian
Administrative Services, one of the highest qualifications for administrative positions in the
country) and a mayor is elected by the General Board.

Figure 19 - Hierarchical Structure of AMC

Every five years, corporation elections are conducted under the authority and monitoring of
District Collector, who is himself under the authority of Governor and him under the Chief
Minister (Figure 20). During Municipal elections, a group of 3 members are elected for each of
the ward in the city, of which one member is compulsorily a female. The people living in the
municipal zones or respective wards have the right to vote for their preferred candidates. So,
among 64 wards, a total of 194 members are elected and these members form the General
Board. These members conduct an internal election to elect a Mayor who is supposedly the head
of the General Board. The internal elections also support the creation of Standing Committee as
well as 13 other committees who are responsible for monitoring the works of 75 departments
under AMC. A leader is also elected to lead the Standing Committee. The Standing Committee is
one of the most powerful committees since the proposals from all the committees have to go
through Standing Committee before being presented to the General Board.

The annual budget mainly consists of two kinds of financial requirements. One section
highlights the operation and maintenance works of the existing infrastructure, salaries of the
employees, contractual payments, etc. Additional funds that are required by AMC for creative
development works like establishment of SCADA system for monitoring for effective sewerage
management are procured by submitting a complete project report to the JNNURM committee
in Central Government. The funds if approved will be sent under the jurisdiction of GUDM to be
further disbursed to Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.

56
 Figure 20 - Power Map of Stakeholders in Solid Waste Management

City Managers Association Gujarat (CMAG) is a state level nodal agency that encourages various
participatory activities to strengthen and promote local governance. The association is a
membership based agency. A person who is working with Municipal Corporation, Urban
Development Agency or any such city organization with population of more than 100,000 is
eligible to apply. The primary purpose of this agency is to interact, exchange and channelize
efforts to achieve common goals regarding local governance (51).

4.2 Stakeholder Map of the system

The major activities enlisted with the municipal corporations are collection, segregation,
storage, transportation, treatment and disposal of waste from the municipal zones. The
guidelines laid by the Central Government assume that the citizens residing in the respective
municipal zones are self-aware of the responsibility of avoiding littering in public places and
also following the guidelines for disposal of waste laid down by the local municipal authorities.
However, often it is not the case and municipal zones are required to appoint street sweepers to
collect the waste off the streets and public places. Hence, additionally the municipal zones in
association with the state government are required to create awareness campaign for educating
the waste generators. Main focus of such campaigns is waste segregation mechanisms and
promoting recycling or reuse of materials. These activities are generally carried out with the
help of NGOs (Non-governmental Organizations), CBOs (Community Based Organizations),
Environmental activists and media programs.

The stakeholder map for the solid waste management system of the city has been presented in
Figure 21. Local community comprises of residential units, hotels and kitchens,
commercial units, hospitals and Infrastructure construction organization. The main
requirement of this community is regular collection and removal of the waste generated every
day at their place. Additional requirement dictates timely cleaning of streets and other public
spots. As per Central Government regulations, the citizens of the municipal zones are entrusted

57
with the responsibility of not resorting to littering and keeping the surroundings clean. The
AMC is entrusted with the complete responsibility of managing the solid waste management
system in the city. To aid this task, AMC employs a contracting method to hire third party
contractors who assist the corporation in providing daily door-to-door and gate-to-dump waste
collection systems. Also, AMC has a force of around 12000+ sweepers who clean the streets and
public places twice a day. AMC also collaborates with NGOs and CBOs for the heavy requirement
of sweeper task force for covering the increasing lengths of roads in the city. The role of media
in the complete system is to ensure that the people of the community are aware of the works
and undertakings by AMC. Also, it is the responsibility of the media to make people realize their
personal responsibility of keeping the city and streets clean.

With the target of reducing the transportation costs associated with daily waste collection and
handling, AMC has created 3 transfer stations (2 more under construction) under public-
private-partnership model. Also, just parallel to this formal waste collection sector, there is
presence of an efficient and strong informal sector that works by manual segregation of waste at
dump sites and secondary waste collection locations. About 80,000 people are expected to be
working within the waste management system today in the city.

Figure 21 - Stakeholder Map of Municipal Solid Waste Management in Ahmedabad

AMC has entered into PPP model with United Phosphorus Limited (UPL) industry. UPL has two
sister companies by the name of Excel Industries Ltd. and Djai Power Ltd. Both the sister
companies have established treatment plant each. Excel Industries Ltd. has setup a composting
plant with a daily capacity of 500MT per day. UPL Djai Power Ltd. has setup an RDF
manufacturing plant with a capacity of 500MT per day. A similar contract has been awarded to
Abellon Clean Energy to setup waste to energy incineration plant to produce 13.8MW from
1000MT per day in 2013. An important authority for this WTE contract is Gujarat Electricity

58
Regulatory Committee (GERC). The electricity tariffs proposed by Abellon shall have to abide by
the regulations provided by Central Electricity Regulation Commission (CERC). The approval
and monitoring of the costs (Fixed and variable), setup costs and required funding for the
development and establishment of the WTE plant will also be provided by the GERC.
Additionally, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has setup a public limited company under
the title of Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA). The company has classified
the different renewable energy sources into categories like Solar, Wind, Others, etc. WTE plant
falls under the category others. Since WTE is still relatively new sector in India, IREDA
attributes an interest rate of 13.50% for any loan provision for the same which is significantly
higher than for Solar (12%) and Wind Energy (11.90%) (52). There are no state or central level
regulatory authorities for managing and subsidizing the sale of RDF pellets and compost across
the states. Hence, the prices of these products are not regulated or subsidized like the electricity
from renewable sources. The compost made by Excel competes in the market with the heavily
subsidized Chemical based fertilizers. Also, there are no provisions for providing a start-up or
setup funding for these plants. Consequently, the entire funding required for setting up compost
or an RDF plant is bore by the private party.

4.3 Stakeholder analysis

The analysis includes five different categories in which the main stakeholders are reviewed:
Interests, Role, Resource, Dependency and Replace ability (Adopted from (53)). The interest
section denotes the personal values and motivation leading to active involvement in the system.
Role entitles the official or formal role as dictated by the rules and regulations. Resource section
highlights the resources each actor commands and the Dependency section shows the inter-
connectedness among the actors. Finally, Replace ability defines if any particular actor (as in
organization and not the person in-charge) can be replaced when needed by the system. Ideally,
the government bodies involved in the system cannot be replaced. The usefulness of the replace
ability section is to clearly differentiate between the dependence of the actors on factors, from
their (actors) dire need in the system. This difference can be clearly understood when the case
of private transport contractors is considered. The contractors have been operating in the city
since 5-6 years effectively covering more than 50% of the area of the city. So, AMC has become
completely dependent on them for the collection in that section of the city. However, waste
collection being a lucrative business, new contractors can always be procured via official
tendering process (though time consuming and politically complex), should AMC choose to do
so. Hence, the present analysis clearly differentiates between the terms Dependency and
Replace ability characteristics of the involved stakeholders.

The major stakeholders identified in the system are General Public, Urban Development and
Urban Housing Development (UDD), AMCs Standing committee and Administrative wing,
Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB), Private Transport Contractors, Private partners
(treatment plants), NGOs/CBOs and finally the informal sector. Table 7 shows the actors gauged
for each section as per their position in the system and expressions quoted in the personal
interview sessions.

Table 7 - Stakeholder Analysis Matrix for Waste Management System in Ahmedabad

Actor Interest Role Resource Dependency Replaceable?

General Public Clean Streets and Maintain clean living Monetary On daily collectors No
public places area in and around resources of waste

59
 Regular collection neighborhood (No Source of waste in On government for
of waste from littering) the system development and
household Offering waste in Unity among adoption of cleaner
Healthy living and segregated form populace policy frameworks
environmental Maintain a level of Power to file
conditions general awareness Public Interest
about waste related Litigation (PIL)
consequences and Right to
Information Act
(RTI)
Urban Rapid Urbanization Creation and Power to Dependent on No
Development Development of implementation of formulate policies MoUD (Central
and Urban beautiful, cleaner regional and Financial support Ministry of Urban
Housing and sustainable national policy Knowledge Development) for
Development cities directives Resource like funding/support for
(UDD) Compliance with Promoting Modules and national level
regulations and Infrastructure toolkits for implementation and
policy frameworks Development Financial formulation of
set by MoUD Ensuring the Assessment, national policies
availability of Social Impact
funding and Assessment and
guidance for the Transport
activities Demand
Management
AMC (Standing Sustainable Approving the policy Approval No
Committee) development of the initiatives and Authority
city frameworks as Financial power
Implementation of prepared by the Political
Eco-friendly Administrative wing Dominance
technologies and Approving the
treatment facilities annual budget and
Ensuring complete new project
convenience to the proposals
populace of the city
AMC Regular collection Preparing and Equipment and Dependent on No
(Administrative and transportation implementation personnel for private contractors
Wing) of waste work of new project waste and partners that
Environmental plans management contribute to
friendly and Executive handling related activities managing 50% of
sustainable and management of Data generated daily waste
mechanisms for daily activities from regular collection zones
scientific treatment related to waste operations Dependent on
of waste management Land Provision for Standing Committee
Financial Monitoring the establishment of for the approval of
Sustainability of daily activities of the waste treatment projects
operations contractors and and handling Dependent on
imposition of facilities. NGOs to provide for
suitable fines the 40% of the
against non- sweeper workforce
compliance needed in the city
Collection of various
imposed taxes on
the municipal zones
GPCB Environmental Monitoring the Environmental On AMC for data No
friendly emissions from Clearances about daily waste
management of various waste Annual Data on collection
waste related related activities pollution levels On CPCB for policy
activities Annual reporting to from various and regulatory
Ensuring pollution CPCB about activities framework
free city pollution and improvements
Ensuring health and regulatory

60
 well-being of the compliance levels in
citizens and the state
Preservation of Campaigns like
natural resources Ambient Air Quality
like ground water, to create awareness
lakes, agricultural among people
soil and green Identification of
zones. sites for disposal of
Hazardous waste
Private Higher revenue Daily collection of Equipment and Dependent on AMC Yes
Transport from the waste from the personnel for for contract
Contractors transportation designated zones to collection and extension/terminati
activity dump yard transportation on
Scope for Ensure compliance activity
expanding the with regulations laid
present services by AMC and GPCB
and activities No tampering of
provided to AMC waste during
transportation
Private Higher revenues Daily treatment of Monetary Dependent on AMC Yes
Treatment from the sale of designated quantity Treatment for support
Plants end-product of municipal waste facilities financially as well as
Good quality Compliance with the Personnel and operationally
(Segregated and environmental equipment for Dependent on
untampered) of regulations laid operation and Central and State
waste feed at input down by GPCB maintenance government to
station Regular monitoring End-product from formulate market
Business friendly and maintenance of treatment friendly policy
regulations to the equipment and interventions
enable better treatment facilities Dependent on GPCB
markets for the Ensure safe working for extension of
products conditions for the environmental
Financial employees and clearances for the
compensation from laborers facility
the government for
setup and operation
NGOs/CBOs Personal Branding Collaborating with Personnel/Labor Yes
Co-operation for AMC to provide the
well-being of the sweeper work force
informal sector required in the city
Cooperation with Assisting in waste
AMC in assisting management
with the waste activities in the slum
related activities areas
Creating public
awareness
campaigns and
drives to improve
public participation
Informal Sector Livelihood from Daily scavenging Valuable Material Dependent on Yes
daily scavenging recyclable material Cheap Labor NGOs with a hope
Higher earning by from the waste of better working
collecting valuable stream conditions
material Deliver the waste to Dependent on
Stable income the waste handlers recycling industry
for the sale of the
scavenged materials
Dependent on
AMCs uncontrolled
dump yard

61
4.4 Deriving Criteria for Analysis

Here, we define criteria as a standard of judgement or criticism; a rule or principle for

evaluating or testing something.1 The main goal of the research is to evaluate alternatives that
can encourage a higher landfill diversion rates in the city. Hence, for this research criteria shall
mean individual fractions of interests or principles quoted to affect the landfill diversion rates
by those who are directly linked with the waste management system.

Due to lack of comprehensive data and precise formulations to calculate the landfill diversion
rates, the research shall limit the criteria from four major stakeholders in the system. It can be
inferred that these stakeholders, directly or indirectly, make the most contribution to
influencing the landfill diversion rates in the city. These four major stakeholders are the
Municipal Corporation, the GPCB, the treatment plants and the informal sector coupled with
NGOs. The criteria for each stakeholder directly linked to landfill diversion rates have been
derived based on the personal interviews conducted. The details about the questions asked and
the answers received have been provided in Appendix E.

These criteria are organized as per the role and position of the actor in the system (Table 8).
AMC is the main decision maker in the system. The decisions regarding the implementation of
new mechanisms, approval of private partner tenders, monetary aids, etc. are undertaken by
this actor. The GPCB is an important monitoring authority in the system and a powerful one too.
If GPCB decides to gradually abolish the activity of open dumping in coming 5 years, the move
shall put serious pressure on AMC and it will be forced to pursue alternatives to deal with the
waste. Private treatment plant operators are the people who add value to the incoming waste by
converting the waste into end-products that can be sold on the market. And the informal sector
backed by NGOs form the fourth actor since they work hard to recover the recyclables from the
general waste stream.

Table 8 - Criteria derivation for the problem Hierarchy

Stakeholder Name Position Criteria Measurement

Mr. Prashant Dy. Municipal Segregated waste % of total waste

Pandya Director (SWM Treatment capacity generated
Mr. C.R. Kharsan Department Recycling rates % of total waste
Mrs. Meenakshi Dy. Municipal Presence of PPP generated
AMC
Patel Commissioner (SWM % of total waste
Department) generated
Mayor, Ahmedabad Number of treatment
(Chairperson for plants
Standing Committee)
Gujarat Pollution Mr. G.H. Trivedi Senior Environmental Controlling emissions Amount of toxic
Control Board Engineer Promoting Environment emissions (CO, Cl, HCL,
(GPCB) friendly technology Dioxins, Furans, etc.)
(54)
Mr. Vasant Patel Site incharge (Excel Profitability Net positive revenues
Private Treatment
Mr. Rakesh Soni Industries Ltd.)
plants
Operations Manager
(BEIL)
Ms. Madhvi Joshi Program Director Stable income for informal NA
NGOs and Informal
(Center for sector

1
Dictionary definition adopted from Dictionary.com

62
 Sector Environmental
Education-CEE)

Segregated Waste depicts the need for separating the waste into component streams i.e. wet
(organic biodegradables) and dry (recyclables) and inert fractions. It also represents the criteria
to be fulfilled as per the regulations laid down in Municipal Waste Handling Rules 2000. The
rule dictates creating separate recovery mechanisms for different kinds of waste like organic,
recyclables and inert waste. The best way to measure amount of source segregation is by
expressing it in terms of total quantity of waste generated. Hence when it is said that 25% waste
segregation is achievable; it shall imply that 25% of the total waste generated in the city is in
segregated format i.e. dry and wet streams can be traced individually.

Treatment Capacity represents the capacity of the city to recycle/treat the waste generated in
the city on a daily basis. Major methods that can be employed for treatment of waste are
anaerobic digestion, Composting, vermi-composting, RDF palletization and WTE (incineration).
Presently for Ahmedabad, composting (300 MT per day) and RDF (250 MT per day)
palletization are used as preferred treatment methods. Treatment capacity can be measured in
terms of percentage of total quantity of waste generated. Hence, existing treatment capacity for
the city is 15.71% (i.e. 550 MT waste can be treated from 3500 MT per day of waste generation).
Additionally, a contract for incineration plant treating 1000 MT per day is under discussion that
shall further increase the treatment capacity to 44.28%.

Recycling rates represent the rates at which the present materials discarded as waste are being
reused (for alternate purpose) and recycled. Recycling of nutrients by converting the organic
waste into compost for reuse in soil conditioning represent the recycling rate of organic content
and at the same time recycling of plastic to be blended in with virgin material for manufacture
of second generation polymer fibers represents the recycling rate for plastic recyclables.
Recycling rate can be comfortably measured in terms of the total percentage of waste generated
i.e. if presently 300 MT of compost is manufactured from the 1960 MT of daily organic waste
product, then the recycling rate for organic content is 15.30%.

Presence of PPP represents the need for participation of private players in the waste treatment
industry. The presence of private treatment plants in the market is desirable since the municipal
corporation cannot handle the treatment industry individually and can be quantified in terms of
number of plants privately operated in the system.

Controlling emissions from the treatment plants formulates main criterion for the pollution
control board. The authority is responsible for allotting Environmental clearances to the
treatment plants. Also the methane emissions from the open dumping activities come under the
authority of GPCB. Ambient Air Quality is the national level program initiated by the Central
Pollution Control Board. This program is implemented at regional level by the GPCB and
ensures the regular measurement and control of emission of harmful pollutants. GPCB monitors
SWM activities under this program. By referring to emission control via this criterion, the
analysis shall compare the alternatives based on the environmental impacts of the activity on a
qualitative basis. The data for emissions is not readily available for the system. Though based
on discussion with stakeholders and extensive literature reviews, it can be stated that activities
like composting of organic content and recycling of plastics are more environmentally
preferable as compared to energy recovery through incineration at WTE plants.

63
A study compared the methane and CO2 emissions from organic fraction of waste for the city of
Bangalore in 2014 using various methods. The study employed a theoretical method based on
mass flow balance equations, the values prescribed by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change and finally experimentation. In experimentation, 1kg of organic waste was incinerated
in a close chamber. The emission value comparison for all the three methods has been
presented in Table 9. Based on these data, for 1960 MT of organic waste incinerated on daily
basis will cause 25.48kg of methane and 323.4kg of CO2 shall be emitted per day.

Table 9 - Methane and CO2 emission estimates for organic fraction of waste in city of Bangalore (55 p. 265)

Emission of CH4 (g/kg of organic waste) Emission of CO2 (g/kg of organic waste)

Experimentation 0.013 0.165

IPCC prescribed Method 0.036 -

Theoretical approach of mass balance

equations
0.355 0.991

Promoting Environmental Friendly Technology is another important objective for the

pollution control board. Treatment of waste is considered as an unavoidable part of the system
and has significant direct impact on the landfill diversion rates. Higher the number of treatment
plants higher will be the landfill diversion rate for the city. It is important to note that setting up
incineration plants covering 100% treatment capacity shall definitely increase the landfill
diversion rate but shall also inflict a heavier burden on the environmental emissions. Hence,
promoting environmental friendly technology for establishing new treatment plants forms the
second objective for the pollution control board. However, while using this criterion in analysis
primary motive shall be again to qualitatively compare the proposed alternatives on the basis of
the environmental impacts associated with the treatment section of the system for e.g. recycling
and composting of waste are generally found to be environmentally friendly as compared to
incineration of waste

Profitability represents the important criteria for the treatment plant operators to survive in
the system. Sales of end products from the treatment plants are dependent on important factors
like awareness about product usefulness and product properties like calorific value. The sale of
compost is highly seasonal and is heavily dependent on the level of awareness among farmers.
The sale of RDF on the other hand is highly dependent on calorific value and market prices of
lignite and bitumen coal. To increase sales, the plants have to invest more efforts and money to
increase the marketability of the product. Hence, profitability is an important criterion for the
treatment plants in the system. The measure for profitability can be estimated based on the net
positive revenues for the actor i.e. comparing the manufacturing cost vs the recovered cost on a
per MT basis.

Stable income represents the main objective pursued by the people working in the informal
sector and NGOs like SEWA and CEE, working for the informal sector. In association with AMC,
these organizations have created programs for capacity building and voicing the opinions of the
informal sector. Under such programs they are taught about health hazards and provided with
safety equipment and gears. The informal sector represents people from the poorer sections of
the society. To ensure daily income of the family, these people are forced to work at extreme

64
places like open dump yards. The exploitation of the informal sector due to their lower level in
the value chain and unorganized nature of their activity forces them to work in inhumane
working environment.

4.5 Solution Space and Strategies

From Chapter 3, we concluded that the landfill diversion rates for the waste management in the
city are affected by four major systems associated with the main system: generation of waste
(segregated or mixed), existence of treatment plants, and market potential for recyclables and
finally mechanism for waste reduction at source. Based on these four sections, four distinct set
of solution spaces have been developed. They are: source segregation, creating market for
treatment, creating market for recyclables and finally waste reduction. Each solution space shall
then be populated by possible strategies that can be developed to achieve the target in the said
solution space.

A brief explanation of each solution space shall be provided in technical and scientific terms.
Despite the scarcity of accurate data, an attempt will be made to quantify as many parameters
as possible. A brief account of the need for a particular solution in the system shall be charted.
Followed by that, the problem hierarchy shall be the development and pair-wise comparison
will be obtained for stakeholder priorities through AHP modelling.

4.5.1 Solution Space 1 Source Segregation

Segregation essentially means separating the waste streams into distinct homogeneous
constituents i.e. if the waste stream comprises of organic biodegradable content, recyclables and
inert, then establishing waste collection mechanisms that store and collect each of these
constituents in different waste streams. Implementation of such kind of segregation
mechanisms at the source of generation provides formidable advantages in terms of handling
and treatment of wastes.

Extensive review of literature yields a significant concentration on recyclable section of the

waste while discussing the source segregation mechanisms. According to these studies, the
primary purpose of such kind of implementation is to encourage higher rates of recycling and
reuse of the materials like plastics, paper and glass. However, if the waste composition in
Ahmedabad is considered 56% of the waste is organic biodegradable content and only 23%
comprises of recyclables. So, even if the focus of segregation was targeted towards the organic
content as recyclable content, the result would still be separated waste streams. The following
section shall discuss the possibilities of both the mechanisms and implications for the city of
Ahmedabad. Firstly, the need for segregation of wet and dry waste shall be discussed and later
the possible strategies to achieve source segregation mechanism shall be discussed.

In the current system, though not visibly apparent, there exists a latent source segregation
mechanism that is completely unaided by the municipal corporation. Itinerant waste buyers are
responsible for the collection of recyclables like newspapers, cardboards, plastics, clothes, glass,
metals, etc. from the households and commercial establishments. Essentially, the waste
generators, in return for monetary gains, segregate the waste at the source thereby facilitating
the recycling industry. Though the accurate estimates about the amount of waste collected by
the itinerant waste buyers on a regular basis is not known, it is safe to assume that recycling
industry is flourishing with the presence of these buyers of waste.

65
However, heavy burdens of faster modernization of the Ahmedabad city have left severe
impacts on the livelihood of these waste buyers. The increasing usage of land for housing
development projects and commercial establishments has created a Not in My Back Yard effect
on the presence of these buyer shops. Normally, the waste buyer establishment is characterized
by an untidy and often visibly unpleasing small yard where waste is sorted into different
constituents to be sold to whole sale dealers. People living in good neighborhood often
encourage the displacement or even elimination of such establishments. Locating a shop outside
the city increases the transportation cost thereby eliminating the lower profit margin on lower
value recyclables like paper and glass. On the other hand, newer methods of household
construction like high rise apartments with security guards make it difficult for these buyers to
directly interact with the users. The households on the other hand make no efforts in making
contact with these buyers. It is rather convenient for them to throw the recyclables along with
the regular garbage.

Additionally, there are no incentives/disincentives for the general public to segregate the waste
at the generation. The existing waste management system, in return, is incapable of handling the
waste in segregated format for e.g. the transportation vehicles used for daily waste collection
are not compartmentalized to store wet and dry waste separately. Hence, even if households
provide waste in segregated format, there are chances that the streams will be mixed again
while transportation to final destination.

The regular waste stream is carried to the dumping yard through compactor equipment. The
use of compactors by the corporation to transport the waste essentially damages the recyclables
in the process thereby making these difficult to use by the recycling industry. The informal
sector working on the open dump yard, over the years have recognized these damaged products
and choose not to pick them up in the process. Effectively, the informal sector is able to recover
around 100MT (12% of total generated recyclables) of recyclables per day (45). Total
generation from households and commercial units comprises of 805 MT of recyclables per day.
There are no estimates of the amount of recyclables collected by the itinerant waste buyers.

Establishing a source segregating mechanism aims to recover maximum possible recyclables

from entering the dump yard thereby increasing the landfill diversion rate. An important reason
for the increased landfill rate through recyclable segregation is the existence of a considerably
good recycling industry in and around the city. Collection of recyclable content at source can
ensure a higher recycling rate as the material will be directly sold to the recycling industry.
There are 365 registered recycling units in Gujarat (56). In total, India recycles around
2,000,000 MT of plastics per year of which 500,000 MT is recycled in Gujarat; leading other
states in the recycling rates compared at national level (57). The number of recyclers around
the city of Ahmedabad is unknown. However, the above figures clarify the stated point that
source segregated recyclable can efficiently be consumed by the existing recycling industry
around the city. Alternately, the city has an establishment of 500 MT per day RDF
manufacturing facility that uses recyclables like papers, cardboard, etc. for palletization of waste
which can then be used in furnaces of cement factories.

On the contrary, when a source segregation mechanism for recycling organic waste is employed,
the collected organic content shall have to be supplemented with increased capacity of
composting by establishing new composting plants. Presently out of 1960 MT per day of organic
waste, only 200-300 MT per day is the installed capacity of composting. The rest will still have

66
to be landfilled. Hence, in absence of investment in composting plants, the collection of just
source segregated organic waste shall not effectively contribute to increasing the landfill
diversion rate. The Excel composting plant was established in 2000 for a cost of 60,000,000
(100,229,959 in 2015 by adjusting for inflation). The plant was setup for a capacity of 500 MT
per day. Hence, effective cost today for treating 1 MT of organic content shall be 200,459 per
MT. Hence, the total investment required for treating 1960 MT of organic waste on a daily basis
shall have to be as high as 392,901,439.28 (only establishment cost). Hence, in absence of
sources for large investments, source segregating recyclables has considerable financial
advantage.

Based on the above discussion, it is very much apparent from research that handling and
dealing with recyclables in the waste management is a volume business and is heavily
influenced by economies of scale. Hence, any new establishment of recover mechanism has to be
heavily supplemented by the higher volumes of recyclables.

Nevertheless, a schematic representation of an ideal system capable of handling segregated

waste streams is shown in

Figure 22. A similar approach has been adopted by the neighboring city of Vadodara. The city has
around 450,000 residential and commercial establishments and the municipal corporation
plans to distribute 1,000,000 dustbins in two colors (green for dry waste content and red for
wet waste content) in the city to encourage people to segregate waste at source (58). This
represents the first step needed for implementing source segregation.

67
 Figure 22 - Source Segregation system representation

Now we shall develop different strategies required for establishing the said alternative in the
system. For the sake of simplicity and time constraints, this section shall discuss on the
possibility of three distinct strategies: 1) Formalizing the segregation mechanism, 2) mobilizing
the informal sector and 3) Separated collection of organic waste.

4.5.1.1.1 Formalized segregation mechanism

The existing system established and managed by AMC is incapable of handling waste in
segregated format. The waste collected from the households has wet and dry fractions of waste
mixed in the same stream. Under this strategy, the households shall be provided with two
separate bins and expected to segregate waste accordingly. The collection fleet (Table 10) will
require an upgradation. An ideal waste collection system shall have compartmentalized
transport mechanism to store recyclables and organic waste in separate sections. The cost of
modification required in the transport fleet is very difficult to quantify since it depends on
numerous factors like the localized cost of man-hours spent, cost of raw material, etc. In
addition, there will be necessity for establishing a big yard space where these recyclables can be
sorted into component streams i.e. plastics based on density and types, glasses, metals, etc.
There will be necessity for hiring personnel for managing this segregation mechanism. If
mechanical sorting equipment are established (like the Western world), the cost of equipment
shall have to be added to the total needed. In the end, the implementation of such a mechanism
shall be a costly affair as compared to maintaining status quo in the system.

Table 10 - transportation Fleet with AMC (45)

Zone Number of wards Types of Vehicles

68
 Refuse Pedal
Small Trucks
Compactor Rickshaw

Central 9 85 7 43

East 13 88 6 98

West 10 100 8 19

North 12 101 11 11

South 10 85 4 15

New West 10 107 11 10

Total 64 566 48 196

It has been observed that a partial view is adopted against higher costs of formalized
segregation mechanism as against mixed waste handling equipment. The reason for this
argument is that cost considerations do not consider the avoided costs of landfilling by source
segregating the waste (59). In addition, the social costs of environmental impacts of landfilling
are also not considered while studying the costs of formalizing the segregation mechanism.
Hence, the cost point of view for such a strategy provides a good opportunity for debate among
the decision makers.

More importantly, implementing such strategy shall eliminate the livelihood of the rag-pickers
and itinerant waste buyers employed by the existing system. Ahmedabad has believed to have
around 80,000 rag-pickers working (efficiently) in the system. Displacing such large fraction of
the population from the system shall create social imbalance in the city.

4.5.1.1.2 Mobilizing the informal sector

The informal sector can be mobilized towards a higher level in the supply chain of recycling
industry. A detailed account of the role and members working within the informal sector has
been provided in Appendix I. The reason for mobilizing the informal sector is to recognize their
hard work and effective contribution towards landfill diversion rates. David et al. (2009)
develops an idea of 4 distinct types of interventions that can be undertaken by the municipal
corporation in order to integrate the informal sector for social and economic benefits. These
factors are (60):

a. Establishing new niches like separate collection and recycling for the rag-pickers
b. Employing rag-pickers access to sorting facility, transfer stations or landfill sites
for segregation
c. Supporting market leverage through establishment of various cooperatives and
NGOs
d. Opening channels of communication with other stakeholders in the system.

The main point of such interventions is to recognize the existence of informal sector. Mobilizing
the informal sector shall improve their working conditions. Also, the reliance of AMC on the
collection of dry waste from the households shall create new interdependencies (provided they

69
are willing to create) and will provide the rag-pickers a platform to voice their opinion in the
system. Their hard work and contribution to the waste management system shall be recognized.
Most importantly, the sale of recyclables shall provide for a stable source of income for the
informal sector.

The NGOs can be encouraged to organize the informal sector into task force working in various
zones of the city. The primary motive of the task force shall be conducting the door-to-door
collection of the dry waste fraction from each municipal unit. A special type of 3 wheeler cart
bicycle can be provided for the task force personnel. Such smaller units shall be responsible for
entering the narrower regions of the collection zones. These units then will deliver the collected
waste at a common zonal location where a bigger transportation vehicle (AMC Compactor or
dumper loader truck) shall be responsible for delivering the waste to the sorting yard. The
sorting yard shall provide another employment opportunity for the informal sector where an
identity card system can be instigated. The sorting yard shall be responsible for sorting the
recycling waste into component streams like HPDE, LDPE, PVC, Metals, paper, etc. Later, the
separated waste streams can be sold to the wholesalers or recyclers creating a positive stream
of cash flow in the system. The collection of the wet fraction of the waste shall be conducted as
per the existing system implementation.

Alternately, the door-to-door collection provided by the informal sector can also be extended to
collection of both wet and dry fraction of waste. Appendix ## demonstrates an example of one
such implementation in the city of Pune. SWaCH (Solid Waste Collection and Handling) is a co-
operative of self-employed rag-pickers organized under representatives from NGOs. SWaCH
works in parallel with PMC (Pune Municipal Corporation) by extending door-to-door segregated
waste collection facility to 60% of the city. The remaining 40% of the city population relies on
the corporations collection vehicles (61). The responsibility for PMC in this system then is to
only provide a secondary collection service to the initiative workers. Entire primary collection
of source segregated waste is organized by the rag-pickers. The system has been implemented
since 2006 and is working efficiently. A user charge of 10-40 per month is levied on
households depending on the size of household. The SWaCH agency itself is responsible for
collecting the user charges (61). The Municipal Corporation is obligated to provide the user
charges for the slum areas in form of subsidies since the annual income for slums is quite low.
Financial estimates from such an arrangement are presented in Table 11. The major
responsibility of Municipal Corporation then is to establish awareness campaign to promote
households to adopt the door-to-door services and pay user charges.

Table 11 - Financial Overlay of mobilizing informal sector in Pune (SWaCH-PMC initiative) (61)

Component Funding Source Annual Contribution in INR

Towards supporting livelihood of Collection of user charges 144,000,000

SWaCH (Solid Waste waste pickers including 5% towards from 400,000 households
Collection and Handling) operational/management (10-40 per household per
expenses of SWaCH month)

Operational and administrative Operational Grant by PMC 16,400,000

expenses of SWaCH including
PMC (Pune Municipal training and community awareness
Corporation) initiatives

Cost of waste collection from slum Subsidy of 5 by PMC for 1,680,000

70
 households 28000 slum households

Welfare benefits to waste pickers 7000 per waste picker per 1,610,000
year

An establishment like PMC-SWaCH is effectively able to divert 60 MT per day of waste away
from the landfills. The source segregated waste is facilitating the recycling and treatment rates
of 80-85% (61). The motivation for working with informal sector is highly influenced by the
interpersonal connections between actors, past experiences with such ventures and perceptions
about the informal sector. During interviews, it was found that previously one such
arrangement was made between AMC and the SEWA (female rag-pickers union) in the city. The
results of the venture were promising but there were reports of some spite between the two
actors and since then AMC chooses to avoid working with such unions. Also, the head of the
SWM department, expressed the burden of responsibility that shall follow after formalizing the
informal sector.

The perception of the informal sector is highly plagued by mistrust and negligence.
Establishment of such a venture can several require years of working together for building trust
and mutual interdepencies. The SWaCH and PMC started working together since 1995 and till
2006 the co-operative was established and mutually beneficial terms and conditions negotiated.
Despite all of these concerns, increasing the levels of interdependencies between these two
actors shall benefit both the sides as well as the system in general. Another example of one such
initiative is of COOPAMARE, Brazil. COOPAMARE is registered union of 200 independent rag-
pickers in Brazil who sell the collected recyclables from the city. The organization is able to
collect 100MT of recyclables per month thereby providing $300 a month wage, which is twice as
high as the minimum wages in Brazil (62).

4.5.1.1.3 Separated collection of organic waste

Compost is an important type of fertilizer and was recognized before WW-II.

According to USDA,

instead of burning or discarding the materials in landfill, it is advisable to make a

compost pile (USDA, 1938) ( (63).

Under this strategy, a separate entity (under the AMC) shall be established for dealing and
handling with the organic fraction of the waste. The responsibilities with AMC like managing the
collection of waste from the entire city (collection and transportation, dealing with transporters,
treatment plants, managing 12000 sweepers, vehicle maintenance, etc.) and maintaining
monitoring mechanisms at all the places at the same time is really difficult. The funds and
workforce available with the corporation do not permit such level of handling and management.
The result is demonstration of opportunistic behaviour by some actors in the system.

The new created entity (say Ahmedabad Composting Agency; henceforth called as ACA) shall be
responsible for the collection and treatment of organic biodegradable waste. The authority shall
report directly to the municipal corporation. AMC shall annually provide a funding to the agency
to carry out the daily activities. The contract with the transporters then shall be handled by the
ACA. Payment to the transport and treatment operators shall also be done through ACA. The
transporters shall then have to deal with this new created authority. The monitoring of the

71
incoming organic waste and check on the quality of compost shall be maintained by this
authority. The primary responsibilities of this new authority can be:

Managing the daily collection of organic waste from the households.

Encouraging entry of private contractors associated with the transportation of
organic waste.
Establishment of composting plants in and around city for daily treatment of the
waste
Development of regional markets for the compost made from waste
Establishing regional composting guidelines (for decentralized composting)
Provide incentives/disincentives to households for providing separated organic
fraction of the waste.
Daily collection of food waste and garden/lawn waste from the city

A schematic for the proposed changes in the system are shown in Figure 23. The
orange arrows show the flow of organic waste stream and the green arrow shows the flow of
cash for the service of collection and transportation. The agency can comprise of
representatives from different fractions of waste management system like treatment plant
operators, Municipal Corporation, agricultural sector heads, political representatives, etc.

Figure 23 - Separated Collection of Organic Waste

The establishment of such an authority in the city stems from the fact that 56% of the fraction of
waste is organic biodegradable. Similar systems have been adopted in a number of places
around the world. The responsibilities for these agencies vary from country to country and
strictly depend on the participating or authoritative members on the boards. These authorities
set standards for the compost quality and work towards creating markets for the compost.
Manufacturing compost can significantly increase the landfill diversion rates in the city since
56% of the waste is organic fraction.

4.5.2 Solution Space 2 Market for waste treatment

One of the major problems encountered in the waste management system that directly affects
the landfill diversion rates is the number of waste treatment plants. The status of the treatment
plants (as of November 2014) for the city is presented in the Table 12. As can be seen, only two
treatment plants are in operating conditions in the city i.e. out of 3500 MT of waste only 550MT
of waste ( on paper) can be processed. Construction for the proposed WTE plant has still not

72
initialized since there are some disagreements between the actors on the price and customers
for the sale of electricity units. The concern is under discussion and is expected to be resolved
soon.

Table 12 - Status of waste treatment plants in Ahmedabad

Capacity
Agreement Period
Sr. No. Company Technology used Status
(years)
(MT per day)

Excel Industries Ltd. Composting Operational since

1 300 MT 15
2000

BEIL (UPL Djai Power Ltd.) Windrow method for Operational since
2 compost + palletization 250 MT 14 2009
for RDF

Creative Eco-recycle port Windrow method for ***

Pvt. Ltd. compost + Gasification
3 400 MT 25
and thermalization
spiritless for RDF

Hanjer Biotech Energies Composting, RDF and Closed since 2013

4 500 MT 30
Pvt. Ltd plastic recycling.

Abellon Clean Energy Ltd. WTE (Incineration with Will start till 2016
6 1000 MT 29
energy recovery)

A2Z Infrastructure Limited Multi-product Integrated Will start till 2016

7 1000 MT 29
technology

*** Status of this plant is not known

It can be clearly depicted that higher the number of treatment plants, lesser quantity of waste
shall enter the landfill and hence higher will be the landfill diversion rate. There are numerous
technological options for the establishing treatment plants in the city. However, based on the
interview with stakeholders and the waste composition for the city, this analysis shall consider
two major treatment sectors i.e. composting and WTE (incineration).

4.5.2.1.1 Creating Composting Market

The sale of compost in the region is highly seasonal and is directly linked with the farming
seasons. But the major factor affecting the sale of the compost is the lack of awareness among
the farmers about its usefulness. There is a serious misunderstanding in comparison of compost
with chemical based fertilizers. The basis for comparison used is shown in Table 13. The main
point of argument against such comparison is that compost is a soil conditioner and not
fertilizer. Hence, a major challenge in marketing compost is educating the market about the
product.

Table 13 - Comparison of Compost with chemical fertilizers (64)

Material Compost Chemical Fertilizer

Nitrogen (N) 1.0 10.0

Phosphorus (P) 0.4 20.0

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 Potassium (K) 0.5 10.0

A market survey conducted by Christine Ferudy and Rakhee Kulkarni in Hyderabad analyzed
the problems hampering the demand of the compost. Out of the 21 farmers that were involved
in the survey study, 5-6 agreed to using compost. Others were fixated on the use of chemical
fertilizers (64). One important point to note from the study was that use of compost had
decreased since last 5 years due to the increasing presence of plastic, needles, glass and other
useless content in the compost. The growth of plastic in the compost is synchronous with the
increasing plastic manufacturing and consumption in the country past 2006. Most of the
farmers reported injured cattle and farm workers due to the presence of such content.
Hardening of soil and non-decomposed synthetic material and clothes were found on the farm
two years after the use of compost (64). Hence, impurities motivated the farmers to abandon
the use of compost. Also, the farmers claimed that the price of compost had to be competitive as
compared to that of the chemical fertilizers which are heavily subsidized by the Central
Government.

Three important factors that are important to boost the market for compost in Ahmedabad
identified from the research and field study are: lack of knowledge about compost in the market,
the quality of the compost presently being manufactured and pricing mechanism for the
compost. Other important factors like transportation costs, actual size of demand vs supply
provided, etc. also affect the market for compost. These factors seriously hamper the financial
sustainability of the compost manufacturing. To fully capture the idea of composting market and
the aspects associated, Figure 24 presents the idea of a loop of nutrient recycling in a region.
The legal, institutional and communal settings encourage the demand for compost in the
community which in turn is driven by the Economic viability, marketability and distribution.
These economic factors are in turn driven by the waste process of compost which is driven by
the supply of organic nutrients from the community.

The uncertainty about these market factors like demand for compost, low quality of compost,
severe competition from chemical fertilizers and financial unsustainability due to lack of
funding and subsidizes from government and no financial incentives from AMC, discourage the
entry of private partners in the composting business. The Excel plant in the city has been
experiencing operating losses of 10,000,000 per year incurred in marketing the compost and
operation and plant maintenance since last 10 years.

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 Figure 24 - The idea of Nutrient Recycling Loop for Composting (65)

Based on these conditions there can be two distinct identifiable approaches that the municipal
corporation can adopt to strengthen the market of compost: 1) through assured sales of the
compost and 2) through provision of tipping fee to the private players.

The municipal corporation could assure the purchase of manufactured compost for the gardens,
lawns, public buildings owned and operated around the corporation around the city. An assured
purchase shall ensure assured market. However, on a larger scale there is necessity for a change
in the agricultural policy in the country that shall ensure compulsory purchase of some quantity
of compost by the farmer community against the use of chemical fertilizers. This shall require a
large scale of social awareness campaign undertaken by the Central and State Government. The
amount of funding required for such campaigns are difficult to compute but generally are very
expensive. The establishment of Ahmedabad Composting Agency as highlighted in the previous
section can undertake such working.

Secondly, the provision of tipping fee to the private players shall provide financial incentives
against market losses in composting business. The unsustainable nature of the business forced
Excel to demand a tipping fee of 220 per MT (which was denied due to agreement clauses). But
taking this value as a reference, assuming that complete 1960MT per day of organic waste is to
be converted into compost, an annual budget increase of 157,388,000 (3.3% of SWM current
budget) shall be required to facilitate the allotment of tipping fee to composting plants.

4.5.2.1.2 Creating Energy Market

Waste-to-Energy (WTE) incineration plants are seen as one of the most favored technological
installations to eliminate waste around the world and Central Government of India. Though they
recover electricity by burning of valuable materials, the fame and wide spread use of these
technologies is mainly attributed to the ease-of-use (installation) and capacity to handle mixed
waste as compared to the magnitude of the problem at hand. It is generally accepted fact that

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densely populated cities around the globe are found to favor incinerating waste as compare to
recycling (66). A similar application has been decided for the city of Ahmedabad as shown in
Table 12. The incineration plant proposed by Abellon Clean Energy Ltd. shall employ 80%-20%
MSW-fuel ratio (80% MSW and 20% RDF) for generating 13.85 for a period of 29 years. The
major problems that the company is encountering are concerned with the sale of electricity and
interest rates on the loans for setup costs. The plant for 1000 MT capacity is expected to cost
2,110,000,000. The IREDA (Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency) considers WTE
establishments in the Others category as compared to wind, solar and biomass. Being an
emerging sector IREDA chooses to assign an interest rate of 13.75% as compared to 11.50-12%
for solar and wind power. Also there is discussion on the tariff determination. During interview,
general manager at Abellon claimed the per unit charge of 6.5-7 per unit while the
conventional cost of electricity is as low as 1.5-2 per unit making it difficult to obligate the
transmission operators purchase the manufactured electricity.

Hence, to increase the entry of more private partners in the WTE sector, there has to be
subsidization from the state government on the built and/or operation and maintenance costs.
In addition, there is a necessity for creating obligations for the transmission operators on a
purchase of some specified quantity of minimum units of power generated from waste. Subsidy
can also be provided to mediate the generation costs of the electricity which are present quite
high. As per interviews, the stakeholder demanded the need for provision Gap funding or CAPEX
from the state government. Also, the issues highlighted in establishment of WTE plants in India
are presented in the appendix.

4.5.3 Solution Space 3 Market for recyclables

The recyclables generated in the city of Ahmedabad mainly include plastics, glass, metals, paper,
cardboards, etc. (details in Figure 62). The composition for the recyclables from the city
comprises of 9% plastics (315MT), 3% of paper (Newspaper, books, magazines, etc.) (105 MT),
6% of fabric (210 MT) and 1% of glass (35 MT) (Based on calculations for data established in
Chapter 3). Since plastics, constitute the major source of recyclables, there has been an
increased recycling trend in the plastic industry. According to estimates, India recycles 47% of
the annual plastic consumption which is quite higher as compared to Western countries.

According to the regulations laid down by the Central Pollution Control Board, the plastics
found in the waste stream are further divided into two categories namely recyclable plastics
(Thermoplastics) ( Figure 25) and non-recyclable plastics (thermoset). The recyclables
include PET (Polyethylene terephthalate), HDPE (High Density Polyethylene), LDPE (Low
Density Polyethylene), PP (Polypropylene), PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride), PS (Polystyrene), etc. and
Non-recyclables include multi-layered and laminated plastics (tetra packs), PUF (Polyurethane
Foam), Bakellite, Polycarbonate, Melamine, Nylon, etc. (54)

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 Figure 25 - Classification of Recyclable Plastics based on application (54)

The accurate quantities for each type of recyclable plastic in the stream are unknown. However,
for the purpose of research, two major categories of recyclable plastics shall be considered: thin
film plastics (number 2 and 3) and PET (number 1) as shown in Figure 25 since they comprise
the highest quantity among the plastic recyclable waste (54). The thin film plastic has been an
issue for Indian waste management since a decade. The Plastic Waste Management Rules 2011
strictly dictates the manufacturing of plastics with thickness no less than 40 microns. Even at
this thickness the plastic bags are creating the problem for Indian waste. Firstly, people resort
to uncontrolled littering in public and community places. These plastic bags either end up
clogging drainages and water sources or either end up lying at nuisance spots on streets. The
reason these bags are not picked up is that few hundreds of these bags will be required to form
1kg of plastic waste sellable at usual price of 20-25. The financial return for the amount of
efforts invested by rag-pickers in collecting these bags is not justified. Hence, the thin film
plastics never get collected and eventually end up in the open dump yards.

According to estimates, India ranks highest in collection of PET at 75% from waste as compared
to world average of 36% (67). The collection of PET from the dump yard and nuisance spots is
affected by accelerated increase in plastic scrap imports. The intensity of direct effect of imports
on the local recycling has not been documented but qualitatively many stakeholders expressed
concerns on this point, especially the NGOs working in the city. If the import statistics are
studied, during one months time from (10th May15 to 10th June15) India imported a total PET
bottle scrap worth USD $2,138,917 (833.22 MT). Out of the total imports, 11.13% (92.73 MT) of
the shipments landed in the Mundra, Gujarat (68). Primary reasons for such accelerated
increase in imports are the changes in the import duty structure by Central Government. The
import tariffs on PET and polymers were slashed from 40% during 2001-2002 to 5% in 2007-
2008. Also, the imported PET bottles require lower level of cleaning and disinfectant treatment
before recycling. The PET collected from Indian grounds is generally disposed in mixed form
and requires an intensive cleaning and treatment process.

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 Figure 26 - PET import statistics for India from 10th May 2015 to 10th June 2015 (68)

Hence, to encourage the collection of these neglected components in the waste stream, there is a
need to create market demand for these (domestic) products. Creating market for recyclables
can also simultaneously increase the demand for imported plastic which has to be controlled
through national level policy implementations. Majorly factored around the need for market
demand of recycled plastics, there have been varying ranges of solutions proposed for the
discussed problems. Firstly, the collected plastics (thin films as well as PET) can be converted
into flakes which can then be used for two specific purposes as specified by CPCB: 1) Polymer
blended bitumen Roads and 2) Co-processing of plastic waste in Cement Kiln. The flaked plastic
is added in the bitumen batch mix plant and later employed in constructing roads. The

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advantage of such kind of roads has been noted to be elongated lives (normally three times of
non-blended) and resistance to cracking and pothole formation. Bangalore Municipal
Corporation of Karnataka has successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of this technique with
more than 20km of blended roads in the city (54). Ahmedabad has been considered as a center
for rapid development of infrastructure and roads for the backbone of the development. Hence,
such implementation proposal for the city is considerably acceptable. The second technique
utilizes treated plastic as a raw material in industrial processes like Cement kiln, lime or steel
production plants. The tests conducted by CPCB in Madhya Pradesh yielded that the emission
levels observed through such treatment of plastics were way below the permissible levels set
for Common hazardous Waste Incinerators (54). The idea of co-processing and road
development was also warmly accepted by the interviewed stakeholders.

An alternate solution for the collection of thin plastic bags from the system can be proposed to
offer a higher return to the rag-pickers in return for per kg of plastics collected (Incentivizing
the increased efforts). Hence, creating market in the surrounding area for reuse/recycling of
plastics shall encourage higher recovery and collection rate and hence higher landfill diversion
rates.

4.5.4 Solution Space 4 Waste Reduction

Waste reduction basically targets the source by preventing the generation itself. The main aim is
that the Waste that wont be generated will not require management. One motive to target
waste reduction is to modify the behaviour of the waste generators i.e. to dis-incentivizing
wasteful behaviour and rewarding preferred behaviour. Alternately, the manufacturers can be
involved in the decision making process to eliminate unnecessary material used in packaging of
products. Such kind of mechanism also helps in keeping a check on the recycling nature of the
plastics entering the regular waste streams; eliminating the non-recyclables from the system
before the product reaches customers for e.g. the common tetra packs for milk and juices are
multi-layered plastics that cannot be recycled or are extremely cost intensive to recycle. Hence
the products end up in the landfilling sites. Eliminating products from the stream shall reduce
the burden on the landfill.

Reduction of waste forms the first level of the waste hierarchy (i.e. ideally the most preferred
option). A number of strategies can be employed to target waste reduction like cradle-to-grave
analysis, Pay-as-you-throw schemes, landfill taxation, disposal bans, etc. Cradle-to-grave is an
integration analysis of complete product life cycle from generation to disposal. The complete
analysis is very complex undertaking and requires significant time for execution. Participation
from more number of stakeholders like producers, distributors, retailers, customers, treatment
plants and government officials is required. Generally, hazardous wastes are preferably handled
through such a system. Pay-as-you-throw schemes as the name suggests are based on variable
pay per unit based on volume or weight of the quantity of waste displaced. Depending on the
application of the solution i.e. door-to-door (where variable pay based on weight is applied) and
curb-side collection system (where variable pay based on volume of waste is applied). The users
are expected to pay charges based on the amount of waste they dispose from the household.
Higher waste generation shall attract higher pay. Hence, the users are incentivized monetarily
for demonstrating reduction or reuse of waste.

Disposal bans are quite widely accepted methods employed by municipal corporations around
the globe. This strategy generally strongly enforces regulations on the system. Disposal bans are

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end-of-pipe solutions that ban the entry of unwanted targeted material in the landfill sites.
However, implementation of such rigid regulations warrant alternate methods in place to deal
with the material like recycling techniques and a well-developed material management system.
Also such blunt and sharp strategies are costly implementations (69). Landfill taxation scheme
represents a moderate version of imposing end-of-pipe solution. A heavy taxation is imposed on
the entry of specified or targeted material from the waste management stream for e.g. a penalty
of 108 per ton of combustible waste and a penalty of 16 per ton of non-combustible waste
was imposed before 2005 (70). Researchers have argued that Dutch success of steep decrease in
the landfilling rates was directly associated with high levels of landfill taxation.

The problem with imposition of landfilling taxation for the city of Ahmedabad is that there is no
other method to deal with the waste i.e. the installed capacity of the treatment plants is
insufficient. So, imposing taxation on landfills will result in waste being dumped on streets.
Hence, for the sake of research, we shall evaluate the implications of a pay-as-you-throw scheme
for the city. The people of the city shall be incentivized to pay less by reducing the quantity of
garbage disposed from the households. The reuse of the garbage can then pursued by
promoting decentralized composting in case of organic waste among communities and reuse or
controlled usage of recyclable materials for e.g. using the plastic bottles and jars in-house for
storage purposes.

4.6 Analytical Hierarchical Process

4.6.1 Problem Hierarchy

Based on the criteria derived from the stakeholder interviews and strategies provided in the
previous section, Figure 27 shows the problem hierarchy for increasing the landfill diversion
rates for the city of Ahmedabad. The blue box presents the central goal of the analysis i.e.
increasing the landfill diversion rate in the city of Ahmedabad. The green boxes show the
criteria that are important to facilitate the goal. These criteria are directly or indirectly linked to
the targeted goal. Then, a solution space is created based on the formulation of problem areas
identified in the existing system from Chapter 3. Finally each solution space is populated with
some strategies that have been discussed in detail in the previous section.

The analysis was conducted in association with the stakeholders during the field visit. A
stakeholder workshop was organized where representative members from different section of
the system were present. Specifically, the workshop was attended by a 5 member committee
(photos and details of the workshop in Appendix F). The members present were: two members
from treatment plants, Municipal Corporation (administrative staff), plastic recycling sector and
an NGO that was working with informal sector. During this meeting, a short 5 min presentation
was provided about the existing system representation to arrive at a common ground. The
image shown in Appendix F was presented to them for referring while pair-wise comparing. The
concept of the analysis was explained and expectations from the analysis were clarified. The
analysis conducted involved pairwise comparisons at two distinct levels: 1) between the
established criteria and 2) comparing the proposed strategies for each established criteria.
Pairwise comparison of criteria and criterion-strategies will be based on subjective judgements
of the stakeholders and experts and can significantly vary based on the number of participants.
Although the number of participants in the workshop was less, they were representatives from
different sectors of the waste management system of the city. The standard prescribed methods
by L. Saaty were used to check and maintain consistency while registering the data about the

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pair-wise comparison. The complete set of data from the pair-wise comparisons can be found in
the Appendix G along with the data regarding consistency in answers.

Figure 27 - Problem Hierarchy for increasing landfill diversion rates in Ahmedabad

4.6.2 Results
Based on the pairwise comparisons and computed analysis, Figure 28 shows the weightages for
the criteria. Profitability of the treatment plant was found to be the criteria with highest
weightage. To interpret, according to the analysis, to increase landfill diversion rate the
preferential order of criteria were C7>C2>C4>C8>C3>C1>C5>C6. Promoting environmental
friendly technology was found to be the least favored criteria. The profitability of the treatment
plants could have been favored most by the stakeholders because of the recent increased
interest in the city for establishing treatment plants to match the waste generation capacity as
mentioned in Table 12.

Figure 28 - Criteria weightage for the problem

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 Figure 29 - Comparison of Strategies vs Criteria

Figure 29 enables us to understand the performance of each strategy when

compared against entire set of criteria. Strategy S4 was rated the highest while S8 and S1 were
lowest. The rankings for strategies S2 and S5 were surprisingly identical. However, if the 3D bar
chart is studied, major effect of the rankings can be traced to the criteria C2 (Segregated waste)
and C7 (profitability of treatment). Strategy S2 performed well in criteria C2 and performed
poorly in criteria C7 while strategy S5 performed will in criteria C7 but poorly in C2.
Conceptually, this interpretation is logical. Mobilizing informal sector shall encourage a higher
rate of waste segregation at source and hence the strategy was ranked higher in this category.
On the contrary, creating energy market shall push for establishing WTE plants for treatment,
which as per design and requirements quoted by stakeholders, would not require source
segregation and hence would play no role in contributing towards segregated waste.

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4.6.3 Discussion of Results
As can be seen from the above section, creation of composting market was seen as a favorable
alternative of the stakeholders during the workshop. It is very much apparent that there is no
installed capacity of composting treatment plants in the city. To increase the landfill diversion
rate, the way that can have a higher impact is to have higher number of waste treatment plants.
Hence, there is definitely a need for treatment plants installations to increase the quantity of
waste treated on a daily basis. Also, since 56% of the waste in the daily waste stream is organic
biodegradable waste, there should be installations of treatment plants that can deal with
organic waste. The organic plants will require a market to survive in the system and hence
mainly the market conditions of the treatment plants should be improved by providing financial
incentives or by encouraging sales growth through assisted purchases i.e. Strategy S4. However,
such logical interpretation leads to an important question as to why the methodology of criteria
comparison and solution formulation (AHP) is required when the answer to the problem can be
derived logically? Secondly, another major argument against the above analysis is that does the
lower number of participants in the workshop introduce stakeholder biases in the final results?
The following both the questions simultaneously.

The answer to these questions is based on three main arguments: the number of attendees
(stakeholders) during the workshop, the need for higher order learning of stakeholders and
finally making the stakeholders sensitive about the problem at hand. Next, we shall individually
analyze each argument and provide justification for the need of MCDM.

The workshop that was organized for the decision making session was graced by the presence
of 5 stakeholders. 2 of the were from treatment plants (for comparison say, 1 and 2), one from
the municipal corporation (3), one from the plastic recycling industry (4) and one of them
represented an NGO (5). Hence, it could be said that though the number of participants were
less, the diversity of the population was maintained. Representatives from almost all of the
important sections of waste management were present. It could be noted that based on the
positions of the actors in the system, 4 and 5 would have been more interested in the
implementation of solution S2, S6 and S7; 1 and 2 would be more interested in the
implementation of S4 and S5, leaving 3 impartial towards the two in the system. It could be
argued that biases in the personal preferences of stakeholders for particular strategies could
hamper the validity of the final results. If the number of people representing the treatment
plants were less as compared to those representing the recycling industry, how would have the
results been affected? To clarify these points lets consider the following results from the
sensitivity analysis. The results shall discuss the variation of the top 3 strategies (S2, S4 and S5)
with respect to the weights of each criterion. The images for the sensitivity analysis are
presented in Appendix H.

Table 14 - Sensitivity analysis of strategies w.r.t criteria weightages

Criterion Current Value S2 S4 S5

C1 0.074 - - -

C2 0.184 >=0.226 <=0.321 <=0.226

C3 0.076 >=0.123 <=0.221 <=0.123

C4 0.139 <=0.044 - >=0.044

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 C5 0.060 >=0.221 <=0.626 <=0.221

C6 0.044 >=0.173 - <=0.173

C7 0.342 <=0.168 >=.0168 <=0.300

C8 0.081 >=0.139 <=0.236 <=0.139

The sensitivity analysis has been carried out by studying the fluctuation in the rankings of the
three strategies by varying the weightages of each criterion between 0.01-0.99. The values for
the strategies in the table represent the criteria weight where their present ranking gets
interchanged with one of the three strategies. As an example, consider variation of criterion C7.
If the weightage of the criterion C7 would have been as low as 0.168, strategy S2 would have
dominated S4 in the overall ranking. Hence, it could be said that the presence of additional
members from a particular field would have definitely changed the ranking pattern, but the
present set of results are well within the maximum ranges permissible for variation. Any drastic
changes in the values for a particular criterion would require a heavier bias towards on
particular criteria, which would firstly be not permitted by general rules for AHP analysis.
Hence, even though the presence of stakeholders was lesser, the results obtained from the
analysis could be termed reliable and unbiased. Additionally, the participation of stakeholders
in such focused group discussion sessions is dependent on many factors like their personal
interests in academics, researchers ability to influence their interests, availability of a common
time slot, willingness to contribute, support from the Municipal Corporation, etc. Complete
attempt was made to pursue as many stakeholders as possible to attend the meeting.

Now to answer the first question, we need to understand the fact that the people who are
engaged in the decision making process in the municipal corporation in the city have been
resorting to ad hoc practices for decision making. The people managing the system have
excellent technical backgrounds, while little or no managerial expertise for developing or using
a decision making methods like LCA or CBA. The traditional view of decision making adopted by
these people is of focusing on a particular issue one at a time. It was for the first time through
this research that the complete system was analyzed considering all the aspects together. The
reason for the choice of an MCDM methodology was to incorporate the criteria and goals of all
the stakeholders (dormant or active) like NGOs, informal sector, treatment plants, transport
contractors, etc. who are generally not present in the decision making process. The choice of the
AHP method in particular was motivated by two important considerations: the ease of use and
secondly quantification of criteria. Application of the AHP was based on simple principles and
did not require any special knowledge. Secondly, a strong point was that the stakeholders were
able to assign a numerical value to the criteria as per their understanding. When the results
were cumulatively presented, the results reflected the intensity of favor towards particular
criteria by the stakeholders in general. By doing so, the meeting was able to achieve level of
higher order learning among stakeholders. They became more conscious and sensitive about
the problems at hand.

Within the system, the stakeholders have been working with each other since years. But the
relations and mutual needs for each stakeholder have generally become imprinted in the
subconscious minds of those involved. Hence, by bringing these facts from the subconscious
mind to the conscious mind, the main aim is to encourage a higher level of co-operation and
collaboration and to achieve the solutions that are necessary in the system. The solutions that

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can be applied to a waste management system anywhere in the world can precipitate down into
a fixed inventory. Based on circumstances and location, a particular bunch of solutions can be
prescribed. But that is not the sole purpose of such development of decision support
framework.

Now lets focus on the first argument mentioned in the first paragraph. An important question is
that if the solutions are considered to be so logical or deducible, then why dont they get
implemented in the system? Based on the research and personal experiences of the researcher,
it can be said that there are number of factors which affect the implementation of the solutions.
To name a few, lack of funding with the municipal authority, heavier presence of political
influence in the municipal decision making, waste management being last on the priority of the
municipal decision makers, etc. Presently, after the elections of 2014, sanitation and sewage
treatment is on a higher priority for Central Government. To compare, consider the fact that
Municipal authority in the city of Ahmedabad got a grant of 800 Cr ( 1.1 billion) from Central
Government for establishing state-of-art sewage treatment facility. The grant amount is almost
double the annual budget for SWM department of the city. Hence, though the solutions might
appear logical and directly deducible, the main point of this decision making exercise is to make
stakeholders more sensitive about the problems at hand, barriers that affect the
implementation of these solutions and possibly identify collaboration and collusion points in
the system.

The rationale behind developing a ranking system for the strategies was to understand the
preferential pattern among the stakeholders to reach the intended goal of increasing the landfill
diversion rates. As can be seen, we have fairly obtained the rankings as needed from Figure 28
and Figure 29. But what is missing from the decision matrix till now is the need for
understanding the consensus levels among the stakeholders for the top rated strategy. Pairwise
comparison of criteria and criterion-strategies are based on subjective judgements of the
stakeholders and experts and can significantly vary based on the number of participants. It is
important to note that the resources required for each option are different and different actors
control these resources. During the planning and implementation phase, it might be possible
that some actors would not be willing to accept the final decision or would prove to be an
opposing actor. In the existing system, transport contractors are observed to exhibit strategic
behavior and provide waste collection service comfortably to 50% of the city. This makes AMC
reliant on these contractors for daily collection. Opposition staged against decision that affects
these actors shall leave the city with uncollected waste littered around the suburbs which in
turn shall put pressure on the corporation via public retaliation or complaints. Hence, it can be
seen that the impetus of maintaining status quo by the treatment operators is an important
consideration while making final decision. Also, it was expressed during interviews that
contractors are believed to be supported by elected councilors from the ruling party of the city.
Though the validity of these claims cannot be justified or proved, the point remains clear that
there is need to study or address all such minute details for each of the implementation
strategies before a final decision can be reached. To do so, there is a need to analyze the
consensus among the stakeholders for the same. The next section shall deal with this idea.

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5 Decision Support Framework Step 3 - Consensus Analysis
The basic idea to conduct a consensus analysis is to completely capture the impending changes
in the system and understand steps for the devised strategies to gain traction in the system. The
alternatives with the highest ranking in the system demonstrate the necessity for changes in the
position of some actors and development of new interdependencies. Based on the analysis, we
shall consider the combination of two strategies for implementation in the present system;
Strategy S2 (mobilizing informal sector for source segregation) and strategy S4 (Creation of
composting market). For this purpose we shall derive the critical success factors, drivers and
barriers existing in the system, influential parameters at actors disposal and the degree of
persuasion for each actor.

Fundamentally, the combined strategy refers to the idea of segregating the waste at source on
one hand and simultaneously increasing the treatment capacity of waste in the city. The
following section shall discuss various distinct strategies for the system implementation of
these alternatives. The section will then further analyse the feasible options for implementation
of each strategy. These strategies shall be based on the analysis of needed co-operation from the
actors, identification of losers in the strategy and dealing with them, best practices from around
the globe, etc. To do so, important drivers and barriers for each actor are identified in the
system. The drivers motivate the actor to implement the stated changes in the system while the
barriers act as opposed forces against implementation of the proposed changes. In addition,
each actor is also supposedly in possession of influential parameters that can have a positive
and/or negative effect on the success of the implementation. These parameters have been
derived based on the actor analysis, personal interviews and the system diagrams presented in
previous chapters. The usage of these parameters is further governed by the degree of
persuasion of a particular action by the actor. A higher level of persuasion shall encourage actor
to execute an influential parameter to overcome a barrier in the implementation. Hence, the
primary idea of the consensus analysis is to understand how the desired level of consensus for a
particular implementation can be reached by activating particular actors in the system.

The scope of the research does not permit charting out a detailed implementation plan.
However, this section shall include the some details about the four major aspects of the waste
management system: generation, collection, transportation, treatment and disposal in general.
The idea is to understand the changes in the positions of the actors and their interdependencies
and to gauge the important role each of them have to play in order to succeed in the application.
To completely understand the idea of interdependencies and influence of actors on the system,
we shall include two new terms in the following discussion: influential parameters and degree
of persuasion. Influential parameters are set of parameters with the actors that, when activated
can help in overcoming the existing barriers in the system. And degree of persuasion shall be
defined as the need for achieving an individual target by the actor by demonstrating repeated
actions in the intended direction of actors goal. The following example shall demonstrate the
workability of these terms in association with the actors and the system.

The mixing of inert waste like C&D waste with the organic fraction is an important barrier in the
system that seriously affects the waste diversion rate. The administrative wing of AMC
possesses the power to establish a stronger monitoring mechanism over the daily collection and
mixing of waste that is observed in the present system. Hence, influential parameter is strength
of the monitoring mechanism which can be measured by reduced instances of violations. Ideally
goal for the actor is to prevent the contamination of waste. But the pursuance of this goal is

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highly dependent on the compliance level of the regulations demanded by the system, political
coerciveness of the actor in the system and availability of infrastructure and finances.

5.1 Generation
A two bin system can be adopted for the city of Ahmedabad. A red coloured bin will be used to
store the wet fraction of the waste while the green coloured bin will be used to store the dry
fraction of the waste. The wet fraction of the waste stream shall include organic biodegradable
content like food waste from vegetables and meat, garden/lawn waste, etc. The dry fraction of
the waste stream shall include recyclable as well as inert content of the waste stream like paper
waste, glass, metals, plastics, coconut waste, and dirt/mud from house cleaning. The decision on
the capacity of the waste bins shall have to be decided based on the availability of collection
work force in the system. Smaller capacity of bins shall require frequent trips and hence higher
work force. On the contrary, a bigger sized bin shall require making fewer trips and hence lesser
work force. Developing a good plan covering the capacity planning based on the projected waste
generation increase rate and projected population increase, the frequency of waste collection
can be moderated to manage the transportation costs.

The general public plays an important role in the generation of segregated waste streams. As
against the convenience of disposing the waste in mixed form, incentivizing/motivating the
people to provide waste in segregated form is of utmost necessity. AMC plays a significant role
in motivating the municipal units in dispensing the waste in segregated form. Involving
community representatives in the decision making process shall provide better understanding
of the requirements of the infrastructure upgradation. The role of motivating general people is
in return heavily influenced by the degree of persuasion of this criterion by AMC. The degree of
persuasion of source segregation by the AMC on the other hand is severely influenced by the
level of system/regulation compliance mandated or required in the municipal corporation as
well as facilitation of supporting infrastructure. The general idea behind these factors acting as
degree of persuasion can be understood by referring to behaviour modification study
Antecedent-Behaviour-Consequence (ABC) proposed by Geller and Lehman (1986). According
to the study, incentives/disincentives are provided to the concerned actor for an intended type
of behaviour. Then the behaviour is observed and while evaluating consequences
reward/penalty is given based on the exhibition of behaviour (71). Hence, by providing a two
bin system, the general public can be incentivized to segregate the waste. However, there is also
a necessity of imposing a fine or a strict regulatory action against the act of noncompliance. Such
a system has been implemented in the Umea region of Sweden and the charge is called as
Environmental fee (72). The fee is charged to the people not abiding by the rule of waste
segregation. Alternately, the door-to-door collection agents can refuse the collection of mixed
waste; a system successfully adopted in Daejeon, South Korea and Oxford, UK (72). In Pune,
India, the empowered informal sector (SWaCH-PMC Venture) has the power to deny the door-
to-door collection of waste from a particular household if provided in a mixed form. The
households also are required to pay a monthly charge based on the locality and frequency of
collection.

But it is important to understand that implementation of user charges in Ahmedabad city is not
a simple task. The imposition of the fee or any other control related strict regulations are
prioritized by the standing committee of AMC. The prioritization of these impositions, according
to the interviewed political party leaders, is a slow and gradual process. Immediate
implementation of strict measures is not welcome by the general public and can create

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hindrance in the political partys election agenda. Hence, imposition of the user fees is heavily
influenced by the political willingness in the system.

It is also important to understand the financial sustainability of the waste management system
affects the quality and reliability of the waste services provided by the municipal corporation.
But the willingness to pay user charges depends on the satisfaction of the quality of service;
higher satisfaction, higher will be the willingness to pay. In general, the degree of persuasion of
user charges for financial sustenance of such a waste system leads to a vicious circle of
decreasing funds as shown in Figure 30. The funds with the municipal authority are bound to
decrease with such implementation due to existing inefficient tax recovery rates. The lower tax
recovery rates mentioned in Chapter## are indicative of this phenomenon.

Figure 30 - Vicious circle of decreasing funds further hampering waste services (73) (74)

5.2 Collection & Transportation

The collection and transportation of waste shall be based on the selection of alternative of
centralized vs decentralized composting. In a centralized planning, the position of actors in the
system and the city coverage by the transport contractors will not be affected. Hence there
would be no changes in the financial packages the transport contractors recently command.
Therefore, they wont provide an obstacle to the implementation of the plan. But in
decentralized planning, the amount of waste that will be transported out of the city shall be
reduced since most of the organic fraction of waste will be treated locally. There will be
reductions in the financial packages of transport contractors in this planning.

5.3 Treatment and disposal

Under this domain, two main activities shall have to be developed: facilitating the establishment
of composting plants and sustaining these establishments by creation of a composting market.
For establishment of composting plants, the municipal corporation can adopt a centralized vs a
decentralized approach. Via a centralized approach, entire organic waste from the city shall be
collected at a single location outside the city. Around this location, the composting plants
established by the private partners shall treat the waste. In a decentralized approach, the
municipal corporation can encourage the NGOs and RWAs to manage small localized
composting facilities in the city. The waste from the surrounding region shall be provided to the
nearby composting facility. The Municipal Corporation can contribute to this alternative by

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providing land to these decentralized composting facilities. The finances for these facilities can
be derived through another creative alternative. In the country, it has been mandated by the
government that corporate companies making profits are obliged to spend 2% of the total
profits in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities. If the establishment and management
of decentralized is enlisted as one of the chores under CSR, many corporate firms can be
encouraged to participate in local activities.

In case of centralized composting, the establishment of treatment plants around the collection
points can be facilitated by entry of private partners. Waste treatments being a negative
revenue model, in absence of financial incentives, the private partners do not want to enter the
market. The entry of private treatment plant operators in the system is motivated by financial
incentives like tipping fee provided by the municipal corporation on one hand and guaranteed
sales of the end-products on the other hand. The compost from waste is presently competing
with the chemical fertilizers that are heavily subsidized by the central government. As a result,
to compete, composting plant offer reduced prices which eliminate the profits from the
business. On the other hand, there are no regulations for provision of tipping fee to the
treatment plants in the present system. Hence, it is increasingly difficult for the treatment plants
to survive in the business in absence of financial aid. The source segregated waste shall partially
benefit the treatment plants but entry of new actors in the model shall require intervention.
Survival of the existing players will still be difficult in absence of financial incentives.

Additionally, the sale of compost in the city is affected by the complete lack of awareness about
the product among the farmers. There are also no attempts towards increasing the awareness.
Hence, an intervention by the municipal corporation by regulating the usage of compost from
waste in fixed quantity by each farmer in the district can prove useful. On the other hand, an
assured purchase of the compost can be also be ensured by the municipal corporation. The
corporation can buy the compost manufactured from the plant to utilize in numerous fields and
gardens around the city that are owned and maintained by corporation. Each of these measures
influences the financial sustainability of the treatment business and thereby is highly pursued
by the treatment plant operators.

The need for entry of private actors in the treatment business is warranted by the drive for
centralized composting by AMC. Decentralized composting is based on the idea of community
participation. Small capacity composting plants can be setup in various communities around the
city. The communities can then be encouraged to treat the waste locally. The management of
these composting places are generally handled by workers from RWAs. The idea of
decentralized composting reduces drastically the costs associated with waste collection and
handling activities. At the same time, the treatment is environmentally friendly and compost is
readily available for the surrounding households for private gardens. Hence, as against the
inclusion of private actors in the system, a drive for decentralized composting can benefit the
municipal corporation planning.

5.4 Critical Success Factors

The critical success factors represent the key parameters that are of utmost importance while
dealing with the intended modifications in a solid waste management system. Wikipedia defines
Critical Success Factor (CFS) as a managerial term that defines the parameter needed by the
organization to achieve its primary objective. Likewise, for the successful implementation of
intended changes of source segregation and/or user charges in the system, a series of critical

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success factors were identified for the present system. They are: need for a good planning,
highly developed information and communication channels, success of pilot projects, sufficient
resources for control, economic resources, clear and definite environmental objectives,
system/regulation compliance, efficient monitoring channels, market knowledge and
awareness, organizing personnel, availability of personnel and most importantly the demand to
eliminate knowledge/information gaps through raised awareness.

The need for good planning is essentially important due to the restrictions on the availability of
financial and time resources. Details regarding the size of the waste bins, frequency of
collection, size of the collection fleet, requirement of personnel, requirement of street sweepers,
methods to treat waste, etc. are an integrated part of a good planning process. Well
implemented plan can sufficiently reduce the costs associated with maintaining the system
processes. Communication and flow of information form the second important factor for the
success of the intended modifications. Present system has restrictions in the communication
channels and provides chances to exhibit opportunistic behaviour by some actors. Need to
communicate information to the people availing the waste management services have found to
have a direct correlation with public awareness as per UN reports. Also, maintaining the flow of
information within the system ensures sufficient transparency in the operations of various
actors, hence lesser chances of opportunistic behaviour.

Pilot projects are small scale implementations undertaken to demonstrate the (in)-effectiveness
and benefits/losses of intended changes. According to Mr. Saurin Dave (GUDC), necessity of
creating pilot projects in the city was important since he believed that news of success was
mainly carried around the city via word of the mouth. Presenting the example of highway toll
booths in India, he said that success of pilot project was primarily important for the wide-
spread adoption of the toll booth model in the country. Nevertheless, implications of the need
for a pilot projects is self-explanatory. While investing in large scale projects not all benefits are
known before hand and hence investors are unwilling to make investments. On the contrary,
demonstrating a successful pilot project can generate sufficient confidence in the proposed
scheme.

Steering the system from the top shall require sufficient control of the resources being used in
the system. Major resources involved in the system are money, waste flow and information
flow. Limited control of waste is allowing the tampering of waste rendering the waste useless
and no flow of information seriously affects the accountability in the system. Mr. Prashant
Pandya claimed the importance of the control of Infrastructure, policy and law governance,
capacity building and behaviour changes via public awareness as the necessary criteria for
control resources in the system.

Economic resources form the most important critical factor in the system. As seen in Chapter 3,
around 84% of the budget is spent on collection and transportation activities leaving little or no
budget for treatment and disposal activities. Any new initiatives planned or proposed to be
undertaken in the system shall have to be supplemented by the economic resource provision.
These provisions can either be from funds like government loans or grants or from internal
system mechanisms like user charges, royalty payments, penalties against misconduct, etc.

Waste management and handling has externalities associated with each aspect of the complete
system. Externalities are defined as third party effects arising from the production and/or

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consumption of the goods and services that are not reflected in the market price (75). Failing to
take account of the complete association of social costs and benefits in the system shall
ultimately result in the failure of the system and impose excess burden on the environment. A
similar failure of system can be seen in the capital city of Delhi. The decision to establish a 2000
MT WTE incineration plant at Okhla, Delhi has been centre of debate since a decade and has
been heavily criticized by environmentalists and local residents. The plant has been accused of
contributing to the increased pollution in the area and there are talks on cancelling the
environmental permit of the plant. Hence, defining a clear and definite environmental objective
is necessary while developing the system plan in addition to efficient and environmentally
viable disposal strategy for the city. Since the city waste comprises about 50% of organic
biodegradable waste, incineration of waste can prove to be an unsustainable strategy.
Incinerating biodegradable waste emits higher quantity of methane in the atmosphere which is
one of the gases responsible for green-house effect according to UN regulations.

Efficient monitoring channels provide a formidable barrier against opportunistic behaviours of

the involved actors. Slack monitoring mechanisms allow for violating regulations for personal
gains. Market knowledge and customer awareness can adequately boost the market entry of the
private players in the treatment industry. The end-product market at present is financially
unattractive and business model is still not visibly apparent. Hence, actors with good source of
market knowledge and mechanism to boost customer awareness like Excel Industries can
survive in the present conditions.

The informal sector has been ardently working outside the jurisdiction of the municipal
corporation in diverting recyclables away from the landfill. The NGOs have been working with
the informal sector by organizing the members in unions and providing a stable livelihood to
the members. Hence, for the system, the availability of the personnel and organizing personnel
can be well complemented by the presence of NGOs and the informal sector.

Finally, the blind spots in the flow of information and lack of communication channels create
knowledge gaps in the system. The ignorance from the general public about the waste handling
system presents one such knowledge gap in the system. The people are just not worried about
the waste once it has been collected from their doorsteps. The problems encountered in dealing
with the mixed waste and open dumping activities are not communicated to the people. And
people in returned do not notice these problems because the effects are not observed from their
level. The demand for the closure of knowledge gaps can ensure creation of additional
information channels in the system. The demand for closure is motivated by the personal
motivation of the people as well as the level of self-awareness among the community. A
motivated community shall consider system compliance and regulations as priority and be
ready for interventions for improvement of the system.

These critical success factors are distributed among the actors involved in the system. The
actors who can influence their respective critical success factors are shown in Table 15. These
actors can influence the factors through the diverse set of influential parameters and the
varying degree of persuasion that influence the pursuit of individual actor goals has also been
mentioned in the table.

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Table 15 - Consensus Analysis Framework
Actors Critical Success Factors Drivers
Good Planning Complying with regulation for segregating
Well planned information and waste on a daily basis as per MSW Rules
communication channels 2000
Success of pilot projects; gradual Increasing Financial Sustainability of the
implementation waste management system
Reducing the open dumping activity
Increasing the recycling rates in the city
AMC
Sufficient resources for control Environmental friendly means of treating
Economic Resources the daily waste
Economic maintenance of waste
management activities
Generating additional revenue streams from
sources like property taxes, octroi, income
tax, etc.
AMC (Elected
Wing)
Clear and definite Environmental Complying with emission norms on a
objectives monthly basis as per MSW Rules 2000
Preventing the practice of uncontrolled
open dumping at Pirana yard.
GPCB Promoting the development and
implementation of environmental friendly
technology
Encouraging activities that increase the
recycling rates in the city
System compliance Maintaining Status Quo
Private
Transporters
Barriers
Availability of finances
Lack of infrastructure for handling
segregated waste
Lacking final decision power in the system
Political judgements and latent relations
hindering the priorities in the system
Lack of Public Awareness
Political nature of the position
Tendency to delay implementation due to
political pressure in lieu of forth coming
municipal elections
Position of Mayor (Chair of Standing
Committee) is elected for only 1.5 years
Lack of accountability in the system to
press charges against.
Absence of mechanisms to control the act
of dumping
Absence of regulations from Central
Government against act of open dumping
Non-reliable/ non-transparent data
Monitoring activities by the corporation
Regular complaints filed by the treatment
plant operators
Influencial parameters
Reduction of yearly transportation
costs through robust planning
Strong system monitoring
mechanism
Accountability in the system via
evidence, awareness and
transparency of information
Levy of user charges
Approval of incremental changes in
the budget
Position to approve funding
requirements from the State and
Central Government
Presence of data (emission, recyclers,
treatment plants, landfill, etc.) to
encourage public awareness
Provision of environmental
clearances to the treatment plants
Support from the political section of
the waste system
Effective coverage of 50% of the city
for daily waste collection
Degree of Persuasion
Bounded by regulations
Availability of infrastructure and
finance
Personal motivation in the
system
Social influence in the system
Political coerciveness
Interpersonal/intrapersonal
encounters with actors
Political support within the party
(specifically party leaders)
Power of the opposition party
Social influence in the city
Level of public trust
Level of public demand
Regulation compliance
Interpersonal/intrapersonal
encounters with actors
Political coerciveness
Political coerciveness
Interpersonal/intrapersonal
encounters with actors
Slackness of
regulations/monitoring
Strategies
Mobilizing NGOs/Co-operatives
for engaging in door-to-door dry
(recyclable) waste collection
Mass awareness campaign
(news articles, public plays,
drama, TV commercials,
awareness about E-governance
portal, etc.) to increase public
awareness about the need for
waste segregation
De-risking the market entry of
private partners in waste
treatment/recycling industry
Creating an integrated system
capable of handling segregated
waste.
Encouraging municipal zones
and wards to adopt a
conservative approach towards
financial resource usage
Motivating users to pay for the
waste management services
through communal meetings
and party election agendas
Diluting decision making power
to provide enough control in the
hands of the administrative
committee
Provision of increased funding in
the annual budget for capacity
expansion
Inclusion of waste management
activities under CSR
Encouraging the establishment
of recyclers around the city
Establishing end-of-pipe
regulations on manufacturing
and sale of non-recyclable
plastics
Partial ban of landfilling of
food/organic waste fraction in
the Pirana landfill
Activating the fear of contract
termination in case of repeat
offenders (by creating an
example)
Developing a strong monitoring
mechanism
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Efficient and environmentally viable Generating a positive revenue model from
disposal strategy treatment of waste
Market knowledge and awareness Creating monetary streams to aid the
constant establishment and expansion of
Treatment
present treatment plant capacity as well as
Plants long term financial sustenance
Organizing personnel Personal Branding
Improving the condition and position of the
rag-pickers in the system
Higher presence of women and children
among the rag-pickers
NGOs/CBOs
Availability of personnel Stability of income
Improving living conditions
Informal Sector
Demand to eliminate Cleanliness of the city
knowledge/information gaps and Eliminating the visibly appalling open
raised awareness dumping yard of the city
Economic Resources Healthy environment for the children
System compliance
General Public
Stricter emission norms leading to higher
costs of treatment plants
Complete absence of business friendly
regulations to encouraging the sales of
end-products
Competing with heavily subsidized
chemical based products.
Lack of customer awareness about the
end-products
NIMBY Syndrome
Highly unorganized nature of informal
sector
Resistance from recycling industry
middlemen against organizing rag-pickers
Highly unreliable nature of the rag-pickers
Highly unorganized nature of the sector
Exploitation by middlemen
No platform to voice their opinion in the
system
Absence of waste management system
capable of handling segregated waste
streams
Disregard for the consequences of waste
once the waste leaves household
premises.
Lack of awareness for the financial needs
of the system
Increased Royalty payments from
increased sales of end-products
Ability to directly influence the
landfill diversion rates in the system
Provision of extremely cheap
organized labour force for waste
management activity
Undocumented contributing to the
recycling industry in the state
Presence of larger workforce for
higher collection per day
Source of user charges (Willingness-
to-pay)
Provision of waste in segregated
format (Foregoing convenience)
Ability to influence the decision of
elected wing
Financial Sustainability
Availability of source segregated
waste in the system
Professional and Social influence
among the actors
Personal motivation in the
system
Social influence in the society
Interpersonal/intrapersonal
encounters with actors
Co-operative support from the
rag-pickers
Livelihood
Association with an NGO
Provision of stable income and
health benefits
Incentives/dis-incentives from
the corporation
Collective unity
Power gained by payment of
charges
Personal motivation and
responsibility towards the city
Connecting the annual
increments in payments of the
transporters with annual
performances (reduced
instances of non-compliances)
Provision of tipping fee to the
treatment plants
Viability of business models in
the waste treatment system
Provision of segregated waste to
the treatment plants
Encouraging NGOs/Co-
operatives for engaging in door-
to-door dry (recyclable) waste
collection
Mass awareness campaign
(news articles, public plays,
drama, TV commercials,
awareness about E-governance
portal, etc.) to increase public
awareness about the need for
waste segregation
Personal responsibility allocation
for ensuring sector wise waste
segregation in the city
Mobilization of the rag-pickers
from scavenging to door-to-door
recyclable collection activity
Employing the rag-pickers to
work at the intermediate
segregating yards to separate
recyclable materials as per
categories
Encouraged to pay user charges
based on the availing of waste
disposal services provided by the
corporation
Higher level of public
participation via public decision
making events and opinions
evaluated through community
meetings.
Demonstrations of the
effectiveness of the financially
sustainable waste management
system through successful pilot
projects
Encouraging the need by the
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people for information
availability and transparency in
the system

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5.5 Conclusion
Some major points that were inferred from this section were identification of the critical success
factors (CSF) for the successful implementation of a combination of Strategy S2 and Strategy S4.
These success factors were further demonstrated to belong under the jurisdiction of certain
stakeholders in the system. Further, the research derived drivers and barriers encountered by
each of these actors in achieving these CSF. In addition, each actor is also supposedly in
possession of influential parameters that can have a positive and/or negative effect on the
success of the implementation. The usage of these parameters is further governed by the degree
of persuasion of a particular action by the actor. Culminating these inputs together, yielded a set
of strategies that could be deployed or adopted by each actor to succeed in the implementation
of the selected alternative.

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6 Usability of the framework
Based on experience and present case study, three main constraints that the decision maker in a
waste management system has to deal with are: the financial resource requirements, the
available jurisdiction and power with the decision maker and finally the need for collaboration
with actors involved in the system. Based on these three constraints, this section shall develop
ways in which the proposed decision support framework can be operationalized. Additionally,
pointers shall also be provided about type of information needed to facilitate the decision
making at each stage.

6.1 Operationalizing the Decision Support Framework

The flowchart for the decision making process is shown in Figure 31. The decision making
starts by formulating a goal that is to be achieved by means available in the system. The details
regarding the goals that need clarification are: the definition of the goal, the need for the goal
(i.e. why do you want to achieve the goal?) and finally the Specifications of the goal (i.e. can the
goal be quantified or a qualitative assessment shall be employed to evaluate the goal?). The
definition of the goal can be defined in terms of technical terms or conceptually. For the present
case study, the goal we defined was to increase the landfill diversion rate in the city of
Ahmedabad. The landfill diversion rate in this goal was defined as the rates at which waste is
diverted away from the landfills. The reason for the choice of the goal was the increasing
burden on the open dumping yard in the city. The quantification of the goal was a complex task
since a number of parameters directly and indirectly affects the landfill diversion rates. The
landfill diversion rates are affected by number of parameters like waste composition, increase
in waste generation per year, number of treatment plants, moisture content, number of informal
sector units, etc. The presence of number of parameters would warrant a necessity of a
comprehensive source of data, which was not available for this research. Hence, qualitative
estimates were used for assessment throughout the research.

Once the goal formulation has been done, the researcher can engage in analysing the flows in
the system. The waste management system, just like any other section of supply chain
management, relies on three important systemic flows: the flow of material, flow of information
and the cash flows. The flows supposedly occur between the actors involved in the system and
dictate the level of command and power in the system. Hence, an actor at the position of node
through which more flow streams pass can be considered to be a powerful actor. The mapping
of flows can enable the researcher to identify some systemic inconsistencies. The
inconsistencies are defined as the problems with the occurring flows in the system. As can be
seen in Chapter 3, we identified 7 major systemic inconsistencies by just studying the flow
patterns among the actor. There was no need for any special framework for mapping the flows.
But the information presented in them can help a researcher in decision making process.

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 Goal

Analyzing
Systemic Flows

Intuitive Identify
Normative
Approach systemic
Approach
inconsistencies

Identify Identifying Establishing

Solutions stakeholders Criteria and
stakeholder goals

Collaborate with Assigning Identifying

Actors Weights to Potential
criteria Solutions

Obtaining Consensus
Solution Analysis
Rankings

Implement the solution

Figure 31 - Flowchart of the Decision Process

The decision maker (DM), now, has an idea of the sections of the system that can be targeted to
achieve the said goal. But the DM is faced with two important choices while trying to achieve the
goal in the system: the choice of adopting an Intuitive Approach or a Normative Approach. The
choice between the two approaches is mainly based on the idea of target defined by the decision
maker. To do so, firstly the definition and idea of both the approaches shall be provided.

Through an intuitive approach, the decision maker is more interested in finding what he wants
from the system or what he can individually achieve from the system. Consequently, if he
chooses to adopt this approach, the decisions shall be based on his personal judgements or
intuitions. Hence, through such an approach, the decision maker tries to steer the system via the
power he has through his position in the system. As was seen during the case study discussion,
based on the intuitive approach, a series of 7 solutions were defined targeted at the system
inconsistencies. The main decision maker in the system was identified as the municipal
corporation. The implementation of these solutions was completely based on the power and
willingness of the municipal corporation.

Conversely, by adopting a normative approach, the decision maker believes that the goal that he
has set to achieve cannot be achieved by him alone i.e. he requires the participation of all the

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stakeholders in the system. Ideally, when system improvements are targeted that are directly or
indirectly affecting the entire system, it becomes customary to involve all the stakeholders in
the decision making process. Participation of stakeholder shall ensure consensual agreement on
the impending solutions and synonymous judgements on the problems at hand. As was the case
in the present research, the implementation of solutions like Market creation for treatment and
implementation of source segregation mechanisms affected a range of stakeholders and hence
the participation from these stakeholders in the decision making process was ensured through a
stakeholder workshop. Hence, by adopting a normative approach, the decision maker is
convinced that the goal he wants to achieve cannot be achieved through an intuitive approach.
So, in a way, the intuitive approach becomes a precursor to the normative approach.

The decision making process that can be used through a normative approach is generally
dependent on the decision maker. The choice of the methods that can be employed under this
domain is generally reflective of the researchers knowledge and availability of time. For the
purpose of this research, an Analytical Hierarchical Process was used. Hence, based on the
application of this approach, the decision making process followed the path shown in
Figure 31.

6.2 Lessons Learned

The following section shall enlist the learnings accrued through the implementation of the
proposed framework.

6.2.1 General lessons learned from framework

1. The application of the framework required little technical knowhow. Literature review of
a number of methodologies like input-output analysis and cost benefit analysis required
academic level of knowledge to execute. The scenario at civic level in Indian
municipalities is sadly painted by people who dont possess such technical knowledge of
economic models and scientific methodologies. Hence, it is important to consider the
level of expertise of the decision maker while selecting the decision support framework.
A much simpler framework like the one proposed in this research can aid such a
situation.
2. The decision support framework was easy to apply and less data intensive. The
methodologies reviewed in the literature section like LCA and CBA require a significant
amount of data for modelling and analysis. One of the major drawbacks of working with
Indian municipalities is that the data is non-existent or they are unwilling to share the
data for research purposes. Hence, application of such methodologies is seriously
hampered in absence of data. In present case, the data about the pollution levels from
the treatment plants and the open dump yards was denied stating that the data didnt
exist. There is no way to verify the claims. Hence, as per these conditions, the proposed
framework could demonstrate the usefulness even in the absence of the data. Hence, its
an intuitively easy method to apply.
3. It was found that when really small changes in the system were to be implemented, the
framework provided freedom to the decision maker of the choice of approach towards
the goal. The changes proposed in Chapter 3 were local level changes and within the
jurisdiction of the municipal corporation.
4. The first step of the decision support framework is really helpful tool to chart out
stakeholder relations explicitly. Such kind of representation is helpful in identifying
knowledge gaps, structural lock-ins and power positions of the actors. It also provides

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 information on leakages in the system through which flows are either lost or hampered.
The decision maker can identify actors for collaboration or collusion. Some really useful
facts were identified in the step 1 in the system under study for e.g. the unsustainable
cash flow patterns between the municipal corporation and the private transport
contractors. One major problem found in most of the other decision support tools
reviewed was that they did suggest implementation of solutions to aid the problems in
the system. But no methodology pointed out the nuances in the system because of which
the solution could not be implemented previously. Explicit chart of relations as
proposed by this framework made these nuances visible and easy to understand. The
implementation of the solution could also be studied by applying the solution in the
prepared flowcharts (as has been done in this research). Pictorial representation was
visually more appealing to the stakeholders.
5. Another problem that was found in the waste management system in the city was lack of
transparency. Due to this, some actors were found to demonstrate opportunistic
behaviour. Through systemic representation of flows, the framework was able to make
the system more transparent for the decision maker and at the same time also identify
the causes of opportunistic behaviour. Through participation of stakeholders in the
decision making process, the method aimed at encouraging a more transparent ties and
workings within the system.
6. One purpose of flow representation was also to develop an operational level
understanding among the decision maker for further planning and optimization. During
the research, it was found that the municipal corporation was lacking a proper
communication channel with the transport contractors. As a result, the data about the
distance travelled by the waste collection vehicles was unreliable. On the contrary, the
expenses by the municipal corporation on the waste collection services were found to be
41% of the total budget. Such high spending on transport activity necessitated route
optimization. Establishing a data collection point via a GPS installation was proposed to
aid this problem. Under such installation, the municipal corporation would be able to
maintain a database of the daily waste travel that could be optimized yearly to reduce
the transportation costs. Hence, an important database management point was
identified in the system that could help the municipal corporation in reducing financial
expenditure.
7. The proposed framework is flexible in application. The decision maker can approach the
intended goal via two different methods i.e. intuitive vs normative. Hence, if need be, the
decision maker can have a higher level of autonomy in decision making through this
framework.
8. This framework engages the stakeholders in a focussed group discussion via a
stakeholder workshop. It was found that visual representations lead to a higher order
learning among stakeholders. Hence, the stakeholders can be made more sensitive to the
problem at hand via such participation and representation (Appendix F).
9. Lastly, and most importantly, the decision arrived at using such a method can be termed
as accountable decision making. As against the ad hoc practices of single handed
decision methods that are being adopted, this method allows the participation of
stakeholders in the decision through inclusion of goals and criteria in the model.

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6.2.2 Lessons learned from AHP
1. As a method of identification of weights and priorities, AHP provides a range of
advantages. It is evident that the stakeholders involved came to rational results due to
the logic decomposition of the problem which supressed personal preferences. A focus
on goal is achieved through the use of structured hierarchies.
2. Another advantage is that subjective qualitative information is transformed into
quantitative data which can be used for management decisions. Through this, de-
emotionalization of the priority setting process can be achieved, particularly when
judgements are derived in groups. Prioritizing among alternatives in a structured setting
is achieved although there is lack of sufficient quantitative data.
3. Another advantage is that participants in evaluation process gain insights into the
critical areas of the decision process which was previously not happening in the city.
Through extended results it could be showed that AHP provides results very consistent
with those derived through more in-depth and time consuming approaches as it pushes
for a structured decision making and allows the decision making team to evaluate biases
and trends within groups.

6.3 Limitations
The following section shall list all the limitations that have been encountered while
implementing the proposed framework in field study. Firstly, the limitations encountered
during the flow mapping and analysis will be specified. Then, the limitations and pitfalls during
the use of AHP as mathematical tool shall be evaluated based on experiences. Finally, limitations
of the usage of the consensus analysis method shall be listed.

6.3.1 Limitations of the flow mapping

The flows mapped in the step 1 of the decision framework assume that the kind of quantity
mapped is homogeneous. In case of cash flow, the quantity flowing between the actors is money
and hence homogeneous. But in case of information, the estimates about type of information
and frequency of collection are not known in the present case. It is not known whether the
information is communicated in written form or verbally or is electronically registered in the
system. Generally it is seen that there are different kinds of information exchanges between the
actors. These exchanges have to be separately mapped according to the type of information. In
present case, we have just shown the flow of information by directional arrows. Such kind of
accurate information can facilitate the creation of a database management system for the
corporation. In case of flow of material, the amount of material flowing between the actors is
roughly based on the estimates obtained from reports and field visits.

6.3.2 Limitations of the AHP methodology

1. AHP does not provide any constructive guidance to the structuring of the problem for
example research evaluation problem. The question like if the structure of a hierarchy
needs is flat (with few levels and many elements on the same levels) or tapered (with
many (with many levels and few elements on one level) is of crucial importance to the
results of the weighing process. Different methods of designing the hierarchies of the
same problem may lead to contrasting results.
2. Another issue relates to the way of aggregating opinions. Either few or may individuals
can participate in the AHP. The aggregation of weights can be achieved either
compensatory or non-compensatory among the group carrying out the performance
rating. The question is when to merge those ratings. They can either be merged within a

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 group discussion; alternately every individual can carry out his ratings separately. In the
latter case, the preferences are finally aggregated using geometric means. However,
choice of either of the two ways can potentially lead to different final outcomes.
3. The pair-wise comparison methodology in the AHP is very tedious and time consuming
activity. A lot of patience and consistency is expected from the stakeholders while asking
them to do the pair-wise comparisons. [(n x (n-1) x j] pairwise comparisons have to be
conducted per level with n = number of comparisons and j = number of criteria. Some
stakeholders found it somewhat tedious to go through that amount of pair-wise
comparisons. It was also found that mid-way stakeholders started losing interests in the
remainder part of the comparisons.
4. The results from the MCDM are highly dependent on the presence of stakeholders in the
focussed group discussion meetings. On the other hand, it is difficult to get all the
stakeholders on the same table on one convenient day.

6.3.3 Limitations of the Consensus Analysis framework

1. The usability of the framework is highly case specific. Though the parameters listed
under the critical success factors, drivers and barriers could be generalized for other
cities in the country, the factors like influential parameters and degree of persuasion are
local to the problem and city under study. Hence, the strategies derived based on these
formulations are highly case specific.
2. Secondly, the derivation of these parameters for the analysis is dependent on the
subjective judgements of the researcher and experiences during field visits. The validity
of these parameters is a debatable topic.
3. There is no existing framework in the body of literature to gauge or analyse the levels of
consensus among the stakeholders in waste management systems. Hence, any figurative
comparisons for better understanding or development of framework cannot be made.

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7 Conclusion and Recommendations
The main research question mentioned at the start of the research was: How can the
municipal corporation increase the landfill diversion rate in the city of Ahmedabad?

The research thesis concluded that the best way to increase the landfill diversion rate in the city
of Ahmedabad was to encourage the creation of composting market in the city. Though from the
results ( Figure 29) it can be noted that the stakeholders regarded creation of
waste treatment market a way to go ahead, the strategy for developing composting was a more
favorable choice among them as compared to energy recovery. In addition, the applicability of
the strategy in the city depends on the drivers and barriers and the co-operation among the
various actors needed as discussed in the previous section. The answers to the sub-research
questions and further implications can be found in the following section.

7.1 Implications for the real world problem (the case study learnings)
The proposed decision support framework composed of three distinct identifiable steps: the
existing system analysis, the decision making and finally impending consensus analysis. The
intricacies involved in each step shall be discussed in the following section.

7.1.1 Snapshot of the system

Step 1 helped in understanding the intricacies involved in the system like the systemic flows
(cash, information and material) as well as a comprehensive stakeholder matrix. The ideal
behind such analysis was to investigate the flows in the system that developed the networked
nature of the stakeholders. It was found that presently landfill diversion rate in the city was
very low (7.50%). The major reasons observed were bifurcated into two distinct categories.
This classification was based on the choice of the decision maker to pursue an intuitive
approach or a normative approach. Under the normative approach, the major problems
identified and the solutions that could be implemented were as shown below.

Problem Definition Proposed Solution Actors needed

Problem-1: Opportunistic Behavior by Altering the system cash flows (Section AMC, Transport Contractors,
transport contractors 3.4.1) Treatment Plants

Problem-2: Contamination of waste at Bin-less waste collection system AMC, Transport Contractors,
secondary collection points (Section 3.4.2) General Public

Problem-3: Poor coverage (44%) of Polluters pay principle (Section 3.4.3) AMC, Private H&K Contractors,
H&K waste collection system Hotels and Kitchens, Treatment
plants

Problem-4: Need for source IEC (Information, education and AMC, General Public, NGOs and
segregation and no littering in public communication)/BCC (Behavior CBOs, Media
places change campaign) (Section 3.4.4)

Problem-5: Unreliable data on waste GPS system installation in the AMC, GPS suppliers, IT Support
collection by contractors collection fleet and inspection at
weigh bridge (Section 3.4.5)

Problem-6: No data about recyclables Re-mining of dump yard using informal AMC, informal sector, NGOs,
recovered from the Pirana Dump Yard sector (Section 3.4.6) Recyclers

Problem-7: No data about recyclables Formalizing itinerant waste buyers for AMC, Itinerant waste buyers,

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 recovered by itinerant waste buyers source segregation (Section 3.4.7) General public, Recyclers

Alternately, under the normative approach, major issues identified in the system were:

Lack of Financial funds for the Waste management system

It was found that the annual budget for the present waste management system
was not sufficient to meet the daily challenges of collection, transportation,
treatment and disposal of waste on a regular basis. Around 85% of the annual
budget was spent on the daily waste collection and transportation and only 5%
of it was spent on the development of treatment facilities. Hence, it was
concluded that there is a serious necessity of a higher amount of cash inflow in
the system from the Central Government.
Collection of waste in unsegregated form
The waste collected on a daily basis was in mixed form i.e. the wet and dry
fractions of waste were stored, collected and transported together. Presently,
only 13% of the waste in the city was source segregated. Also, segregating a mix
waste stream at a later stage is a costly affair and infeasible due to the higher
presence of moisture content (40-50%) of the wet waste. In addition, the mixed
streams cannot be directly treated without segregating at the present installed
treatment facilities. Hence, almost all of the waste is directly dumped in the open
dumping ground.
Insufficient treatment capacity
It was found that presently the city was capable to treat only 550 metric tons
(13.75%) of waste out of the 4000 metric tons of daily waste generation. Rest of
the waste was diverted to the pirana open dumping yard. Also it was found that
these plants were operating at 30% efficiency due to the mixed nature of
incoming waste.
Absence of markets for end-products
It was found during the study that the market sale of the end-products (compost
and pellets) was reported to be lower. The major reason found was lack of
customer awareness about product knowledge for e.g. the compost is repeatedly
being compared by farmers with chemical based fertilizers. Compost is a soil
conditioner while fertilizers are sources of nutrients (NPK-Nitrogen, Phosphorus
and Potassium) and both are equally important. Also some of the recyclables like
thin film plastics were not picked up by the informal sector because the efforts
made in collecting were not sufficiently justified by the monetary returns
through its sale.
Absence of Waste reduction/prevention drivers and opportunities

Under the pursuit of the normative approach, the major actors identified in the system with
their respective position and power was as shown in Figure 32. It was concluded that AMC
(elected wing) was the most powerful actor in the system thereby providing it the final
authority for decision making in the system. Also, the transport contractors effectively provided
waste collection services in 50% of the city while the other 50% was covered by the Municipal
Corporation. It was essential to note that transport contractors were mainly interested in
maintaining status quo in the system. It was also identified that public participation in the waste
management system was lower. The GPCB was the regulatory authority in the system and had

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control over provision of environmental clearance certificates for the waste management
activities. While the informal sector in the system was type of a latent recycling sector that
operated outside the jurisdiction the Municipal Corporation. The informal sector mainly
comprised of rag-pickers and itinerant waste buyers who were responsible for collecting the
recyclables from the mixed waste stream thereby diverting recyclables away from landfill.
Based on the power and position of the actors in the system, the critical actors identified in the
system were: the Municipal Corporation, the GPCB, the treatment plant owners and the informal
sector. These actors were crucial in influencing the landfill diversion rates in the city.

Figure 32 - Stakeholder Interest-power matrix for waste management system

7.1.2 The Decision making

The problem formulation in the research was developed into three hierarchically organized
categories: the goal, the criteria and finally the solution space (populated with strategies)
(Figure 27). The goal was formulated on the basis of the primary research question of the thesis
i.e. increasing the present landfill diversion rate. The goal was not quantified i.e. the landfill
diversion rate was to be increased but by how much was not specified. There were two main
reasons to do so: 1) putting a number on the goal depended on impending regulations laid down
by regulatory authorities in the country. As per research and interaction with stakeholders,
there were no specified regulations against the amount of landfill activity permissible. It is
simply stated that landfilling should be avoided as far as possible and 2) secondly, during the
time of goal formulation, the strategies that would be evaluated in analysis were not known.
Hence, the overall effect on the goal due to these strategies would not be known. Alternately,
even if the strategies would have been known, it would have been difficult to quantify the effects
of each strategy on the landfill diversion rates. The success of each strategy in a particular
region is highly influenced by unforeseen local factors. In such cases, stakeholders are the best
judge of the interconnected effects. Hence, to allow for the inclusion of subjective judgements
from stakeholders on the intended goal, the statement was not quantified.

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At the second level of hierarchy, the criteria were selected based on the interviews conducted
with the critical actors identified in the previous section. The group of criteria selected
comprised of quantifiable as well as non-quantifiable criteria. The selection of quantifiable and
non-quantifiable criteria was motivated based on the use of AHP method in decision making.
The impact of each criterion on the landfill diversion rate is justified in Chapter 4. The solution
spaces were developed based on the different aspects of waste management system i.e. waste
generation, waste treatment, recycling and waste reduction. The strategies that are listed in the
third level of the hierarchy were developed in association with the stakeholders.

The analysis of the problem hierarchy employs the methodology proposed by L. Saaty called as
AHP (Analytical Hierarchical Process). According to this methodology, the pair-wise comparison
of criteria was executed in associated with the stakeholders. A workshop was organized where
stakeholders from different sections (treatment plants, the Corporation, recycling industry and
NGOs) of the waste management were present. The major discussion during the workshop was
about the final criteria selected from the interview and to prepare a reservoir of strategies that
could be considered in further analysis. The details about the participants of the workshop and
the tools used in conducting the same are presented in Appendix F. It was concluded the pair-
wise comparisons obtained from the workshop hinted towards the strategy for creating
treatment market (favoring the creation of compost market more over the creation of energy
markets).

The validity of the final result (the strategy with highest ranking) was checked based on
sensitivity of the strategies analyzed against the variation in the weightages of criteria assigned
by the stakeholders. It was concluded that though the number of stakeholders that participated
in the focused group discussion was less, the computed results were well within the range of
permissible variation in the parameters. The sensitivity analysis also concluded that there were
no major biases included in the computation of the final results.

7.1.3 Consensus Analysis

Based on the consensus mapping, a solution combining two strategies namely S2 (mobilizing
the informal sector) and S4 (creation of composting markets) was tested for implementation in
the system. The analysis mainly included the derivation of drivers and barriers in the system
against the implementation. Additionally influential parameters and degree of persuasion for
each actor was also mapped. Most importantly, critical success factors that need the most
attention during the implementation phase were:

Need for a good planning

Highly developed information and communication channels
Success of pilot projects
Sufficient resources for control
Economic resources
Clear and definite environmental objectives
System/regulation compliance
Efficient monitoring channels
Market knowledge and awareness
Organizing personnel
Availability of personnel

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 The demand to eliminate knowledge/information gaps through raised awareness

Based on the findings it was deduced that involving the informal sector in the door-to-door
waste collection services for source segregation of waste would require the assistance of the
NGOs. The informal sector is highly unorganized and hence some governing agency would be
required to monitor day to day activities. It was also inferred that establishing of composting
plants in the city depended on the planning for decentralized vs centralized processing. In a
decentralized processing plan, the transport contractors would have to suffer a significant cut in
the financial packages since citys most of the organic waste will be treated locally. On the other
hand, in centralized composting, the transport contractors would be unaffected. But in a
decentralized composting facility, the municipal corporation would have to rely on the entry of
private players for plant setup in absence of financial incentives which would not be possible.
Hence, two main solutions were provided to aid this situation: 1) provision of financial
incentives like tipping fee from the municipal corporation and 2) through assured purchases of
end-products from the treatment plants.

7.2 Future work

There are two important directions along which the future research on this work can be
directed: developing software for the framework execution and secondly research study of
influence of external factors on the systemic flows.

The idea for developing software based platform for the decision making framework was
suggested by the stakeholders during the workshop meeting. They were able to visualize the
systemic flows and were keen to know the pattern of changes in the flows on a monthly or
weekly basis.

And secondly, India is known to be a land of festivals. There are more than 6-7 big festivals that
are celebrated more pompously as compared to a Christmas celebration. Hence, year round the
amount and type of waste generated in the city greatly changes. In addition, the temperature
variation in the city during seasonal changes also needs to be considered. Summers are as hot as
45 degrees and winters are as cold as 8 degrees. Hence, the study of these factors can better
help the study of flow mapping in the system.

Also, a database management system can be developed for the corporation. It was found that
important data like the vehicle travel distances on daily basis was not available in the system.
Performing a route or a supply chain optimization in the system was not possible till a database
is available.

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8 Reflections
Overall, this research work was an intriguing journey that took me back to the place where I
grew up and gave me a chance to visualize the surroundings in a way never before. The project
offered me a chance to have an upward learning curve, meet new people and make new
connections. In the hindsight, there were some really compelling findings that I personally
encountered while applying the decision support framework. There were some things that were
executed satisfactorily, while many other things could have been done in a better way. Some
results were satisfying while some could be argued upon. Nevertheless, here I shall reflect upon
some of the major points that I have encountered during this research work.

8.1 Reflection on framework

The decision support framework developed in this research case is an extremely useful tool.
This can be attributed to the ease of use more so than the steps in the decision framework alone.
This is because the range of insights about the complete decision making process that the
framework allows and the granular details of the implications associated with each step in the
decision making are explicit and exclusive. This provides a deeper insight for the researchers as
to why a certain effect or type of result arises.

The decision support framework developed here is a valuable contribution to the body of
existing literature on waste management system. Though time constraints in this project did not
permit thorough validation of some of the final outcomes from the analysis, the valid and
rigorous results obtained from the research provide a strong foundation and a new perspective
to the on-going decision making process in the city. Also, the application of such framework
provides an interesting idea that rather than applying complex frameworks in the developing
countries, easier frameworks can yield sufficiently reliable results. It can be showed that any
decision making process is generally divided into four distinct stages: Intelligence gathering,
designing solutions, testing the solutions, making an informed decision/choice and finally
implementation. So, the purpose of a decision support framework is to be useful for the decision
makers in all four of these quadrants (as shown below); which can be easily deciphered from
the previous sections of this research.

However, it must be noted that the usefulness of the framework is limited by inherent
limitations of the different modules.

8.2 Reflections on methodology

The primary methodology used for this research was multi-criteria decision making (MCDM). A
reflection therefore on the use of multi-criteria decision making for the project is called for.

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MCDM provides a special perspective on the traditional method of decision making. At the core,
amassing multiple conflicting criteria through interviews and workshops and employing
numerical methods for outranking alternatives is inherent to MCDM. This places a higher
weightage on the methods and techniques used for developing a problem hierarchy for the
research. This phase has to be dealt with caution since there is every chance to reflect wishful
thinking on the part of researcher and involved stakeholders. My part started from getting
completely involved in developing a commendable problem hierarchy. In the hindsight, this was
one of the complex and time consuming tasks as well since with increasing number of criteria
and solutions to develop a hierarchy, the time and efforts required for pair-wise comparisons
also multiplied many folds. I spent more than two weeks in just meeting with stakeholders and
collaborate with them to limit the criteria selection to maximum of 8 and a choice of alternatives
to 8 as well. The main reason was to save a lot of calculation time and also not lose the
stakeholders interests from the research.

Validation of the final results was one of the concerns encountered during the analysis and final
stages of the project. The time duration and purpose of my field visit could not warrant a chance
to validate the results. Although the final outcome from the AHP was discussed with the
stakeholders present in the workshop, a feedback on the parameters derived from the
consensus analysis part could not be obtained. Validating the structure of the decision support
framework was not a big concern in the case of my work as there are no previous literature
accounts for such works in waste management; however validation of the results is a different
matter.

Finally, it is safe to say that employability of MCDM methodologies as tools for supporting
decisions can be sufficiently gauged. The methodology is useful in explaining the different stages
in decision making process and also in gauging the behaviour of nuisances in the system which
form formidable obstacles during implementation phases.

8.3 Reflections on research process

The complete research project was an upward learning curve for me. The first part of the
research, the literature review part was pretty straightforward. But beyond that, each step and
advances in the research involved new kind of knowledge acquisition. For the first time in my
life, I realized what it was to meet and discuss problem concerns with stakeholders.
Stakeholders are believed to be working in the system for number of years and approaching
them with your problem definition can result into altering of objectives and perspectives. In
short, a lot of prior reading and understanding was required before each interview. Having a
format for questionnaire is important, but during the interview process you realize that
structured interviews are not always helpful and discussion often divert from the track. There
were also some practical issues during the field visits like unwillingness to share data and
information with students and start of summer vacations. The duration of the field visit was
timed from 4th April to 15th May. However, during the visit I realized that start of May was also
start of summer vacations for kids; that ultimately resulted in non-availability of most of the
stakeholders for interviews and meetings. Nevertheless, interviewing 12-15 people in-spite of
these difficulties was not an easy task. Secondly, it was difficult to collect all the stakeholders at
a single table for brain storming session on a single day.

The time frame for implementation and decision making was set to be of 3-5 years in future
which is considerably smaller span for vastness and complexity of waste management system.

108
During the analysis and final consensus steps, I realized that most of the important factors and
solutions that could contribute effectively towards increasing the landfill diversion rates
operated at state and central government level. The municipal corporation as the main decision
maker had freedom but little power and meagre resources to make any changes at local level
without help from these big entities. Hence, a broader focus on the selection of alternatives (at
regional or national policy level) would have resulted in changes in the research from start. So, I
had to continue the further research knowing this limited focus. I personally did not prefer
selecting solutions at policy level because I had no prior background of dealing with design and
analysis of policy packages and there was no time to learn the same.

Another point that I would like to express my pain about is missing on the deadlines as per the
timetable prepared before the start. There were some unexpected surprises during the process
and a lot of time was spent in dealing with them. Nevertheless, the research was still completed
in time.

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Appendix A Case Studies using MCDM in Waste Management
Table 16 - Application of MCDM in Waste Management systems (11)

Articles & Case Studies MCDA methods Topic

AHP/ANP/Fuzzy PROMETH ELECT TOPSI Othe Location of Treatment
AHP EE RE S rs plant strategy
Erkut and Moran (1991)a
Massam (1991)a
Vuk and Kozelj (1991)a
Hokkanen and Salminen (1994)a
Hokkanen et al. (1995)a
Siddiqui et al. (1996)a
Charnpratheep et al. (1997)a
Hokkanen and Salminen (1997a)a
Hokkanen and Salminen (1997b)a
Karagiannidis and Moussiopoulos
(1997)a
Berger et al. (1998)a
Haastrup et al. (1998)a
Chang and Wei (1999)a
Cheng et al. (2002)a
Vaillancourt and Waaub (2002)a
Cheng et al. (2003)a
Karagiannidis et al. (2004)a
Chenayah and Takeda (2005)a
Gautam and Kumar (2005)a
Norese (2006)a
Banar et al. (2006)
Hung et al. (2007)
Gemitzi et al. (2007)a
Kapepula et al. (2007)a
Louis et al. (2007)a
Su et al. (2007)a
Sumathi et al. (2008)
Ramjeawon and Beerachee (2008)
Contreras et al.(2008)a
Erkut et al. (2008)a
Khan and Faisal (2008)a
Tuzkaya et al. (2008)a
nt and Soner (2008)a
Vego et al. (2008)a
Roussat et al. (2009)
Ersoy and Bulut (2009)
Garf et al. (2009)a
Tseng (2009)a
Wang et al. (2009)a
El Hanandeh and El-Zein (2010)
Xi et al. (2010)
Su et al. (2010)
De Feo and De Gisi (2010)a
Aragons-Beltrn et al. (2010)a
Ekmekiolu et al. (2010)a
Perkoulidis et al. (2010)a
Nas et al. (2010)a
Nazari et al. (2011)
Tavares et al. (2011)a
Aydi et al. (2012)
Yesilnacar et al. (2012)
Eskandari et al. (2012)
Gorsevski et al. (2012)
Makan et al. (2012)
Karmperis et al. (2012)
Khadivi and Fatemi Ghomi (2012)
Paul and Krishnagar (2012)
Madadian et al. (2012)

116
Zelenovi Vasiljevi et al. (2012)
Herva and Roca (2013)
Korucu and Karademir (2013)
Abba et al. (2013)
Nixon et al. (2013)
Gbanie et al. (2013)
Alavi et al. (2013)
Makan et al. (2013)
Oyoo et al. (2013)
Karmperis et al. (2013)c
Total number/68 33 10 13 7 20 39 31

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Appendix B - Material Flow in the MSWM system in Ahmedabad

Figure 33 - Material flow diagram of the existing waste management system in Ahmedabad

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Generation

Population of the city was at the mark of 5.6 million (Census 2011). Ahmedabad has a total of
1,623,188 entities registered with AMC as of 2012. Out of these 1,286,188 are residential
properties, 337,000 are commercial establishments. Total number of residential complexes in
slums in Ahmedabad is believed to be around 173,151 (76). The existing system claims
coverage of around 93-95% of these entities. So the waste generated at the covered location
gets collected through the system. According to 2011 estimates, on average 2102.6 MT per day
of waste was being generated by the residential and commercial establishments. 885.36 MT per
day of waste was collected by street sweeping and around 73.7 MT per day of food waste was
generated from hotels and kitchen. Also, 627.3 MT per day of Construction and Demolition
waste was generated within the municipal zone (76). Hence, a total of 3688.96 MT of solid
waste was being collected per day as per 2012 estimates. At present, an estimate pf around
4000MT of solid waste is being generated throughout the city per day. Presently, there are no
provisions for collecting the waste in segregated form i.e. collecting dry and wet waste in
different waste streams. Hence, all of these entities provide their waste in completely mixed
form.

Collection & Transportation

Figure 33 shows the diagrammatic representation of the material flow system established in the
city of Ahmedabad. The model adopted by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation is a
completely decentralized waste management system. The entire city span of 446 sq. km. is
divided into 6 municipal zones and each zone is further divided into 10 to 12 wards. A total of
64 wards are established at the ground level. These wards are responsible for dispensing the
sanitary, health and solid waste management related activities within their areas of jurisdiction.
Major responsibilities vesting with the wards are conducting street sweeping twice a day
(06:00-11:00 and 15:00-19:00), door-to-door waste collection by self or contracted agency
(generally for households during morning and for commercial establishments, hotels and
kitchens during night), transportation of waste from these locations to designated waste
collection posts called as community bins or stationary compactors. AMC has contracted 3-4
contractors (Private as well as NGOs) who assist them in conducting the Door/Gate to Dump
waste collection system.

For the convenience of identifying different channels for the waste flow streams, we classify the
entire residential areas within the municipal zones into: Upper middle and High class society,
Middle and lower class society and finally slums. According to a demographic survey conducted
in 2011, 47% of the households in Ahmedabad had monthly income of 35,000 and above
(Upper middle and High class society) while 53% of the households had income of 35,000 and
below (middle and low class society). A similar demographic data is not available for slum
population. However, the monthly salary for them generally is much under 5000 a month.

In addition to the residential zones, the municipal area also includes commercial zones like
shops, offices, corporates, etc.; food waste generation zones like hotels and kitchen; streets and
public utility places; and finally construction and demolition sites. The major channels involved
for recovering the solid waste generated at these locations are door-to-door collection system,
self-service, gate-to-dump collection system and finally street sweepers. The primary purpose of
these recovery mechanisms is to collect the waste from the doorsteps to the intermediate

119
storage spots called as community bins or from the community bins to dumping lands. Zone
wise estimates of the monthly solid waste collected from various municipal units for during
December 2011 are as shown below:

Table 17 - Zonal collection of MSW for December 2011 (76)

CZ WZ NZ EZ SZ NWZ Total
Door/Gate
7458 5480 7370 5591 5632 6469 37999
to Dump
H&K 126 744 171 375 80 0 1495
C&D 3789 1066 1883 1790 897 3268 12694
MSW from
Secondary 13473 10569 6868 6557 9322 9477 56266
Bins
Total 24846 17859 16293 14313 15931 19213 108454

The section Upper middle and high class society generally commands a higher share of annual
income. Hence, they formulate a Resident Welfare Association (RWAs) that undertakes the tasks
related to waste management. People employed or contracted by RWAs perform two major
tasks for waste management: 1) sweeping and cleaning of the localized zone within the society
or apartment and 2) door-to-door collection of the waste from households (Figure 34). The
collected waste is finally delivered to the community bins from where the waste collection is
AMCs responsibility. The section Middle and lower class society earns comparatively lesser
annual income as compared to the previous section. Hence, they generally dont engage in
formulating an RWA for carrying out waste management related activities. AMC conducts a
gate-to-dump service for such localities where each day at a pre-defined time a van arrives at
the gate. All the households are expected to handover the waste to the concerned person.
However, at many instances it has been observed that AMC vans are not on time or following an
irregular schedule. Consequently, people resort to self-service where they transfer the waste
into a plastic bag and drop it at the nearest community bin or nuisance spot. Most of the people
lack the patience to stop and put the bag inside and rather throw the bag right at the bin, spilling
all the waste around and over the bin as shown in the Figure 35. The gate-do-dump waste
collection system can be seen in operation in Figure 37.

Figure 34 - RWA Contracted team of Sweeper and door-to-door daily collection unit

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 Figure 35 - Nuisance spot right next to a community bin; a person emptying his bag at the community bin (self-service);
the two wheeler cart is the one employed by RWA contracted people during the door-to-door collection service.

The remaining sections of the municipal area are also provided with a similar gate-to-dump
collection service. Since the working agencies are similar in these locations as well, the irregular
or untimely schedules also affect these zones. Irregularities are also observed in the daily
workings of the contracted people under RWAs. To sum up, the red arrows in Figure 33 show
the loopholes within the existing system that result into creation of nuisance spots. Ideally these
channels should not exist within the system. The streets and public utility spots are cleaned
twice per day. The sweepers collect the waste from the streets in the two wheeled cart and
dispose the garbage at local community bins.

The transport of the waste from the community bins follows the general path where the solid
waste stream is transported to a stationary/mobile compactor unit to be compacted and sent to
Pirana open dumping ground. The transport from the community bins is privately contracted to
the agencies mentioned in. Till 2010 there were a total of 1288 waste collection sites in the city
of which 584 were without community bins while 704 were with community bins (77). The
transport needed for both the type of collection sites differ significantly. These agencies employ
the dumper lifter system to transport the entire community bin to a stationary compactor unit
for compaction. The image for a mobile compactor unit as well as the dumper lifter unit is as
shown in Figure 36. Out of the total sites 649 were being covered by AMC and around 639 were
being covered by the private contractors (77). In essence, 50% of the collection work in the city
has been privately contracted.

Figure 36 - Transportation Equipment with AMC (77); dumper lifter truck for transportation of community bins; Line of
compactors for disposal at Pirana dump yard (76)

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Previously the waste from the compactor units was also being delivered to the Excel plant.
However, a special provision for improving the efficiency of the Excel composting plant was
made by AMC in 2008. Two private contractors, Sahara Public health Organization and
Abhishek Sanitation Mart Sahakari Mandali, were hired between whom the hotels and kitchen
waste collection was divided zone wise. The collection agencies directly transport the collected
H&K waste from collection point to the Excel plant. So there is no cost to AMC in this newly
established arrangement. The contracted agency is allowed to charge the users of this door-to-
door service. However, not every hotel and kitchen is paying to avail this service. These units
ultimately are found to be delivering their daily food waste into a nearby community bin in spite
of strict regulations against such dumping activities. Around 80 MT of H&K waste is collected
daily through door-to-door system.

Figure 37 - Gate-to-Dump waste collection system; creation of numerous nuisance spots in a slum location (76)

Finally, the collection of C&D waste has been designed on the principle of call-to-collect.
Whenever C&D waste is generated at any particular location, generator has to call the AMC and
request the collection of the waste. A tariff per trip of van is to be paid by the generator. A
contract was awarded to DNP Infrastructure Ltd. for collection and treatment of the C&D Waste.
To avoid payment of these charges, people just line up the C&D waste in a nearby empty ground
or along side streets. Figure 38 shows one such C&D dumping ground. Either the waste will be
levelled on the ground itself or left there till it becomes nuisance to a concerned citizen.
According the some stakeholders, approximately 600 to 800 MT per day (15-20% of the total
MSW) of C&D is generated in the municipal area daily. There has been allotment of four
separate dumping grounds zone wise for the C&D waste by the AMC.

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 Figure 38 - C&D waste in a nearby open ground

Treatment

At present, there are only two treatment plants to deal with solid waste on a daily basis. One
plant has been established by Excel Industries Ltd. in 2000. The plant produces compost
(CELRICH-Bio organic soil Enricher) from 500 MT per day of solid waste delivered at the gates
by AMC. The second plant has been setup by UPL Djai Power Ltd. that employs technology that
converts 500 MT per dau of solid waste into RDF (Refuse Derived Fuel) pellets. The solid waste
that is delivered to these plants is in mixed form. Also, it is generally observed that moisture
content in the collected solid waste is as high as 40-50%. Hence, post drying and manual
segregation only 20-30% of the delivered waste is useful for the intended process. The rest of
the waste is rejected as refused waste and delivered by the plant to Pirana dumping ground. The
inert waste generated from the plant processes are delivered to be dumped in scientific landfill
at Gyaspur. The compost manufactured by Excel plant is sold on the market as soil conditioner
especially targeted towards the farmers and gardeners across the state and city. One of their
famous product called as Bioculum is manufactured at the Ahmedabad plant and sold across
the country. The pellets manufactured at UPL plant are sold mostly to brick manufacturers or
cement industries to be burned in kilns as a supplement to lignite coal.

Disposal

There are two ways in which solid waste is at present being disposed of in the city. Out of the
total 4000 MT of waste generated per day, only 1000 MT of the waste (on paper) is being
treated at present by the two plants. Rest of the waste is being dumped at the dump site. Pirana
dump site is an open dumping ground spread across the area of 84 Hectare (Figure 39). The
constant dumping at the site has resulted in 4 major heaps as high as 20 Meters. Out of the 500
MT each delivered to the plants, only 100-150 MT of the waste is useful for processing due to
three major reasons: 1) lower operating efficiency of 25-30%, 2) higher content of the moisture
in the MSW and 3) mixed nature of the received waste from AMC. Rest of the waste is again
dumped at the open dumping ground. So, in total, around 2900-3000 MT per day of solid waste
is presently being dumped at the dumping ground without prior treatment. The Inert waste
generated by the composting and pelletization process is delivered to the scientific landfill at
Gyaspur for an engineered Disposal. Also, the waste that is discarded by the treatment plants as
inert waste is also being sent to Gyaspur. As per estimates, around 300-500 MT of inert waste is
being dumped in the scientific landfill per day. In addition to these routes, inappropriate way of
dealing with the waste that has been observed is localized burning and incineration of waste at
public spots and sometimes even inside a community bin. The waste accumulated at a nuisance
spots that have not been collected for many years have partially become open dumping grounds
(Figure 37).

123
Figure 39 - One of the mounts of waste at Pirana Dumping yard; Scientific Landfill site at Gyaspur (Source: AMC); Ariel
view of SWM open dumping ground

124
125
Appendix C - Cash flow within the waste management system

Figure 40 - Cash flow within the waste management system

126
Cash flow within the waste management system

Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has few major sources of funding for Solid Waste
Management related activities. One of the sources of funding is provided by Gujarat Municipal
Finance Board (GMFB). GMFB acts as a state level nodal agency for disbursing loans and grants
for encouraging infrastructure development and other facilities undertaken by the various
ULBs. A grant of 15 Crores ( 2.12 million) for the year 2012-13, 8.75 Crores ( 1.23 million)
for 2013-14 and a grant of 9 Crores ( 1.26 million) for the year 2014-15 was provided by
GMFB to AMC ( (78)).

Second state level nodal agency is Gujarat Urban Development Mission (GUDM). GUDM was
established as a regulatory state level authority to ensure proper spending of Government of
Indias money under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).
JNNURM funding is one of the primary funding received by AMC for solid waste management
related activities. A funding of 212.07 Crores ( 29.86 million) for the year 2012-13, 160.37
Crores ( 22.58 million) for the year 2013-14 and 249.52 Crores ( 35.14 million) for the year
2014-15 was provided under the JNNURM scheme (78). Hence, it provides support and
facilitates the ULBs for improving the provision of basic level amenities like solid waste
management and sanitation. Of the total amounts provided for the last three annual budgets,
respective allotment of funding specifically for Waste Management related activities were: 35
Crores ( 4.92 million) for the year 2012-13, 20 Crores ( 2.81 million) for the year 2013-14
and 9 Crores ( 1.26 million) for the year 2014-15 (78). These sanctioned amounts were
16.5%, 12.47 and 3.60% respectively of the total funding allotted. During year 2013-14 an
additional amount of 32.87 Crores ( 4.63 million) was sanctioned under JNNURM for the
development of transfer stations in the city (78).

Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation comprises of 75 departments. These departments are divided

among 8 Deputy Municipal Commissioners. The annual budget for the year 2014-15 for AMC had
been set at 5301 crores ( 746 million) (78). A breakup for the revenues and expenditures for
various undertakings by AMC can be found Table 18. A good idea about the sources of income and
expenditure for AMC can be obtained. Out of the 3738.29 Crores ( 526.52 million) from revenue
earnings, 2493 Crores ( 351 million) were the expected revenue expenditure and a total of 2828
Crores ( 398.30 million) was allotted for Development related project transfer (78). From these
development funds, only a total of 10.03 Crores ( 1.43 million) were allotted for development
projects related to Solid Waste Management (78).

Table 18 - Computed Revenue and expenditure of AMC for 2014-15 (78)

Revenues Amount Expenditure Amount

Central Govt Grant in place 24 cents Establishment spending 23 cents
of Octroi
Property Tax 13 cents Administrative and general 2 cents
charges
Water & conservancy tax 8 cents Repair and Maintenance 6 cents
Vehicle tax 2 cents Fuel and power 6 cents
Professional tax 4 cents Service and program 8 cents
charges
Non-tax revenue 26 cents Contribution, subsidy and 20 cents
grant

127
 Revenue grant, subsidy 17 cents Loan charges 1 cent
and contribution
Other revenues 6 cents Development related 34 cents
transfer
Total 1 Total 1
Revenue 3738.29 Expenditure 3738.29
Crores ( 526.52 Crores ( 526.52
million) million)

Main sources of income for AMC are the Central Governments grant that has been instated in
place of previously implemented Octroi tax, Non-tax revenue sources and property taxes. Other
than property taxes, households are expected to pay some additional taxes for services provided
by the municipality. Some such component of the tax collected from the households is
conservancy tax, water tax and safai vero (cleaning tax) (which is presently being imposed in
87% cities out of 144 in Gujarat except Ahmedabad) (47). The cities where safai vero is not
collected, the conservancy tax is split up into three distinct heads: Sewage, sanitation and
cleaning. On an average, the amount procured under conservancy tax is equally divided into
these three heads. A conservancy tax of 500 is levied per unit of the municipal zone in the city
of Ahmedabad. So the amount of tax collected for cleaning should be approximately 167 (
2.34) per year. A tax recovery rate of 58.6% was estimated for the city of Ahmedabad for the
year 2008-09 (47). The pie chart in Figure 41 highlights the amount spent by AMC during the
financial year 2014-15 on various waste management related activities. The budget specifically
for waste related activities totals to about 404.29 Crores ( 56.94 million) (7.6% of the total
AMCs budget). During interview it was dictated that the annual budget for AMC waste
management department was around 460 Crores ( 64.78 million)

Activities Expenditures
Street Sweeping 166.53 Cr ( 23.45m)
Door/Gate-to-dump Waste Collection 163.29 Cr( 23.08m)
Slum and Residential Sweeping 8.94 Cr ( 1.25m)
Solid Waste Management Projects 10.03 Cr ( 1.41m)
Development of Transfer Stations 9 Cr ( 1.26m)
Purchase of Dumper Lifter and Compactor 12 Cr ( 1.69m)
Equipment
Purchase of Bins and waste handling equipment 22 Cr ( 3.09m)
Equipment for sweepers 2 Cr ( 0.20m)
Dead Animal Handling 3 Cr ( 0.42m)
Landfill mining and reclamation of Pirana 0.50 Cr ( 0.07m)
Dumpsite
Figure 41 - AMC's Expenditure on waste Purchase of Special vehicle for C&D waste 7 Cr ( 0.98m)
collection
management activities for 2014-15
Total 404.29 Cr ( 56.94m)

The funding allotted to AMC is divided among the Zones. The amount is awarded based on two
factors: one is the carry forward costs from the last years ongoing projects and 2) the
investment amounts required for the new upcoming projects pertaining to infrastructure,
sanitation and health related activities. This amount is expected to cover all the works that are
necessarily carried out in the respective zones. The amounts to be given to each particular
project is also pre-decided and provided in the memorandum printed along with the annual
Finances sheet.

The major expenses for the solid waste management department are incurred in conducting the
door-to-door, gate-to-dump collection services, street and public utility place sweeping. Lack of

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funding generally forces the solid waste management department to resort to private
contracting of these services. As per calculations, around 84.5% of the annual budget of the solid
waste management department is spent on collection and transportation related activities. The
terms of the contract between the AMC and private transport contractors is generally based on
per ton cost of waste collected. An estimate of the charges paid by the AMC to the various
transporters is shown in Table 19. The data logging for each contractor and truck delivering the
waste collected from city to the pirana dump yard is made via a weigh bridge that is owned and
operated by AMC. For the year 2014-15, AMC spent around 23.50 million on these waste
collection and transport mechanism and around 23.45 million on the street sweeping related
activities. (In 2011, total road length connecting the city Ahmedabad was at 3000 km which
was expected to increase up to 5500 km till 2015; 12000+ sweepers sweeping at a frequency of
one or two times a day (76)).

Table 19 - Door/Gate-to-dump transportation charges

Name of Zone Name of the Contractor Charges (Rate per Metric

Ton)
Central Zone Swachchata Corporation 642/- ( 9.04)
East Zone Om Swachchta Corporation 648/- ( 9.12)
West Zone M/s. Jigar Transport Co. 633/- ( 8.91)
North Zone Swachchta Corporation 648/- ( 9.12)
South Zone Shree Vishwashakti Construction and Shree Maruti Travels 633/- ( 8.91)
New West Zone M/s. Jigar Transport Co. 587/- ( 8.26)

There are presently only two plants treating the incoming waste at the rate of 500 MT per day
each. The terms of contract with these two plants are similar in terms that AMC incurs no cost in
their operation. AMC provides the intended waste free of cost to the plants. The land
requirement of 10 and 30 hectare for Excel and UPL Djai respectively is provided by the AMC as
well at a token lease of 1 per sq. mt. per annum (in total 100,000 ( 1408) per year). Against
these terms, Excel plant is required to provide 2.5% royalty payment on the annual sales of the
compost. Excel paid a total of 277,881 ( 3913.81) for the year of 2009-2010 as royalty
payment. There are no royalty payment clauses in the contract made with UPL Djai. So except
the land lease payment, no other charges are paid by Djai to AMC. The renewed agreement
between AMC and Excel Industries led to creation of two additional contracts with private
partners that delivered H&K (hotel and kitchen) waste from the city to the excel plant directly.
The details of these contracts are shown in Table 20.

Table 20 - Hotel and Kitchen collection Transportation charges

Name of Agency
Sahara Public Health
Org.
Abhishek Sanitation
Mart Sahakari Mandali
No. of Zones allotted H&K Units Covered Charge per MT
2 456 270 ( 3.80) /-
2 222 490 ( 6.90) /-
2 58 1000 ( 14.08) /-

The production cost of compost at excel plant is around 2.50 /- per kg. However, if the sales
figures for the year 2009-10 are considered, then total sales amounted to 11,114,900
attributed to a sale of 6324 MT of compost. So on an average selling price of 1 kg of compost was
around 1.75/- resulting in a loss of about 0.75 per kg i.e. a total loss of around 4,743,000/-
( 66,802). During the interview session, Mr. Vasant Patel (Site in-charge for Excel Industries

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Ltd) claimed to incur a yearly loss of about 10,000,000/- ( 140,845.07) which is completely
bourn by the plant management. A similar loss of 15,000,000 per year has been reported by
Djai RDF plant during an interview session. The inert waste generated during the compost
manufacturing is sent to Gyaspur Scientific landfill site. AMC is required to pay a tipping fee to
Excel and Djai for the each MT of waste dumped at Gyaspur. The rejected solid waste from the
plant is dumped at the Pirana Landfill.

So to sum up, a diagram below highlights the complete chain of cash flow involved for handling
of 1MT per year of waste (excluding H&K and C&D) generated, collected, transported, treated
and disposed by the AMC. An estimate of cost per MT per year shall provide a good account of
the annual budget necessary for running just the supply chain of waste management, let aside
other expenses. As can be seen, AMC loses an amount of 2830.62 ( 39.86) per MT per year
handling the solid waste, which is presently being provided for by grants and subsidies from the
government. This diagram proves the point that quoted by Mr. Saurin Dave from GUDC that
Waste management is a negative revenue model and Government will need to invest higher
amount of money for coming years to make the system sustainable. Also, the most profitable
partner in the complete chain is the transportation business.

Figure 42 - Cash flow per MT of waste (excluding H&K and C&D) per year incurred by AMC

On a parallel side, the informal-formal section is operating in the recycling industry. The
revenues from the sale of the recyclables at these establishments are not fully accrued to the
Municipal Corporation. There are two paths along which the recyclables are flowing through the
system: 1) rag-pickers that collect materials from streets, bins and dump yards and 2) Itinerant
waste buyers that link the customers to the wholesale dealers and junk shop owners for the sale
of their recyclables. The daily income for a rag-picker should be somewhere in between 100-
150. The profit margins for each of the members involved in the supply chain varies as per the
value added to the product in the chain. Table 21 gives a detail of some of the recyclable
material rates gathered during the field study from a junk shop owner. Based on these estimates
Figure 43 will show a complete chain cash flow in numerical terms right from the customers to
the wholesalers considering a flow of 1 kg of paper.

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There are no estimates of the total amount of recyclable waste that is being generated in the
city. A major portion of the recyclable waste is removed from the formal waste stream before
measurement. The rest of the recyclable waste is later collected by manual scavenging.
However, this system together contributes to the 47% plastic recycling rate in the country. This
rate is way higher than most of the developed as well as developing nations (China 10% and
South Africa 16%) (79).

Table 21 - Market value of recyclables determined at a small Junk shop

Recyclable Rates
Steel (SS 304) 70 ( 0.98) per kg
Paper 11 ( 0.15) per kg
SS (other lower grades) 40-50 ( 0.56-0.70) per kg
Plastics (HDPE/bags) 30-32 ( 0.42-0.45) per kg
Nickel 1200 ( 16.90) per kg
Aluminium 80-90 ( 1.12-1.27) per kg

Figure 43 - Value chain for 1 kg of paper through informal sector

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Appendix D - Information flow within the waste management system

Figure 44 - Information Flow within the Waste Management System

Communication channels among the different actors and stakeholders involved in the system
can be seen in Figure 44. AMC appears to be the central node for the entire flow network of
information. The amount of waste collected from different zones is collected at the weigh
bridge. Before the waste can be sent to Pirana dumping ground or to either of the processing
plants, they are required to collect a receipt at the weigh bridge for the quantity of waste
collected per trip. This data enables AMC to keep a check on the amount of waste being
generated in the city zone wise. There is no available data on the exact composition of the waste
being generated per day or per month. Abellon Energy during the years 2010 and 2012, created
a field experiment to gauge the calorific value for their contract for the WTE plant. The same
data still is being used for all the available evaluation. During the field visit to weigh bridge,
there were no signs of any monitoring mechanisms to ensure the quality of waste coming in the
enclosed trucks. There might be inspection mechanisms through sampling, but no such
information was found.

The data on the waste collected for a particular month is being communicated to GPCB on a
monthly basis. A monthly data sheet carrying the quantity of waste being collected from each
zone is submitted to GPCB. GPCB also keeps a check on the emission levels registered at the
Pirana dump site and the two treatment plants under the project Ambient Air Quality
Monitoring. The emissions data is collected from a probe deployed at the designated location.
The information is not easily accessible and wont be shared without proper mechanisms. AMC
also conducts regular field visits at the two designated treatment plants to understand the
worries and concerns. Contract terms between AMC and Excel clearly dictate the reporting of
annual sales of the compost to ensure the payment of 2.5% royalty. The contract terms between
Djai and AMC involves no royalty payments as well as no costs to AMC. Hence, except field visits
there might not be any more information sharing between the two.

Local NGOs like CEE (Centre for Environmental Education) and SEWA (Self-employed Womens
association) are actively involved in working with the informal sector. Major works undertaken
by these organizations are training session for informal sector, rehabilitation projects for them,
job status upgradation, pilot projects for formalizing the informal sector, etc. In lieu of such
works, they have been conducting several field work studies and surveys. These NGOs are

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actively involved with AMC to share their concerns in the decision making process. This is a
reliable channel for AMC to gather information about the informal sector and keep a check on
their activities. Also some of the educational institutions like CEPT have been actively involved
in guiding masters thesis at their organization along the direction of solid waste management
and the role of informal sector. The knowledge generated at this institution is available at very
nominal rates for anyone willing to access it.

The Local community has been provided with an IT based information portal by Gujarat
Informatics Limited (GIL). The project has been titled as E-governance. Under the E-
governance project, a number of initiatives have been implemented for ensuring enhanced
service for the people. Under the Complaint Redressel System, people can check the status of
their complaint with a timeline. Such information is important to understand the location of the
file within a complex decision system. Additional information provided by AMC to the general
crowd is status of the local projects, floating of tender online, annual budget information for
AMC (sources of income and spending), etc. Hence along this channel, most of the information is
shared both ways. This initiative was undertaken to ensure sufficient transparency in the
working the municipal corporation.

Lastly, one of the most important sources of information flow was registered during a meeting
session with Mayor of the city. Community representatives from wards have good relations
established with the councilors elected at the respective wards. Hence, if one of the community
members experience inconvenience due to unavailability of a community bin near or around
their residential complex, they would directly approach their voted representative. The stronger
ties via past vote supports, compels the councilors to carry the information directly to the
Mayor. During the visit, one such councilor had approached the Mayor with some road issue in a
particular community and Mayor promised to get the work on the priority list. Hence, this
channel seems to have a stronger influence on the priority of work that is undertaken by the
corporation.

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Appendix E Questionnaire for Interviews
1. Shortly, describe what your organization does?
a. What is your role within the waste management system?
2. Can you paint a brief picture of the existing waste management system? Who are
responsible for collecting, transporting, treatment, disposal, communication, data
collection, etc.?
3. Do you believe there are some problems within this existing system?
a. Can you identify key problems, according to you, that are infesting the present
system?
b. Why and how do you think these problems are affecting the waste management
system?
4. What would your immediate steps be to deal with these underlying problems?
5. If given a chance, what are the 3 most important aspects or problems that you would
want to get rid of immediately?
6. Which important stakeholders do you identify to play a key role in decision making for
Municipal Waste Management System?
a. In case, there is a mention of an unexpected stakeholder, the extended question
will be Why do you believe XXXX is involved and how are they involved?
7. What are the main interests and primary objectives of your organization within the
waste management system?
a. How does your organization protect its interests and objectives?
8. How would you define sustainability within a waste management system? Do you
believe the present system is a sustainable system? If yes, why? If no, why?
9. What are opportunities and challenges for the city of Ahmedabad to move towards a
more sustainable waste management system?
10. How much budget allocation does your organization receive each year to deal with the
waste management activities?
a. Do you believe the budget is sufficient?
b. What is the opinion of the stakeholder when reflecting on options to increase the
budget for waste collection and treatment in Ahmedabad regarding (a) a waste
tax per household for collection and treatment, to be paid to Ahmedabad (b) an
additional tax on income per household, a part of this will be allocated to waste
collection and treatment (c) a waste tax on packaging waste, to pay for collection
and treatment (so plastic bottles become more expensive)
11. What are your projections for next five years regarding the increase in the waste
generation in the city?
a. Do you believe the existing system is sufficient to deal with these projections?
b. What are challenges and opportunities that you would face in dealing with these
projections?
12. Do you acknowledge the fact that presence of informal sector within the city is affecting
waste management system?
a. How do you see the presence of informal sector affecting the waste management
system?
b. Have you taken any steps to deal with the informal sector? (E.g. employment,
Formalizing, etc.)

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Appendix F Stakeholder Workshop Details

Figure 45 - Illustrative image for system representation during stakeholder workshop

Figure 46 - Images from Stakeholder workshop

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Details of the Participants of the Stakeholder Workshop:

Stakeholder Name Designation Personal Interview Stakeholder Workshop

Mr. G. H. Trivedi Senior Environmental Yes No
Engineer, SWM
Department, GPCB
Ms. Meghna Malhotra Dy. Director, UMC Yes No
Mrs. Mona Iyer Associate Professor, Yes No
CEPT University, Urban
Planning
Mr. Rakesh Soni Operations Manager, Yes Yes
BIEL RDF Plant
Prof. Dr. N.S. Principal Research Yes Yes
Varandani Scientist, GERMI
energy efficiency
Department
Mr. Prashant Pandya Dy. Director, SWM Yes No
Department, AMC
Mr. C.R. Kharsan Dy. Municipal Yes No
Commissioner
Mr. Niraj Jani CEO, Saarth Charitable Yes Yes
Trust (NGO)
Mr. Yashesh Anantani MSWM Consultant Yes No
Mr. Tarun Rokadiya GM, Abellon Clean Yes No
Energy
Mr. Sanket Shah Senior Executive, Yes Yes
Abellon Clean Energy
Mr. Atul Kanuga Chairman, PlastIndia Yes Yes
(Plastics mfg.
association)
Mr. Narendra Rawat Congress Leader, Yes No
Baroda
Mr. Vasant Patel Manager, Excel Yes No
Composting Plant
Mr. Saurin Dave Dy. Manager, Projects, Yes No
GUDC
Mr. Vijay Kothari CEO, WoW (Formal Yes No
recycling company)
Mr. Sandeep Patel Chairman, Letsrecycle, Yes No
MRF and recycler

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Appendix G AHP Computations

Figure 47 - Pair-wise comparison for criteria2

2
For calculating the CR, following expression is used in excel sheet; =IF(A##<=0.1,"OK","Not OK")

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Figure 48 - Pairwise comparison of treatment capacity vs criteria

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Figure 49 - Pairwise comparison of Segregated Waste vs criteria

139
Figure 50 - Pairwise comparison of plastic recycling rates vs criteria

140
Figure 51 - Pairwise comparison of Presence of PPP vs criteria

141
Figure 52 - Pairwise comparison of Emission control vs criteria

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Figure 53 - Pairwise comparison of Environmental friendly technology vs criteria

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Figure 54 - Pairwise comparison of Profitability of treatment vs criteria

144
Figure 55 - Pairwise comparison of Stable income for informal sector vs criteria

145
Figure 56 - Final results from the pairwise comparison

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Appendix H Plots from Sensitivity Analysis for AHP results

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Figure 57 - Sensitivity Analysis for variation in rankings by altering criteria weightage

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Appendix I Informal Sector & Organizational Hierarchy

Figure 58 - Working of the formal & Informal Sector within Recycling Industry

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Recycling industry is an important segment associated with any solid waste management industry. In
low and middle income countries, informal sector plays a significant role within the workings of the
recycling industry. Informal sector is mainly characterized by poor and marginalized groups who are
actively engaged in scavenging/rag-picking of valuable materials mixed with the regular solid waste
streams for survival on meagre everyday wages. The most common materials collected by the rag-
pickers include paper, cardboard, plastics, PVC, PET, Recyclable Polymers, precious metals like
Copper and Nickel, Iron, steel, brass, glass and textile products.

The organization of the informal sector is conducted in a way that their working influences the
income generation, working conditions and social status. The unorganized nature of the informal
sector leads for a lesser value added to the recycling sector dealing with secondary raw materials
and hence more susceptible to exploitation by intermediate dealers (80). The following table gives a
comprehensive idea about the activity and the associated added value to the stream of secondary
raw materials:

Figure 59 - Value Addition processes in Recycling Industry in ascending order of Hierarchy(Adopted from (80))

Rag-pickers/Scavengers: At the ground level of the recycling industry lies the group of people called
as rag-pickers/scavengers. The primary purpose of this group is to identify all the potentially valued
materials from the waste stream and collect the same. They are highly skilled / well informed about
the potential valued waste items. Ahmedabad city harbors a force of at least 80,000 rag-pickers
working within the solid waste management system. Their primary work zones are generally
nuisance spots created by local community, street waste, community bins and more importantly
open dumping grounds like Pirana open dump yard. The task force working at the dump site is
normally divided into different groups. Each group engages in collecting a particular type of
recyclable/valuable material from the fresh dump of everyday. Figure 60 shows the image of
informal sector people collecting valuable wastes from different location.

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 Figure 60 - Collection of Recyclable/Valuable materials from solid waste stream (45)

One of the major problems with the system is the lowest wages that the people in this sector
command. Since most of the members in rag-pickers are underage children, wages per day are as
little as 30-50/- day (0.44-0.73 per day). Secondly, the health conditions of these people take a
severe hit due to the extreme working conditions (Figure 61).

Figure 61 - Underage Children working at a segregating facility (Source:

http://www.epw.in/system/files/images/waste_pickers/DSC_0028.jpg)

Itinerant waste buyers: There are two different models for itinerant waste buyers that can be
identified at this level of the supply chain. One model represents the connection to the informal
section and work as the receiving end for the rag-pickers to sell their daily collected material.
Generally, the rag-pickers live in the slums areas that are controlled and dominated by a bunch of
leaders. These leaders buy the daily collected valuable materials from the rag-pickers and hence
form the first model of the itinerant waste buyers. Money is paid based on per kg weight of the
material. The rates are said to be determined based on the market price of the primary raw
material as well as the profit margins required by the top members of the chain. The second model
is a white collar establishment that works on either a call-to-collect basis or alternately annual
contract basis. Three prominent business models have been identified in the city: Wealth out of
waste (WoW), Pastiwala.com and lets recycle. These white collar models seem to compete with
the existing and much successful variant, the informal sector. They essentially eliminate entire chain
of middle men from the recycling supply lines and directly supply the material to the mills engaged
in recycling to produce secondary raw material. Though WoW claims to command only 1% of the

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entire market of the city, they essentially work by taking the livelihood away from the informal
sector/junk dealers who have been operating in the market since decades.

WoW provides a door-to-door collection service for dry recyclables. They have a dedicated call
center to register a collection request. When a household wishes to sell any kind of dry recyclable
like bottles, paper, cardboard, metals, electronics, plastics, etc., they can register for a collection
service at the WoW number (079 4040 1000). Within 24 hours, the collection van collects all the
recyclables from the concerned household. The money is paid up-front. Special software has been
developed by the firm to keep the collection van updated about the latest rates to be offered to
clients. Pastiwala.com and lets recycle work on an annual contract basis. They work with corporates,
commercial establishments, offices and large communities to collect their recyclables at fixed time
and dates per year. Lets recycle claims to offer service to collect any kind of dry waste. However,
they do not offer door-to-door collection services to regular households. Pastiwala.com deals with
only paper and cardboard wastes. A general idea of the items that are collected/not collected by
these agencies can be found out in Figure 62.

Figure 62 - Things WoW buys/does not buy from customers (Source: wow.waspap.com)

Door-to-Door/AMC Waste Collectors: It has been observed that the people who are generally
contracted for door-to-door services engage in regular on-travel segregation of dry recyclable waste.
Large bags filled with plastic recyclables can be seen behind the contracted AMC vehicles (Figure 63).
The statistics of the contribution of such practices to the overall waste picking is unknown however
the practices are termed as completely unsafe due to absence of protective/safety gears.

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 Figure 63 - Manual Segregation by Door-to-door/AMC waste collectors (45)

Junk Shops: Junks shops form the set of middle men that are prevailing within the informal segment
of the recyclable chain. The leaders from the respective slums and other controlled territories sell
their daily collected material to these shops. Also, individual waste collectors who generally visit
community areas on a four-wheeled hand trolleys are the customers for these shops. These junk
shops collect the recyclable waste in a mixed as well as segregated form. Depending on the level of
segregation, the price is paid to the deliverer. These junk shops are also known to collect electronic
waste. The devices are bought at the shop, broken down into components (plastics, PCBs, Copper,
glass, etc.) and individual materials sold in their respective recycling stream lines.

Figure 64 - A small Junk Shop located at Helmet Circle, Ahmedabad; Individual waste collectors four-wheeled trolley;
worker sorting the collected recyclable waste into their respective streams (Source: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-
0uj92LPl0eM/Tc1d9aRB9_I/AAAAAAAACUQ/5Bao50CJA1A/s1600/IMG_0148+ed.jpg)

Brokers/Wholesalers: The wholesalers/brokers command a powerful position in the chain. They

generally possess a large storage capacity in addition to equipment necessary to melt, compress or

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convert the recyclables in form the raw materials needed by the recycling industry (Figure 65). Their
power is mainly accrued by their position as the primary as well as sole supplier of the collected
recyclables to the recycling industry. Also, on the lower end, the entire city is dominated by one or
two major players to whom the entire set of junk shops sell their products. Jan Impex, Ahmedabad,
is one such scrap wholesaler/broker who deals with exports/imports related to the plastic/metal
recyclables. These wholesalers sell their material depending on the offered price range by the local
as well as neighboring state recyclers. Around 15-20% of the collected recyclables might be sold
outside of Gujarat (preferably Rajasthan).

Figure 65 - Metal & Plastic recycling waste stored at brokers/wholesalers depot (Source: www.indiamart.com)

Economics driving informal recycling

The recycling industries are the demand creators in the entire supply chain. There are around 1777
registered plastic recycling units in the country. Of these, Tamil Nadu has 588, Gujarat has 365,
Karnataka 302, Kerala 193 and Madhya Pradesh has 179 (56). In total, India recycles around
2,000,000 MT of plastics per year of which 500,000 MT is recycled in Gujarat (57).

The selection and price of the recyclables to be purchased by these companies is mainly market
driven. The factors affecting this decision are mainly dependent on expected income levels,
existence of lucrative localized supply markets, prices of the primary raw materials, government
regulations and essentially in-house demand for secondary raw material. Since the demand for
secondary raw materials is significantly higher in the country, the complete recycling industry is able
to exist and flourish as per the existing conditions. Lower income and lower product prices further
accelerate the demand for secondary raw material at competitive rates as compared to the primary
raw material.

The price range offered for various recyclable materials is generally market determined and
approximate values are as shown in table ##. The informal sector is aware of the value of each
recyclable material. Materials offering higher profit margins are scavenged first. Rag-pickers belong
to the lower income group of the society, but not essentially the poorest of the society (81). Two
primary reasons are responsible for the low income of the scavengers: 1) positioning at the bottom
of the recycling industry pyramid and 2) highly unorganized nature of the collection system. At
present, around 1% of the urban population is working in the informal sector collection recyclables
out of the solid waste streams and only 24 known organizations have been established to cater to
the needs of the scavengers (82). Absence of any power to voice the opinion, the scavengers are the
most exploited members in the entire supply chain and hence command the lowest income from the
group.

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Primarily, the scavenging and waste picking work in India since 16th-17th century has been
undertaking by the lower strata of society called as untouchables. Even today, any amounts of
disparity or economic slow wont compel any other members of the society to take up the jobs of
scavenging. Hence, in a way, this job offers a sense of security and guaranteed income to those
involved (82).

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