4.2.3.1 Post-implementation Community Waste management Strategies

SPONGE COLLABORATIVE + WEAVING WITH WATER Team

MULLASSERY CANAL FRAMEWORK AND CANAL EDGE MASTERPLAN

Figure 75: Graphic showing the stakeholders involved, data-set required, and the necessary allied projects for the successful implementation of community layer (Image Credit: Weaving with Water team)

4.2.3.1 Post-implementation Community Waste management Strategies

Figure 76 - Solid waste management strategies are integrated into the frameworks, to effectively rejuvenate the canal (Image Credit: Sponge Collaborative)

A critical factor for the success of any pilot project in the Mullassery Canal precinct is an effective solid waste management strategy, which will facilitate the maintenance and continued success of the project after implementation, and also promote effectiveness of the Sponge and Mobility frameworks by ensuring that water channels and drains remain unclogged and uncontaminated by pollutants and solid waste. This report highlights the critical role of an empowered local community from an overall systems perspective in ensuring the continued success of a solid and sewage waste management strategy along the canal.

Detailed site documentation both before and after the EnteKochi urban design competition, as well as conversations with stakeholders have highlighted solid waste management and sewage outfalls as a major issue along the canal edge and in the canal bed. There is empirical evidence from studies on civic participation in Indian cities that solid waste management in particular is an issue that leads communities to greater public cooperation, and hence fosters social bonding and cohesion within a community through the formation of neighbourhood associations, both in terms of organising for collective action as well as taking individual responsibility and behavioural change (Coelho and Venkat, 2009)5 . Patchy solid waste management in the context of Kochi has resulted in collective public action against landfill sites in the vicinity of communities with mixed outcomes (Ganesan, 2017)6 .

SPONGE COLLABORATIVE + WEAVING WITH WATER Team

MULLASSERY CANAL FRAMEWORK AND CANAL EDGE MASTERPLAN

In the context of Kochi, there is also evidence that attempts to fix this problem through centralised solid waste management deflects the problem further upstream, but does not comprehensively solve the issue of solid waste management from an overall systems perspective. The centralised Brahmapuram city-level septage treatment plant has resulted in a deterioration in the quality of life of neighbourhoods surrounding the plant due to the smell, pollution, and sanitation issues arising from gaps in the waste management process (Hridya, Lukose and Rajesh, 2016)7 . At the other end of the scale, a decentralised pilot project in Pachalam division of Kochi, which employed the “ waste as resource” framework by providing subsidised biogas to aid material recovery as close to source as possible substantially reduced the number of unauthorised solid waste accumulation sites in the ward, thus arresting the process of solid waste ending up in waterways (Chettiparamb, Chakkalakkal and Chedambath, 2011)8 . According to Chettiparamb et al (2011), in 2004-5, more than 70% of Kochi’s waste was organic and bio-degradeable. As a result, material recovery close to source, either at the household or neighbourhood level in the context of Kochi tends to be more ecient if well-executed. Coupled with Kerala’s strong tradition of decentralised governance, there is therefore a strong case to be made for the ecacy of decentralised solid waste management systems in the context of Kochi. It is evident that a combination of centralised and decentralised approaches to solid waste management are essential to ensure the continued success of any civic infrastructure investment along the canal.

A solid waste management focused community strategy that is predicated on circular economy concepts would yield multiple co-benefits, such as upskilling and boosting the local economy, and can serve as a template for the future development of Kochi in line with a circular resource paradigm as outlined in Chapter 1.