Supreme Efforts at Lifting the Garbage

The Supreme Court has moved on front foot into the vexing case of waste management. Its directions last month reflect the growing impatience about heaps of waste which scar India’s landscape, affect the health of citizens and dent its developmental aspirations.

- AKSHAY ROUT

Waste menace persists despite well directed public missions, more eminently the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) specifically working to clean up urban and rural habitats for more than a decade now. It’s an irony that India’s top tech and financial centres are dirtier than others, as evidenced in annual Swachh Survekshans of the government and corroborated by global studies. Apex court’s unprecedented drafting of action and accountability in this domain, ordinarily an executive mandate, should be grudged by none.

The Court has called out concerned union ministries, top officials in states and union territories, pollution control boards and importantly the district collectors, and purposefully named each office, leaving no scope for passing the buck, that has been the bane of waste handling in the country. The Supreme Court ordered special efforts at places of tourism and pilgrimage including beaches, where footfalls are heavy and demand for sanitation more critical. It has underlined management of plastic waste and remediation of legacy waste within strict timelines.

New Framework

The Court has not come up with any inventions but sought to optimize delivery by lending its full weight behind the new Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026 which became effective from 1st April. Compared to the regime of 2016, the new rules stoutly grapple with gap areas like waste segregation and extended producers’ responsibility and seek to integrate waste management with principles of circular economy. Four buckets of segregation are now mandatory: wet, dry, sanitary and special care waste. Bulk waste generators are more clearly defined and made strictly accountable. Remediation of legacy waste is to follow a timebound plan and must include prevention of further landfilling of solid waste. Rules provide for those polluting the environment to compensate.

The SBM Push