POLITICS OF GARBAGE GOVERNANCE: THE TRIAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE IN KOCHI

Introduction
Waste management practices in Kerala are becoming more and more challenging these days. The struggles of Vilappilsala, Laloor and Brahmapuram clearly depict the dilemma of environmental inequality resulting from the current waste management practices. In the majority of districts in Kerala, a centralized system of waste management is adopted and the most common practice is that the entire citys waste is dumped in its outskirts, most probably in any village areas. Hence the villagers have to bear the brunt of waste and its pollution generated by the city dwellers. This paper tries to provide a critical account of the present waste governance system of Kochi. It demonstrates the different kinds of impact that the present Brahmapuram solid waste treatment plant (which handles the Kochi citys waste) has on its neighbouring community and it also tries to throw some light on the root causes behind such impacts. The paper will confront the process of politicization that have emerged within the field of municipal solid waste by adopting a political ecology approach, which permits the consideration of multitude of actors, institutions and structures involved in waste management discourse in order to bring out the real factors contributing to the waste problem and environmental justice. The outline of the paper is as follows. In the first Part, attention is given to the waste governance discourses and practices, political ecology and the rural urban dialectics related to waste in order to set the foundations for an analytically rich investigation of waste governance and resultant environmental injustice. Different theories and concepts are also discussed here. The second part deals with the empirical study conducted at Mattancherry and Brahmapuram. The findings of the study and an assessment of the problems and prospects encountered by adopting such a governance policy to tackle the issue of waste and its resultant environmental injustice are also discussed here. Finally, the 3rd Part presents critical reflections on the politics of waste governance and environmental injustice to propose some suggestions.

The Waste Management Discourse

Societies have long created rules about the regulation of 1waste within communities. Ancient civilizations such as the Minoans created a basic system of burying solid wastes and the Romans institutionalized the first known municipal waste collection where households threw their waste into the streets to be collected by horse and cart and transported to an open pit (Wilson, 1977:3). Attention to the 1

removal of wastes from communities has also been identified in the roots of other societies such as the
2

New Zealand Mori who have long adhered to a notion of kaitiakitanga (resource stewardship) in order

to maintain the integrity of environments (Barlow, 1991). Many Asian cities collected waste in clay containers which were hauled away (Vesilind et al., 2002). 3The Indus valley civilization was very famous for its well established drainage and waste governance system. The city of Mohenjo-daro had houses equipped with waste chutes and trash bins, and had waste collection systems (Melosi, 1981). The waste management discourse in India can not be understood in isolation to its prevailed caste system in which each caste groups were assigned a particular profession. That is, the Brahmins were assigned with duty of prayer and learning spiritual texts whereas the Kshathriyars were the warriors, Vaisyars were the merchants, Sudras were the servants and finally the 4untouchables (or the outcast, who were placed outside the caste hierarchy) were generally assigned the task of refuse removal (especially the night soil removal). It was a division of labour and power in society. Such unequal power dynamics have contributed to different kinds of environmental inequalities which have been evident since the first cities were founded several thousand years ago. For example, in great ancient cities like Cairo, Rome, and Athens, those groups who were poor or politically powerless generally bore the brunt of solid waste problems (Pellow, 2002: 23). While populations remained relatively small and dispersed, waste management was not at all a concern. As populations grew and processes of urbanization accelerated, concentrations of waste increased and people began to view it as a nuisance when public started to litter the waste on streets and other public places. The budding environmental consciousness that made urbanites sensitive to impure water supplies, poor drainage and sewage, and smoky skies also influenced their thinking about solid wastes. Then the traditional acceptance of individual responsibility for waste management gradually made way for an acknowledgement of community responsibility (Melosi, 2005:17). Later it was increasingly seen as a technical problem which fell into the hands of sanitary engineers and the main focus shifted to technical waste disposal methods. The Eurocentric theories like ecological modernization (idea that the environmental problems can be solved with the modern technological advancements in a context where the policies of liberalization and privatization are applied) resulted in a global thirst for technological advancement. Most of the time, these 5high-tech waste management practices couldnt find a solution to the waste menace as it was found to be in-compatible with the local conditions. As the history and processes of waste management and dumping were changing, multiple stakeholders started to get involved in this discourse, not just dumpers and community residents but also the long-standing traditions of institutionalised classism and politics of spaces started to come to play 6. 2

The responsibility of waste management shifted from the individual to the state and finally to the market system today. 7There are a number of privately operated waste management companies around the globe. And these companies have created yet another discourse, 8an out of sight, out of mind attitude, which increased the alienation of household trash from the individual. And finally, all these waste disposal methods whether privately or publicly operated, opened new challenges when more people became involved in garbage issues and those who living near disposal sites became ardently opposed to it. Such waste management practices frequently divided public opinion and gave rise to a different form of struggles for justice. Many parts of the world have witnessed such forms of environmental inequalities in its history.

Political Ecology of Waste

There are various theories that examine waste within the context of consumption, distribution and excretion. By doing so, these theories fail to grasp capitalism as a totalizing mode of production that mediates and determines the processes of consumption, distribution, and wasting. Therefore, a 9political ecology (PE) approach is found to be useful for linking waste, environmental degradation and related injustices with capitalism. Political ecology explores the power relations between society and nature embedded in social interests, institutions, knowledge and imaginaries that weave the life worlds of the people (Leff, 2012:1) The major contribution of political ecologists has been to highlight the politicized nature of environmental issues and the power inequalities that shape decisions about environmental management or exploitation (Bryant and Bailey 1997; Hardoy et al. 1992). It promulgates a world wide sense of equity and fairness or environmental justice (Martinez Alier, 2002). We can trace the precursors of this emergent field of inquiry, back to the historical dialectical materialism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in which political ecology refers to power relations in human-environmental interactions, in hierarchical and class structures in the process of production and the social appropriation of nature. The cumulative threat to humanity and the earth arising from the existing capitalist mode of development is the major concern here. PE is a very useful tool in understanding important connection between environmental and political (Power) variables in analyzing the environmental problems of the third world. In the modern society, with a long history of capitalism, developed countries have tried, and still trying to control the natural resources outside their own regions, to capitalize on, and to use to their own benefits, the current social, economic, political arrangements. This behavior generates conflicts within the developing countries regarding access to environmental services and resources, and the burdens of pollution (e.g. the 3

carbon intensity of imports and exports), which Martinez-Alier (2002) calls ecological distribution conflicts. In general terms, PE analyses these ecological distribution conflicts, and the associated political and economic obstacles to the resolution of the environmental problems in the Third World (Adebayo et.al, 2011:33). PE in developing countries consists of two important perspectives. On the one hand there is a focus on the complex relationships between cultural forms, environmental management practices and resource use. These relationships are embedded in a wider set of political and economic structures and describe somehow the lack of cooperation culture towards waste management issues shaped by the poor socio-economic conditions in such contexts. On the other hand the focus emphasizes the implications of the unequal distribution of power and wealth in the society that shapes a complex political arena that has led these developing countries into a precarious situation characterized, among others, by the extreme poverty, low utilization of natural resources, low economic development and severe dependence on industrialized countries (Bryant and Bailey, 1997). In that order, current political ecologists concur on two basic and important points. They harmonize that the environmental problems facing developing countries are not simply manifestation of policy or market failures, but a reflection of broader political and economic forces. They argue that those forces are associated with the global spread of capitalism since the nineteenth century, and have worked largely in describing the spatial and temporal impact of capitalism on people and their environments in developing countries, analyzing the adverse social and environmental consequences of capitalistic development. Another area of agreement among political ecologists is the need to reach significant changes in local, regional and global political-economic processes which will not occur without considerable struggle since they require the alteration of series of highly uneven power dealing upon which the present system is based. The lack of political and market power preclude developing countries from promoting environmental protection policies. The unequal trade that has enriched developed countries places them as responsible actors in the environmental crisis. However, PE argues that social and environmental contradictions of the global capitalist system are such as to work against the effects of all efforts to change the status quo, therefore, making the struggle even harder (Peet and Watts, 1996a cited by Adebayo, 2011: 34). Thus PE is much clearer on the need to emphasize the role of politics, both in terms of understanding current ecological conflicts and in devising a way out of the growing environmental crisis in the third world (Bryant and Bailey, 1997). 4

Consumption can be regarded as the heart of waste problem. The current capitalist economic system demands its goods to be quickly discarded 10 for more goods to be purchased which ultimately poses threats to the environment and humanity. Heather Rogers introduces a concept called
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built-in

obsolescence to explain todays intensive disposability of productive system. Under the rationale of builtin obsolescence, durable items were manufactured to be less durable, and whole new categories of products were created to be disposable from the outset and landing in the trash at an increasing pace. This kind of an economy is maintained through advertising, which conditions individuals to view themselves as consumers that will continuously be improved by new purchases.The most important aftermath of capitalist political economy was the dramatic increased contribution of plastic to the waste stream.
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Modern plastic packaging has made life easier in many ways, but it ultimately resulted in the high

consumption of plastic products at the cost of the environment. Once the value of a commodity is realized through its purchase (i.e. the realization of profit), capital no longer cares what happens to that item. It is indifferent to the spatiality of that item, or its effect on the physical environment (namely the social and ecological impacts of post-consumer waste and waste disposal practices, understood predominantly as landfills and incineration, both of which have their negative ecological and social impacts) (Julie, 2007:117). Hence the logic of capitalistic economic system as something that externalizes costs onto the environment and to individual consumers through the disposal of garbage, but also through increased resource extraction, manufacturing, and distribution to make and sell replacement goods, as a means of keeping consumption and profits, and therefore the economy as a whole, growing. So, the political ecology of waste emphasizes the importance of the process of production, distribution, consumption and disposal in a capitalist global economy to understand the real factors contributing to the waste problem. It aims to prioritize a reunification of concerns with ecology and culture within the political realm of decision making in order to evaluate the outcomes of governance.

The Rural Urban Scenario of Waste Governance

Important environmental considerations of relevance to cities occur outside the built-up areas themselves, and often outside city or metropolitan boundaries. These include environmental considerations in the surrounding region which usually comprises large areas defined as (or considered) rural. The inhabitants and the natural resource base of this wider region are usually affected by a series of environmental impacts coming from or influenced by city-based activities or city-generated wastes (Hardoy et and al, 1992:109). Generally, urban lifestyles generate significantly more solid waste than rural livelihoods (Gutberlet, 2008:5). In the case of real rural households, theres no such concept of solid 5

waste management since the use non-biodegradable products are comparatively less 13. David Harvey (1989) offers a framework for understanding urban garbage that links the material with the cultural and ideological spheres:
In the realm of commodity production, the primary effect (of the postmodern condition) has been to emphasize the values and virtues of instaneity (instant and fast foods, meals, and other satisfactions) and of disposability (cups, plates, cutlery, packaging, napkins, clothing, etc). . . . It meant more than just throwing away produced goods (creating a monumental waste disposal problem), but also being able to throw away values, lifestyles, stable relationships, and attachments to things, buildings, places, people, and received ways of doing and being. (286)

Harvey uses garbage as a metaphor for the postmodern condition and as a material object (the monumental waste disposal problem) to represent changing forms of capitalism. This form of capitalism based on instantaneity and represented by packaging (especially the increased plastic production). According to him, the urban space is deemed too valuable for waste disposal within the boundaries of the city, the hierarchization of uses within the city becomes even more classed and racialized so that citys garbage can be processed in the outer boroughs, most often a rural space, since the land is cheaper. For Martinez-Alier (2003) even if intra-local practices or distributions can be conceived as just according to one or another set of criteria, they can result in unjust extra-local outcomes. That is when policies to promote urban sustainability simply displace environmental problems and injustices to regional scales (Holifield, 2010:5). For example, in New York City, community-based mobilizations against solid waste incineration helped rectify environmental health disparities at the urban neighborhood scale, but at the same time helped promote regional injustices through the export of the citys waste to distant, often rural localities (Gandy, 2002: 3) which can be regarded as the worst form of environmental injustice.

The Concept of Environmental Justice

The South African Environmental Justice Networking Forum definition is Environmental justice is about social transformation directed towards meeting basic human needs and enhancing our quality of lifeeconomic quality, health care, housing, human rights, environmental protection, and democracy. In linking environmental and social justice issues the environmental justice approach seeks to challenge the abuse of power which results in poor people having to suffer the effects of environmental damage caused by the greed of others (EJNF 1997). At its core, environmental justice is about incorporating environmental issues into the broader intellectual and institutional framework of human rights and democratic accountability. The term necessarily encompasses the widest possible definition of what is considered environmental and is unrepentantly anthropocentric in its orientation placing people, rather than flora and fauna, at the center of a complex web of social, economic, political, and environmental relationships. Most importantly, it 6

concerns itself primarily with the environmental injustices of these relationships, and the ways and means of rectifying these wrongs and/or avoiding them in the future (Mc Donald, 2002:3). However, the basic defining concern of the environmental injustice14 discourse has been the inequitable social distribution of environmental bads or the negative outcomes (Doyle, 2008: 48). Environmental injustice occurs when members of disadvantaged, ethnic, minority or other groups suffer disproportionately at the local, regional (sub-national), or national levels from environmental risks or hazards, and/or suffer disproportionately from violations of fundamental human rights as a result of environmental factors, and/or denied access to environmental investments, benefits, and/or natural resources, and/or are denied access to information; and/or participation in decision making; and/or access to justice in environment-related matters (Dona Tracy, 2007). The environmental justice discourse owes its origin to the movements that took place in the US, during the 1970s, and was concerned with the inequitable distribution, primarily racially, of environmental risks (Amerasinghe, et al., 2008:9). An early example of such environmental justice movement occurred in the low-income working community of Love Canal, New York in 1978, when community members discovered that over twenty thousand tons of toxic waste was buried beneath their neighbourhood, causing serious health problems (Gibbs, 2002:98). A grassroots movement of local residents was able to successfully win the relocation of working-class families and brought the issue of environmental justice to the attention of the nation. Following Love Canal, a similar case took place in 1982 in
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Warren County, North Carolina. The residents discovered that harmful chemical industrial

facilities and toxic waste landfill sites had been located intentionally in the residential areas of an African American community. Following the Warren County discovery, toxic waste dumps, landfills, incinerators, and polluting industries were found to be disproportionately located in communities with a high density of poor and minorities (Bullard, 1994:556) and this gave rise to a number of movements throughout the world. In the case of countries like India, the caste and class discriminations play an important role in perpetuating to environmental injustice. The 16Bhopal tragedy (1984), one of the worlds most devastating disasters, has come to be a classic case for environmental injustice. The site chosen to set up the factory was in the midst of an economically and socially marginalised community of old Bhopal, mostly comprising unorganised workers and agricultural labourers (Patricia Moore, 2007: 66). The victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy were low income and low caste folk and it shows the underlying 17politics of caste system. 7

Environmental

justice

is a multidimensional

phenomenon.

David Schlosberg (2004)

conceptualises environmental justice as having three related dimensions or values: distribution, procedure and recognition. Distributional justice concerns the principles and processes for sharing benefits and harms. Procedural justice is in terms of how geography plays into the inclusions and exclusions of environmental decision making. Recognition justice is in terms of the processes of disrespect, insult and degradation that devalue some people and some place identities in comparison to others (Fraser, 2001: 24). The nature of contemporary environmental issues and their social responses has led to the development of a global environmental justice perspective today. This has fore-grounded questions about political and economic forces that produce injustices and contributes to an understanding of the inadequacies of justice-as-distribution. Therefore, justice is itself contested. This includes contestation of which dimensions are more valid or fundamental, but also the underlying contest for discursive power, over whose framing of environmental justice counts (Adrain Martin, 2013:101). The key analytical task is to examine how issues of distribution, procedure and recognition are being interpreted in claims and counterclaims for environmental justice, in order to assess how environmental justice is taking shape in practice (Wastson & Bulkeley: 2005).

Section II
Municipal Waste Policy in Kochi over the Years Kochi, the fast-growing city, with 700,000 people plus a floating population of 100,000, generates around 380 tonnes of municipal solid waste each day; 150 tonnes are biodegradable and 100 tonnes are plastic (Kushpal, 2007). The city never had any effective garbage treatment facilities earlier. A landfill at Cheranellore village had to be abandoned in 1998 after public agitation led to the village council passing a resolution against dumping. The municipal corporation acquired 15 hectares the same year in Brahmapuram in Vadavukod-Puthancruz, a suburban village, for a solid waste treatment plant. But that land was marshy; sitting very close to the Kadambrayar River, a major fresh water body that connects with the rivers Chitrappuzha and Manaykkathodu. Four village panchayats depend on the Kadambrayar for drinking water, and about 300 families of fish workers also depend on it. The villagers were up in arms against the dumping site coming up in their neighbourhood and the dumping site had to be shelved. After exhausting all other options in 2002, the corporation started dumping at a site owned by the Cochin Port Trust, close to the headquarters of the Southern Naval Command on Wellington Island. The navy allowed a stopgap sanitary landfill to give time for the construction of a proposed solid waste treatment 8

plant. But this created a problem of birds congregated at the garbage dump, and bird hits became more likely for aircraft at INS Garuda, the navy's aviation establishment. A disaster was averted when a bird hit a Dornier aircraft of the Coast Guard near INS Garuda, dangerously close to large oil tanks close to the runway, and in the vicinity of a thickly populated area. Matters came to a head on September 30, 2006, when the navy asked the municipal corporation to stop dumping. In December 2006, the Municipal Corporation of Kochi came up with another way of disposing its garbage loading it on to trucks and sending it to remote villages in neighbouring districts; even neighbouring states. On December 6, 19 garbage trucks from Kochi reached the Moolahalla forest checkpost near Bandipur National Park in the neighbouring state of Karnataka. Having traversed five districts of Kerala, they were headed to Gundulpett, a small village 20 km from the check post and the garbage was dumped on some private land. At some places, like Kambamettu on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border and Veeranpotta near Nalleppilly in Palakkad district, the residents protested against waste dumping which ultimately worsened Kochis waste menace. On January 5, 2007, a division bench of the Kerala High Court directed the municipal corporation to dump waste at Brahmapuram. The court ordered it to seek police protection if faced with villagers' protests. For the time being, the land owned by the Greater Cochin Development Authority at Mundamveli was used for dumping (Down to earth, 15 March 2007). The corporation had set up a solid waste treatment plant at Brahmapuram in a time-bound manner, and it started functioning June 2008 onwards even without getting the clearance from the Kerala State Pollution Control Board. Since then, there had been a number of protests from the part of Brahmapuram residents against the functioning of the plant. Even though the present Brahmapuram Solid Waste Treatment Plant succeeded in solving Kochis waste menace to a great extent, it has become a classic case of environmental injustice. The lives of most of the residents of Puthencruze-Vadavukodu grama panchayath, who live near the Waste Treatment Plant, are in shambles today. Data Collection for the study Data for this study were gathered between August-November 2012. Mixed methodologies were employed for the study. Using stratified random sampling method, 98 households were selected from the
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fifth ward of Kochi Corporation (Mattancherry) for the quantitative study, in order to bring out a critical

account of the municipal waste governance in Kochi city by examining the rationalities, structures and practices (state and civic) in the waste field. The qualitative data was collected by the case study of five families in Brahmapuram (Vadavukod-Puthancruz village, where the waste treatment plant is situated). 9

Documentary analysis and in-depth interviews with key persons (activists, politicians and officials) were also employed to gather qualitative data for analysing the rationalities and outcome of present waste governance system. The theoretical frame work used in this study is the political ecology approach provided by Myers (2005) in his analysis of waste management in urban areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, which is more suitable for the analysis of waste governance in the case of developing country like India. The overarching aim of this approach is the examination of outcomes which is centered on the triad concerns of governance; the how (the structures and practices), why (rationalities) and what (impacts or outcomes) of governing processes. Results and Discussion i. Rationalities, Structures and Practices of Waste Governance The analysis of how (structures and practices) and why (rationalities) of garbage governance are the two major concerns of political ecology of waste governance through which, the distributional, procedural and recognition aspect of environmental justice can be revealed. For this purpose, present municipal waste governance policy of Kochi is analysed along with the civic principles and practices. It has been established that there exists a general consensus across governance analysis, especially in the waste arenas, that attention needs to be paid to the rationalities, structures and practices of both the state and the society resulting in a particular outcome (Anna Davies, 2008: 36). So, in this study both state and society centered approach is adopted. State Centered Analysis The waste management responsibility of Kochi lies in the hands of Cochin City Corporation. The Health Department of the Corporation is responsible for sanitation facilities, solid waste management and other public health functions in the Cochin Corporation. A Corporation Health Officer, a medical doctor by qualification, heads the Health Department. The collection, transportation, disposal of Municipal solid waste is the responsibility of the Health Department while the Engineering Department assists them in planning, formulation of programs and in procurement of vehicles, equipment and developing the waste management facilities. The Project Engineer is responsible for engineering components of solid waste management and vehicle procurement and maintenance (http://www.corporationofcochin, 2012).
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The present waste governance system of Kochi is as follows. A centralized system of waste

governance is adopted by the corporation, i.e., garbage is collected from the different parts of the city by a 10

door to door collection method which is done by various agencies (mainly by Kudumbasree, private agencies or by the corporation workers) at a nominal charge of Rs.20 to 100 per month. The task of sorting out the waste into degradable and non-biodegradable waste rests on the public. Collected waste is then transported to the Brahmapuram Solid Waste Treatment Plant, where the bio-degradable waste is used for producing the manure. The plastic wastes are dumped in the nearby land. Wastes from the nearby municipalities like Eloor, Paravoor, Aluva and Thrikkakara are also handled in this plant. Society Centered Analysis Fagan (2004), in his work, Waste Management and its Contestation in the Republic of Ireland, highlights the limitations of nation state politics for the resolution of contemporary issues of waste there by bringing out the role of society into the technical field of waste management. So, its important to explore what people understand about garbage and how they dispose it. In the present study, the garbage disposal practice of urbanites, which are shaped by the cognitive structures are analysed in order elicit a society centered approach to waste governance. For this purpose, their garbage disposal behavior and attitude of the urbanites are examined20. Major findings: Garbage disposal practice: The garbage disposal behavior of the urbanites was found to be very healthy.
21

Sorting out the waste was identified as the most significant pro-environmental behavior

followed by the habit of taking a carry bag for shopping, handing over the plastic and newspaper for recycling and growing vegetable garden to manage their kitchen waste. The habit of reusing 22 was also significant to some extent. Attitude towards waste management: The respondents regard waste management as a mutual responsibility of individuals and the governments. Most of them commented that they feel a personal obligation to support governments waste disposal schemes and rules because they conceive it as a problem that affects society at a large and feel that the present problem of waste governance and related injustices as a consequence of inefficient government policies. According to them, such environmental injustices are inevitable in any society and most of them suggested that a better technology could solve the issues that some disadvantaged sections of the society are bearing. Discussion Here, the public perception about waste management is very technical and they regard themselves as a group exhibiting pro-environmental behavior. They think with the sorting out and handing over the waste to the collectors their responsibility is over. Such a way of thinking lends itself to a technical 11

approach concerned only with enrolling citizens to change their practice of disposal and itll never show any concern for the difficulties that some disadvantaged sections of the society are bearing. It can also have a passive role in opening up the horizons of distributive and procedural injustice issues 23. In the present case, none of them were conscious about their consumption patterns and their role in promoting injustice. As William Morris points out, the capitalist mode of production, which is maintained through advertising, conditions individuals to view themselves as consumer that will continuously be improved by new purchases and end result would be the substantial garbage production at the cost of environment. The reason for taking carry bag for shopping was not their pro-environmental attitude; rather, the policy of Margin Free Market in Mattancherry that doesnt provide any carry bag to its customers was the reason. This also points out to the effectiveness of regulating policies and market mechanisms to control waste generation. The main motive behind the plastic and newspaper recycling was found to be the economic benefit they received. ii Outcome Based Analysis Yet another aim of political ecology approach is the examination of outcomes. Here, the net outcome of the Brahmapuram solid waste treatment plant on its neighboring community as well as for the Kochi city is examined for this purpose. The waste governance strategy, adopted by the Kochi Corporation found success in making the city clean to a great extent. But with the implementation of the plant, Brahmapuram village has become the sacrifice zone for the city. The in-depth interviews with key persons and the five intensive case studies conducted at Brahmapuram revealed the following environmental and social impacts. Intolerable stench24 from the plant was the most severe impact of the plant. The present plant sits near Kadambrayar, which is a major fresh water source for the district. Tripunithura, Thrikkakkara, Maradu and several other neighbouring areas of Brahmapuram are receiving highly contaminated water as a result. The environmental damage caused by the waste treatment plant was found to be very severe. The civic body has entrusted the Agri-horticulture Society with the task of developing a green belt around the plant site which was expected reduce these impacts25. But nothing was done in this regard. Brahmparum, which is predominantly an agricultural land, has completely lost its fertility. The ever increasing number of insects, flies and rodents26 are yet another challenge before them. Regarding health hazards, with the increased pollution, the area has become the breeding ground for mosquitoes and other flies resulting in the spread of many vector borne and respiratory diseases. The health hazards like dengue fever, jaundice, malaria and different kinds of skin diseases are also very common here27. 12

In the case of Brahmpuram waste treatment plant, only bio-degradable waste can be used for producing manure28. The non-biodegradable29 waste still remains dumped in the nearby ground. In fact, it is the biggest challenge that the plant is facing today. The practice of sorting out the waste was not there until recent time. So, that waste need to get unpacked from the plastic bags and should get sorted out and treated accordingly. As typical of many development projects, Brahmapuram plant also has a story of displacement to tell. Government had to displace 59 families for setting up this plant. At present, the empty houses of the displaced families have become the centres of antisocial activities. The running of heavy vehicles carrying the citys garbage has completely destructed the main roads of this area. The destruction of Brahmapuram Subrahmanya Kshethram and Kadambra masjid was yet another impact of this plant30.

Section III The Politics of Waste Governance and Environmental Injustice

Environmental justice concerns with waste management have been dominated by locational issues, particularly in the siting of municipal waste management facilities (Elliot et al., 2001). In India, majority of the waste management facilities for the cities are located in its outskirts or neighbouring village area. This often creates tension between neighbourhood communities and civic authorities. There are a number of examples in this regard. Katihar in Bihar; Anchar Lake pollution and Lal Chowk issue of Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir; Deonar, Mulund and Kanjurmarg landfills in Mumbai; Pimpri Chinchwad, Maharashtra, Okhla in New Delhi, Gandhamguda village near Hyderabad, Andra Pradesh; Mavallipura, Mandur and Togarighatta near Bangalore, Karuvadikuppam in Pondicherry etc are some of the leading instances for such rural urban garbage wars31 in India. The situation of Kerala is much more severe than in any other parts of the country. The oldest movement in Kerala against such injustice was from the part of Pettipalam (a small village in Kannur district) residents which was started in the year 1952 and still it continues. One travelling from the north to the south of Kerala can witness a number of such movements--- Kelugudde, Seethangoli, and Kollangana in Kasaragod; Pettippalam and Chelora in Kannur Njeliyanparambu in Kozhikode (1950 onwards) Pirivushala in Palakkad; Lalur in Thrissur; Chakkukandam in Guruvayur; Brahmapuram in Ernakulam; Vadavathur in Kottayam; Fathimapuram, near Changanassery; Kannaattupaara; near Pala; Kozhencherry in Pathanamthitta; Kureepuzha in Kollam; and Vilappilsala in Thiruvananthapuram. In all these cases villages are made to become the sacrifice zones for the cities. They are forced to live in

13

polluted environments for the cities. Even though there had been many protests against such indiscriminate dumping, the garbage wars between the villagers and the authorities are still going on. In the context of Kochi, the political ecology approach to the waste governance clearly depicted the incident of ecological destruction as well as environmental injustice. Both the society and state centred approach points out to the fact that Citys waste management has been given more priority than the risks that some disadvantaged section of the society are bearing. Just like other cases, the waste treatment plant for the Kochi city is also sited in a socio-economically backward rural area (inhabited by Scheduled Caste and Below Poverty Line population). Right from the implementation of the plant, there had been a number of protests from the part of Brahmapuram Malinya Nikshepa Virudha Samithi and the situation still remains the same. For example, on 15th February 2013 the plastic waste which was dumped in the nearby land of Brahmapuram waste treatment plant caught fire and many of the neighbouring community were hospitalised as a result of this. This has sparked off a stiff resistance against dumping of waste at the plant and there were allegations that the plastic waste was purposely set on fire as the Corporation has no other alternative to deal with the ever increasing plastic waste. The villagers demanded the civic body not to dump even a single load of waste at the plant. But the authorities could easily take control over the situation using legal measures32 and the plant started functioning the very next day onwards. Earlier, when Southern Naval Command on Wellington Island demanded the same thing to Cochin Corporation, by raising the problem of birds, they easily granted the Navys request and tried another way to handle the waste. But when it comes to the case of poor villagers, different kinds of politics start working. In India, majorities of the polluting industries are located at village areas where low caste and low income group live. For example, Kuthambakkam (predominantly a Dalit village) where some of the Corporation of Chennai zones waste is dumped has undergone large scale rezoning for the past few years, putting more and more garbage on the Dalit community (Aswini Srinivasamoha, 2013). Therefore, breaking this power structure is central in achieving environmental justice. Towards Decentralization The waste hierarchy33 represented in the waste strategy 2000 explicitly embodies notions of environmental justice in the siting of waste facilities. It proposes the proximity principle (for decentralized waste management) and the principle of self-sufficiency (regional self sufficiency in managing the waste) for the successful waste governance34.

14

Counter to the centralized system of waste governance, greater number of smaller and probably lower risk facilities can minimise the incidence of distributional injustice. Such a broader spatial distribution of waste management facilities represents a coincidence of the pursuit of environmental sustainability with inter-generational and intra-generational environmental justice 35 (North East Assembly, 2003). This option would reduce risks to future generations, as is consistent with the proximity and self-sufficiency principles, and potentially encouraging more local communities to take responsibility for the waste they produce. There are a number of success stories for decentralized waste management in Kerala itself:- waste management in Mangalapady Village Panchayat in Kasaragode district, as an example of multi-village panchayat partnership36, decentralized solid waste management in Chunakkara village panchayat in Alappuzha district as an example of Panchayat NGO Community Partnership 37 and decentralized solid waste management in Alappuzha municipality as an example of community based solid waste management in an urban situation38. However, the real solution to the waste menace doesnt lie at the waste management practices; rather controlling its generation. Therefore, the system of production that relies so heavily on the exploitation of nature must be changed. Need for a structural change As the capitalist mode of production extends, so also does the utilization of the refuse left behind by production and consumption. Under the heading of production we have the waste products of industry and agriculture, under that of consumption we have both the excrement produced by mans natural metabolism and the form in which useful articles survive after use has been made of them. Karl Marx, Capital 3 (195) Marxs description of an extended and intensified capitalist production in volume three of Capital not only speaks to the waste produced by contemporary economies of scale, but also to the waste produced by consumption as well as its potential reclamation. The way we handle our wastes today and the discourse around itlitter, recycling, and the increasingly popular green consumerismcontinue to put the onus for environmental destruction, and salvation, on the individual. Its important to challenge this idea, to push for political solutions that reach into the sphere of production to limit toxicity, and require greater durability and serviceability, so that less trash gets created from the outset (Joshua Gooch, 2003:1). Short of remaking our political and economic systems, there are changes that can be implemented that start to move toward a more equitable and sustainable treatment of the environment by regulating the production system (Heather Rogers, 2007). Since the packaging (which is characteristic

15

capitalist mode of production) holds the greatest proportion in the waste stream, regulating the current market system would help in reducing the waste. For example, Germany passed the Packaging Ordinance in 1991 to cope with a rubbish disposal crisis; facing geographical limits on landfill space and inadequate incinerator capacity, its conservative government decided to reduce the countrys garbage output39. Adopting the extended producer responsibility40 (EPR) policy can also tackle the solid waste management issues in the case of developing countries (Lindhqvist, 2000). EPR basically aims to improve the end-of-life management of products and to foster a cleaner production. This idea implies the fact that to reach a satisfactory treatment of waste, the characteristics and design of the products should be changed and not only the waste treatment procedures.

Conclusion
The political ecology approach to Kochis waste governance clearly depicted the ways in which garbage is imposed upon vulnerable population who have no role in its generation. The power equations which are shaped by the caste as well as class politics, the capitalistic political economy and the rural urban dialectics were identified as the key factors contributing environmental injustice in the present case. It has become a classic case of environmental injustice in which the powerful influences important environmental decisions and it also shows the ways in which voices of powerless are devalued. In Obioras view, environmental justice is not simply an attack against environmental discrimination, but a movement to rein in and subject corporate and bureaucratic decision-making, as well as relevant market processes, to democratic scrutiny and accountability (Ako, 2013:3). Environmental decisions often mirror the power arrangements of the larger society and reflect the continuing bias of varying kind. All over the world, corporations build their polluting factories, toxic dumps, and other dangerous industrial projects among people who are most oppressed by poverty and low status. In this way, poor communities become dumping grounds for toxic industries, products, and pollution. This is why constructing an environmentally just society is not a matter of each of us changing the products we use and how we dispose of them, but of all of us challenging how the powerful abuse their power and how the most vulnerable among us are made to suffer damage to their health and environment.

Notes

16

Garbage, rubbish, trash, refuse, detritus or waste is defined as Materials that are not prime products (i.e. products produced for the market) for which the generator has no further use for own purpose of production, transformation or consumption, and which he discards, or intends or is required to discard. Wastes may be generated during the extraction of raw materials during the processing of raw materials to intermediate and final products, during the consumption of final products, and during any other human activity (OECD/Eurostat 2007, 277). 2 In Mori culture, Papatuanuku (the earth) is extremely important and tangata whenua (local people) have a vital role as kaitiaki (guardians) for it. Waste can reduce or destroy the life supporting capacity of soils by damaging the mauri (life essence) of the land and affecting the Taonga (that which is to be prized or treasured) of resources therefore the places where it is disposed of are considered carefully 3 The Indus Valley Civilization (also known as Harappan Civilization) was a Bronze Age civilization (33001300 BCE; mature period 26001900 BCE) extending from what today is northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India. Along with Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia it was one of three early civilizations of the Old World, and of the three the most widespread. It flourished in the basins of the Indus River, one of the major rivers of Asia, and the Ghaggar-Hakra River, which once coursed through northwest India and eastern Pakistan 4 They belong to different sub-castes of Scheduled Castes. These include Bhangi, Balmiki, Dhanuk, Mehtar, Paki, Thotti, Masiga, Mira, Lalbegi and Sikkauar in different regional and language groups in India. They are placed at the very bottom of the hierarchy of Dalits (AFC, 2007). 5 The solutions are usually built upon high-tech, high-cost, short-term and very centralized (top-down) choices that are simply imported from the industrialized western world, to be transposed or applied in the developing world context, which possesses its own uniqueness in many respects, resulting in less than favorable outcomes. Western businesses, international organizations and banks sometimes facilitate such transfer of technology; nevertheless the experience shows the results have not been quite effective (Medina, 2010; Blight and Mbande, 1998). 6 In any society, the environmental bads are likely to be imposed upon the socio-economically powerless society. For example, a 1990 Greenpeace report on the siting of incinerators concluded that communities with existing incinerators had poor and people of color populations 89 percent higher than the national average, and communities with proposed incinerators had people of color populations 60 percent higher than the national average. In the case of India, waste management facilities are generally located at areas were low income group live. 7 The new discourse is in such a way that the Garbage Man or the trash collection company shouldnt bother the trash producers by large and noisy collections and the present privately operated trash collectors are willing to market themselves to meet such customer desires also; however, it also illustrates the consumer mindset about our waste: the trash should disappear, without the customer seeing or hearing it. This desired alienation from household waste seems to be the first obstacle that must be overcome to make meaningful progress on waste production (Margaret, 2012) 8 The proverb out of sight, out of mind, is also used to denote the ignorance of the ecological impact (waste byproducts) of the production process, both on the environment and also on human health. 9 Allegedly, the term political ecology appeared for the first time in the academic literature in an article by Frank Throne in 1935. It emerged as a field of theoretical inquiry and political action in response to the environmental crisis: to the destruction of the conditions of sustainability of human civilization caused by the economic process and the technologization of life. Where as in the South, it was emerged from a politics of difference rooted in the ecological and cultural conditions of its people; from their emancipation strategies for decolonization of knowledge, reinvention of territories and re-appropriation of nature (Porto-Goncalves & Leff, 2012). 10 Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing pace (Lebow, 1955). 11 That is, designing products to wear out faster than they need to, through technological obsolescence, fashion obsolescence, or some combination of the two. Understanding built-in obsolescence and the historic moment that produced it is key to understanding. Built-in obsolescence offered the possibility to generate new consumption among those who already had everything they needed. 12 Plastics are used to manufacture everyday products and its widespread use demands proper end of life management. 13 The household waste, primarily food scraps are thrown into a pit behind the house or used for feeding the livestock. 14 Examples of environmental injustices are: exposure to waste facilities, landfills, or industrial facilities, toxic wastes etc. 15 Even though the people of Warren County ultimately lost the battle; the toxic waste was eventually deposited in that landfill. But their story -- one of ordinary people driven to desperate measures to protect their homes from a toxic assault -- drew national media attention and fired the imagination of people across the country who had lived through similar injustice. The street protests and legal challenges mounted by the people of Warren County to fight the landfill are considered by many to be the first major milestone in the national movement for environmental justice 16 The Bhopal disaster, also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy, was a gas leak incident in India, considered the world's worst industrial disaster. It occurred on the night of 23 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Over 5,00,000 people were exposed to methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals.

17 Bhopal is the capital of Madhya Pradesh, the Indian state with highest number of tribal population. Predominantly its population belongs to marginalised communities such as scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (the most vulnerable people). Hence it was very easy for the Union Carbide Company to set up their pesticide factory there. 18 Mattancherry was selected for this study because it was identified as the most densely populated area in the city which generates greater amount of waste compared to other parts of the city (Kerala State Pollution Control Board: 2008). 19 Data for the state-centered analysis was gathered through the interview with Mr. T. K Ashraf, Health Committee Chairman, Cochin Corporation 20 Majority of the respondents in Mattancherry belonged to middle aged, above poverty line group and the family size was found to be greater (more than four members). There were equal representation of men and women & Hindus (mostly Brahmins) and Muslims. They were living in a highly crowded environment; most of them had land below two cents 21 They were given two buckets for sorting out the waste, green bucket for the bio degradable waste and white for non bio degradable (based on both observation and interview). 22 Some of them were using broken plastic bottles and buckets for growing plants. 23 When people think that better technologies could solve the waste menace, theyre not paying attention to the vulnerable population which going to face its aftermath. 24 The stench from the plant becomes intolerable after 3 in the evening. We cannot open our doors or windows then says, Ammu a 30 year old woman. 25 The society was asked to plant 50,000 saplings around the project site for the green belt and the planting had to be completed before March 1, 2007. 26 Anagha, an eleven year old girl whos studying in sixth standard in the Brahmapuram U.P School, complaints... The birds always hover over these waste dumps and spread the waste to our house. 27 "Since were living in such a polluted environment theres nothing to wonder if we all die of cancer. Our land, water, air everything is polluted, says Thanka. 28 We wouldnt have protested if the plant was running smoothly. The present functioning of the plant is not efficient enough to handle the whole waste. The situation becomes worst during the rainy season. The inclement weather slows down the processing at the plant. Waste dampened by the water that seeped into the floor of the plant delays the treating of waste in such condition. The poorly segregated waste also delays the processing. Additional hands have to be deployed for segregating the waste at the plant, Mr. Pradeep Brahmapuram, an active member of Malinya Nikshepa Virudha Samara Samithi 29 The protests against the functioning of the plant were triggered by a fire that burnt plastic waste at the dumping yard on February 15,2013. The protesters cited the health and environmental hazards posed by the burning of plastic at the plant. Smoke that billowed from the burning plastic waste had caused discomfort to people and firefighters who tried to douse the fire. 30 They open the temple only on the pooyam day of every month. But, nobody used to collect the Prasadam from the temple due to the attack of flies. Kadambra Masjid, which was named after the nearby fresh water river Kadambrayar is also a grave yard today. Earlier all the Muslim communities used to come to the masjid for their Jumma Namaz. But today, most of the Muslim families got displaced for the plant and nobody prefers to conduct their sacred namaz in such a polluted environment. 31 Garbage war, a term introduced by David Naguib Pellow to denote the conflict arising out of indiscriminate waste dumping on vulnerable population and resultant environmental injustice. 32 The Municipal Solid Waste Rule of India, 2000 gives stewardship of waste management to the local self governments. Sometimes this rule is used as a political tool for perpetuating environmental injustice. It enables the local bodies to take control over the land for indiscriminate dumping. Even if people come up with protests the authorities can use coercive mechanisms to repress it.

33

34 waste to be disposed of as close to the place of production as possible. This avoids passing the environmental costs of waste management to communities which are not responsible for its generation, and reduces the environmental costs of transporting waste. (DETR, 2000:4). And the principle of self-sufficiency as meaning: that waste should not be exported for disposal. Waste planning authorities and the waste management industry should aim, wherever practicable, for regional self-sufficiency in managing waste (DETR, 2000:4). 35 Intergenerational justice deals with justice between the generations. Intragenerational justice focuses on lines of cleavage between contemporaries (FRFG, 2012). 36 The Clean Kerala Mission assisted Mangalapady Village Panchayat in establishing a waste processing plant using vermi composting and bio-methanation. As the plant had sufficient capacity, adjoining Panchayats of Kumbala and Mugralputhur have joined with Mangalapady. 37 Now Chunakkara has become a model for decentralized waste management in rural areas. Out of the 5411 households, 4980 have started vermi composting in the compound and the manure is used to feed the kitchen gardens which have been set up in all the houses. All schools have been motivated to segregate, store and process waste in situ. A community level vermi compost plant has been set up to deal with market waste. 38 The elements of the programme included the following: Reduction at source; Segregation at source; Collection and sale of recyclables; Household level processing of organic waste; Substitution of plastic bags with cloth and paper bags; Community policing to prevent people from violating the code of clean Surrounding. In a short span of time, 3350 households started vermi-composting. In 35places common vermi-compost units were set up. Nearly 2000 families started organic farming in their compounds. Three Paper Bag units have been started along with two Plant Nurseries. 39 Among the laws provisions was a measure requiring 72 percent of all beverages to come in refillable bottles. Still enforced today, the use of refillables eliminates hundreds of thousands of tons of waste each year; reduces greenhouse gas emissions; saves significant amounts of energy; creates jobs (according to one study, if Germany switched to a 100 percent refillable system, there would be 27,000 new jobs); and people like it (69 percent of Germans say they prefer to take their empties back to the store). 40 Extended Producer Responsibility is an environmental protection strategy to reach an environmental objective of a decreased total environmental impact from a product, by making the manufacturer of the product responsible for the entire life-cycle of the product and especially for the take-back, recycling and final disposal of the product. The Extended Producer Responsibility is implemented through administrative, economic and informative instruments. The composition of these instruments determines the precise form of the Extended Producer Responsibility.

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