Innovations, chemical component knowledge of waste will boost its reuse, believe experts

Bengaluru, NT Bureau: More innovations and understanding the chemistry of waste material will help find ways to reuse solid waste, experts suggested during a panel discussion organised at Bangalore International Centre here on Sunday.

One of the panellists, Myriam Shankar, co-founder of The Anonymous Indian Charitable Trust (TAICT) formed to address the critical issue of solid waste management, pointed out that in India 45% of dry waste cannot be recycled.

"It is mainly because the waste is not segregated at the source. This also increases the cost of recycling," added Shankar.

Shubhi Sachan, a multidisciplinary designer who specialises in textile waste, proposing alternative uses rather than traditional waste disposal methods, discussed the challenges in waste processing.

According to her, homogeneity is the biggest hurdle when it comes to using waste as a resource.

"For instance, we cannot insist on mono material because we may not get, say, 2 million tonnes of milk packets when we need it. Often we are forced to use different packets resulting in differences in the recycled yarn or textile," said Sachan.

She also said economically it will not be viable to scale waste reuse projects as long as waste management is not recognised as a separate industry.

"At present, we have to deal with taxation three times. When we buy waste, we are taxed. When we process the waste and sell it, we are taxed. And when we educate end uses, again we are taxed. There is also no visibility for the industry players. We do not know how much waste contributes towards our GDP, for instance," said Sachan.

Pune-based Jesh KrishnaMurthy, founder of Advanced Nature, which transforms toxic material into sustainable solutions, specialising in cement-free concrete and waste-based products like tiles and furniture to combat the climate crisis, talked about the need to merge science and art as well as the need for experimentations in form and function of recycled waste.

Sachan added that many times interventions to convert waste into resources fall flat because of the knowledge gap.