2.8 Harnessing EPR: Conscientious Decision-Making
Over 20 years ago, the idea that producers should finance the collection and recycling of their products and packaging at end of life began to globally transform waste management policy and practices. Initially conceived in the early 1990s, the notion of extended producer responsibility (EPR) was intended primarily to provide incentives for producers to design products that were easier to reuse and recycle, with fewer and less hazardous materials to discard at the end of life. In addition, EPR was expected to support improved methods for the collection, recycling, and treatment of waste. Unlike an ecotax (ecological taxation), the scope of EPR was not limited to mandating financial obligations for producers, but also included information on logistics,
Figure 3: Innovations at a sorting centre: mats made from shredded coconut fibre, wall paintings, play area for children of waste-pickers, and a seat made from old tyres.
Figure 5: The TakaTak Chaiwala offering tea made using biogas as a fuel in return for three pieces of waste plastic
Figure 4: CRT, AMC, and waste-picker team at the Zone 6 sorting centre in Aurangabad
waste management, and even product design responsibilities. The Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 also address the question of EPR. They mandate plastic producers, importers, and brand owners to contribute to the collection of plastic waste that has been introduced by them. However, the rules do not lay out specific targets that have to be adopted by these entities.
At present, EPR obligations are being met largely on a sporadic and scattered basis under CSR. Certain companies are signing contracts with agencies and NGOs to fund the collection and storage of plastic waste from mostly urban areas. EPR is a powerful tool in helping to resolve the SWM crisis that India and the world are currently facing. However, it requires careful planning, experimentation, impact assessment, restructuring, and horizontal deployment for effective enforcement and implementation. At the MRFs set up by CRT, the effort has been to harness EPR to contribute to the financial sustainability of the MRF. In Zone 6, for example, part of the EPR fund is utilized to provide monthly kirana (household supplies like food grains, cooking oil, etc.) to waste-pickers with attendance of over 20 days in a month. This encourages regularity of attendance and also augments household incomes. The other part of the EPR fund is set aside on a monthly basis to create a reserve that will support the management of the MRF once the agreement with Bajaj Auto ends in March 2021. A strategic and conscientious decision has been taken to direct the benefits of EPR to the waste-pickers in the least disruptive and most sustainable manner. Given that the EPR guidelines are not clearly spelt out, several organizations have taken a commercial view towards EPR, making it their business to connect aggregators (local government bodies) with brand owners who need to demonstrate compliance in facilitating transportation of waste. The waste-pickers who sort and enable the separation of single-use non-recyclable plastics to be processed under EPR are left out of this system.
At the same time, offering a per kg price for single-use non-recyclable plastics to be processed under EPR at this stage when the rules and the programmes are unclear or still in flux could easily create challenges for recovery in the future if the per kg prices need to be reduced due to changes in rules, policies, and programme, or if the per kg prices are completely eliminated. CRT has hence chosen to extend the EPR benefits to the waste-pickers through kirana, welfare initiatives, and a sustainability fund for the MRF.
CRT’s journey in the SWM sector has been both challenging and rewarding as can be expected of any entrepreneurial set-up. The key ideas that have guided the way for CRT form a framework that the organization now uses to
think through its engagement in the newer sectors into which it is venturing.
This framework is called SPARC whose five main elements are:
1. Scale: How scalable are the solutions we are designing? What can we do to scale impact beyond CRT’s direct reach and capacity?
2. Partnership: How can we diversify our partnerships to strengthen our solutions?
3. Adaptive leadership: Is the problem that we are trying to solve technical or adaptive in nature? If it is technical, who is best suited to respond to it?
If it is adaptive, can we use our skill set to break it down and to pilot solutions? When a solution works, can we turn it into a SOP or a framework that will allow replication?
4. Research: Who are the key stakeholders working in this sector in the Aurangabad region? What are the current trends, patterns of perception, patterns of behaviour? What are the best practices in other parts of the country and in the world? How can we ensure that the data generated from our work contributes to the larger body of literature in this sector?
5. Conscientious decision-making: Is our solution the right choice for our stakeholders in the long run?
3. Moving from SWM to Other Sectors
Returning to its think-tank roots, CRT is now also conducting research and executing pilots in the sectors of education and ecological restoration.
In the education sector, tremendous work has been done by various organizations across the country. Using the SPARC framework, CRT has been able to pilot eight programmes of which three have been identified as high- impact programmes capable of being scaled. CRT’s need assessment survey with 114 leaders of diverse schools revealed a gap in science education and in twenty-first-century skilling programmes. CRT established partnerships with Agastya International Foundation, an education trust and non-profit organization based in Bangalore, and with Design for Change (DFC) to respond to both these needs respectively.
Agastya came to Aurangabad with its team and is now set to grow in the city. CRT facilitated the launch of Agastya’s first mobile science laboratory in Aurangabad, and Agastya, along with its funding partner, CanPack India Pvt.
Ltd., and the Zilla Parishad, is ready to launch the second mobile laboratory.
CRT’s role in this initiative has ended.
With Design for Change (DFC), achieving the required organizational bandwidth was a challenge, and hence CRT and DFC developed a model in which CRT was trained in the delivery of the DFC programme. Starting with a pilot in 50 schools in 2016, CRT trained teachers from 2,600 schools to take the DFC programme to their schools in 2019. CRT is also training a group of master trainers chosen from the Zilla Parishad team to carry the programme forward in the coming years.
The third programme that is ready for scaling is Campus Club (CC). This is designed to channelize the power of young people in generating knowledge- driven solutions for civic and environmental problems through experiential learning that translates academic learning into projects with real impact. CC is CRT’s response to the triple challenge of:
1. growing social and environmental problems
2. rising numbers of graduates with few relevant employable skills, and 3. lack of data on several development issues in Aurangabad city.
CC is an experiential learning programme that provides an ideal blend of classroom sessions, field experience, and discourses on contemporary social and environmental issues. The programme aims to inculcate rational thinking, decision-making ability, leadership, and communication skills among students. In its inaugural edition (2018–19), more than 180 students across the disciplines of pharmacy, social work, and engineering participated. They produced excellent research work in the sectors of SWM, menstrual hygiene management, and green cover management, and presented their projects in front of an expert audience from the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
The impact assessment of the programme reveals that around 86 per cent of students improved their communication skills, 84 per cent improved their research skills, and more than 80 per cent honed their leadership skills and teamwork during the fieldwork component.
Afforestation, ecological restoration, and green cover management emerged as the main areas of research for various reasons. A part of CRT’s research on urban governance showed that ‘tree plantation’ was the second most popular activity (after the clean-up drive) among corporators seeking to engage with their constituency. A survey of Aurangabad-based companies and their CSR interests showed that 63 per cent of the respondents had
‘tree plantation/greening’ as a CSR mandate. Despite this interest from city
leadership and industry, Aurangabad and Marathwada fare poorly in this sector. It was clear that Aurangabad needed a planned and strategic approach.
And building an effective and targeted strategy requires relevant data and research.
Aurangabad Division (also known as the Marathwada region or the Marathi region) is spread across more than 65,000 sq. km and has a population of over 1.88 crore. The landscape of the Aurangabad region is increasingly devoid of green elements and the region does not meet any global or national standards for green spaces. For an already arid region that is prone to droughts and an adversely dry climatic, a focus on enhancing the green cover can help combat multiple problems like air quality, water retention, temperature control, and, as research is increasingly showing, mental health as well. However, we must also caution against replacing the original local ecology with an alien one in the pursuit of a greener environment. Thus, based on multiple consultations with experts and desk reviews of relevant research publications, CRT has taken an approach to greening that consists of the following elements or steps:
1. Identify, maintain, and protect the existing green cover
2. Increase the green cover in an ecologically sound manner to achieve environmental standards
3. Generate research and data that are relevant to the Aurangabad ecological context
4. Engage relevant stakeholders through effective partnerships for maximizing impact.
The SPARC framework has allowed CRT to work effectively in multiple sectors and to create an impact beyond its own ambit and its own scope of work through strategic partnerships. It has also allowed CRT to constantly revisit its organizational mission and its project vision and goals. CRT plans to remain focused on three areas in the coming three years, that is, stabilizing the teams, standardizing processes in the sectors of education and ecological restoration, and identifying the right strategies and partners to achieve scale in SWM.
4. Acknowledgements
We are grateful to our government partners, the Divisional Commissioner’s Office, the Collector’s Office, the Zilla Parishad, the Municipal Corporation, and the Cantonment Board in Aurangabad, Maharashtra; the Nagar Parishads of Vaijapur, Ratnagiri, Nilanga, Gangapur, and Lasur Station; the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO); and the Mangrove Cell, Forest Department (Maharashtra), for the opportunity to work with them. We are also grateful to our partners, Bajaj Auto, for the trust they have reposed in us, and to Grind Master Machines, CanPack India, Endress + Hauser, BM Constructions, and Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB) for their invaluable support. We thank our partners Hindustan Unilever (HUL), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), McKinsey.org, the Alliance of Indian Wastepickers (AIW), and all the elected representatives and resident groups that collaborated with us.