Traditional waste-recycling under threat?

Residents in peri-urban East Calcutta, as well as migrants, make a living from recycling city waste and sewage which serve as critical inputs for agricultural activities in the region. The region is now torn between conflicting interests: land needed to house the growing population of Calcutta versus the continuation of traditional waste-recycling activities and sewage-irrigated agriculture.

Over 245 fisheries clean and use Calcutta's sewage. They render viruses and bacteria harmless and remove heavy metals, chemicals and toxins. Vegetable cultivation in peri-urban Calcutta uses city garbage as a fertiliser. A substantial proportion of the city's vegetables comes from the 'garbage farms' of Dhapa and adjoining areas. Irrigation comes from city sewage and small ponds adjacent to the vegetable fields. Paddy is the main crop grown with the use of city sewage, where fish and vegetables are not cultivated.

There are several key challenges:

• While city managers want to continue with pisciculture, land developers are pushing to turn fishery lands into residential housing.
• The quality and quantity of sewage has degraded due to a greater volume of industrial waste and less manure.
• There is a need to solve labour issues and gain union support.
• Garbage supplies are irregular due to ineffective management of the garbage disposal system and the presence of a competing organic fertiliser plant.
• Transportation problems prevent local farmers from selling their produce directly to urban markets.
• Farmers lack formal title to the land and have limited access to credit and information.
• Most lift irrigation facilities in paddy fields are not operational.
• Reduced sewage supplies have raised the cost of sewage-fed paddy cultivation.
• Fishponds are affected by silt and irregular and inadequate supply of sewage.

Policies need to tackle the interrelated problems of waste management, air pollution abatement and livelihood issues of the poor in a holistic manner. Participatory management practices should be adopted involving farmers, panchayats, government officials and engineers. Marketing and infrastructural facilities such as latrines, electricity, schools and hospitals should be provided for use by the peri-urban residents.

Nitai Kundu
Institute of Wetland Management and Ecological Design
B4 LA Block
Salt Lake
Kolkata 700098
India

T + 91 33 443 0567

n_kundu@hotmail.com

See also
'Renewable Natural Resource use in Livelihoods at the Calcutta Peri-Urban Interface: Literature Review', by Bunting et al., Working Paper of DFID NRSP Project R7872, University of Stirling, 2001
'Planning the Metropolis: a Public Policy Perspective', by N. Kundu, Minerva Publishers, Kolkata, 1994

Views expressed on these pages are not necessarily those of DFID, IDS, id21 or other contributing institutions. Copyright remains with the original authors but (unless stated otherwise) articles may be copied or quoted without restriction, provided id21 and originating author(s) and institution(s) are acknowledged. Copyright © 2005 id21. All rights reserved.