Is Zero Waste Kerala’s Dream Or Dilemma?
Plastic waste collected at a material collection facility at Kakkanad, Kochi (Image by C. Surendranath)
- Kerala has set ambitious zero-waste goals, but its reliance on unsustainable waste disposal methods and data inconsistencies raises questions about the credibility of its claims.
- A crucial challenge in municipal solid waste management in Kerala is the absence of reliable data on waste quantity and quality, composition, and characteristics.
- Although incineration and landfilling are the least preferred methods in the zero waste hierarchy, Kerala relies on these waste disposal methods as stepping stones towards claiming the title of India’s first zero-waste state, write the authors of this commentary.
On March 30, 2025, the International Day of Zero Waste, Kerala declared that 98.47% of local bodies in the state achieved waste-free status.
‘Zero waste’ has been a campaign slogan of the left-of-centre governments in Kerala for over a decade. However, the state was compelled to walk the talk after the massive fire breakout in March 2023 at the Brahmapuram municipal waste dump site near Kochi, the state’s commercial hub. The fire, which took a fortnight to be put out, emitted huge quantities of pollutants, including toxic dioxins. The subsequent public outcry and legal interventions forced the government to set targets for revamping its waste management system.
Since then, the Kerala government has made frantic efforts to achieve its goal, conducting clean-ups on roadsides, beaches, rivers, and lakes; contracting businesses to clear the huge ‘legacy waste’ dumps across the state; and running a ‘war room’ at the state secretariat to coordinate the waste management activities.
Decentralised waste management
The state’s Solid Waste Management Policy 2018 emphasises decentralised waste management, prioritising the collection and segregation of waste into wet (biodegradable) and dry (non-biodegradable) categories. Biodegradable waste, accounting for 70-80% of municipal solid waste (MSW) in Kerala, is required to be disposed of by converting it into compost or biogas, preferably at the ‘source’, that is, the households and institutions where the waste gets accumulated.
Urban sprawl
Kerala’s society is rapidly urbanising, with spending shifting from essential food items to a variety of consumer goods. According to the latest Census data (2011), 47.7% of Kerala’s population lived in urban areas, projected to soar to a staggering 96% by 2036. The state’s Monthly Per Capita Consumption Expenditure (MPCE) in urban and rural areas surpasses national averages, as per the 2023-24 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES).
Kerala’s high literacy rate, augmented by digital literacy, has created a double-edged sword. While it facilitates knowledge and economic prosperity, it also fosters a consumer culture driven by global markets. The influx of goods and gadgets, many destined to become waste, has spurred a sharp increase in waste generation.
Trash spread
Studies have noted the alarming consequence of waste, especially plastic waste, dumped in the open. A 2019 study by Thanal, an NGO based in Thiruvananthapuram, found that every square metre of Kerala’s coastline was littered with 1.66 pieces of plastic, three times the global average (0.55).
Plastic has been discovered in shallow ocean waters and on rocky reefs off the Kerala coast. By 2018, a state-wide survey by the Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority (KSLMA) revealed that 73% of Kerala’s natural water sources were unsafe for use, with accumulated MSW contaminating 53% of the studied sources. The conclusion is clear: despite achieving 100% literacy, the state’s populace has not embraced environmental literacy.
The Ashtamudi and Vembanad-Kol Ramsar wetlands are polluted with plastics, microplastics, and heavy metals. Common seafood items — including grey mullet, blue spot mullet, Indian oil sardine, Indian anchovy, and green and brown mussels — contain microplastics. A state where nearly one quarter of food expenses goes to purchasing eggs, fish, and meat (23.33% in rural areas and 21.30% in urban areas, according to HCES 2023-24) faces significant food contamination challenges.
The health repercussions of mismanaged waste are stark. The resurgence of diseases like chikungunya, rat fever, hepatitis, dengue, and cholera has been alarming. The State Economic Review 2017 attributed the increase in vector-borne and water-borne diseases to poor sanitation, environmental pollution, and unsafe drinking water.
The economic burden of health issues is also significant. The medical expenditure (as a proportion of the total Monthly Per capita Consumption Expenditure — MPCE) of a person in a Kerala village is the highest in the country at 17.9 percent (national average 13.3%).
The environmental impacts of waste extend beyond public health. The waste sector is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG) in Kerala, contributing eight percent of the state’s GHG emissions in 2021, as per the Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report 2024. Domestic wastewater accounted for 94% of these emissions, followed by industrial wastewater (4%) and solid waste disposal (2%).
Dubious data
A crucial challenge in MSW management in the state is the absence of reliable data on waste quantity and quality, composition, and characteristics.
Official documents since 2018 have been reporting that Kerala generates approximately 3.7 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually. This raises the question of whether Kerala has stabilised its MSW generation — against the global trend of growth in MSW, rising consumerism, rapid urbanisation, and quick lifestyle changes — or whether the data is dependable.
In its 2023 Performance Audit report, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, observed that data on key aspects of MSW in Kerala such as quantity, composition and characteristics are “inconsistent and unreliable.”
Such data gaps have been exploited to justify the adoption of inappropriate waste treatment technologies. A case in point is the aggressive promotion of capital- and energy-intensive waste-to-energy (WTE) plants as a solution to Kerala’s waste management challenges. These technologies are ill-suited for the state’s waste with high moisture content (55-80%) and low calorific value (around 1700 Kcal/kg).
The unreliability of data is particularly evident regarding plastic waste. Despite a continuous rise in plastic waste generation globally and in India, annual reports from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) have reported a reduction in plastic waste in Kerala from 133,316 tonnes in 2018-19 to 71,000 tonnes in 2022-23.
In its February 2024 report on “Pollution Caused by Plastic,” the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) noted several discrepancies in state and national data on plastic waste. In many states in the country, plastic waste in the villages is not being reported. As a result, the government lacked “a comprehensive picture of plastic waste generation in the entire country,” observed the PAC.
The PAC also chastised the Ministry of Environment for failing to establish national and local targets and action plans for the Reduction, Reuse, and Recycling (3Rs) of waste — the primary strategies for minimising waste and pursuing zero waste goals.
Disputed claims
In 2019, India’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) claimed that India recycled 60% of its plastic waste. In the same vein, in its 2023 report submitted to the National Green Tribunal (NGT), the apex court on environmental matters in India, the Kerala State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) claimed that the state processed 200 tonnes of plastic waste every day through authorised recyclers. Had these figures been true, both India and Kerala would have achieved plastic waste recycling rates above 60%, surpassing even Europe.
The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a public interest research organisation based in New Delhi, debunked MoHUA’s claim by pointing out that “in India, all forms of plastic waste disposal — energy/resource recovery, alternate use, incineration and burning in waste-to-energy plants — are put into the bucket of recycling.” This explanation holds good for Kerala’s claim too.
Externalising the burden of waste
Despite banning single-use plastics (SUPs) in 2020 — two years ahead of India — Kerala continues to struggle with plastic pollution. A 2023 study by the Socio-Economic Unit Foundation (SEUF) found that 46% of Kerala’s plastic litter consisted of banned SUPs.
Even as Kerala was pushing forward its ‘Waste-free New Kerala Campaign’ after the Brahmapuram dump site fire debacle in 2023, cases have been registered against the state by the NGT for illegal dumping of mixed waste in villages in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu.
Kerala disposes of the bulk of its plastic and e-waste by handing them over to recycling plants and cement factories outside the state. For the non-recyclables, the predominant end-of-life disposal points are 17 cement factories spread across six states in India where the waste is co-incinerated as ‘alternative fuel’. (Co-incineration is the burning of waste — generally in the form of Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), alongside other fossil fuels — in cement kilns or other non-traditional incinerators).
On average, Kerala disposes of 804 tonnes of RDF each day, besides other forms of mixed plastic waste. Many informal waste pickers — over 100,000 — also handle unsegregated plastic and e-waste without being official partners in the waste management system.
A portion of non-recyclable plastic waste is also shredded, heated, and added to bitumen in the construction of roads. This practice has known health risks associated with heated plastic, chemical additives, and microplastics, according to the Plastic and Health Report released by the Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL).
Greenwashing unsustainable disposal
India and Kerala have attempted to misrepresent their methods of non-biodegradable waste disposal as Reduction or Recycling, claiming they are safe for the population and the environment. However, the global zero waste community contests this stance. “Research shows that the emission of pollutants such as heavy metals, dioxins and PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls) will increase with higher shares of waste in fuel,” says Zero Waste Europe, in its Advisory to the European Commission in 2020.
Co-incineration is not climate-friendly and, in the long term, a deterrent to progressive policies on waste management, says the Advisory.
Globally, zero waste principles and practices have advanced beyond the 3Rs to add ‘Rethink’, ‘Refuse’, and ‘Redesign’ to the waste management hierarchy, aiming to minimise waste generation in the first place.
The internationally recognized definition of zero waste stresses “the conservation of all resources by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of products, packaging, and materials without burning and with no discharges to land, water, or air that threaten the environment or human health.”
Rejecting the fundamental tenets of capitalism and its linear “take-make-waste” model is central to the global zero waste vision.
But Kerala, the first state in the world to elect a communist government through the ballot box in 1957, has embraced the allure of the dominant development path and the consumer culture.
Kerala externalises the environmental and health burdens of waste, much like wealthier nations did by exporting waste to poorer countries in Asia and Africa.
Although incineration and landfilling are the least preferred methods in the zero waste hierarchy, Kerala relies on these “unacceptable” waste disposal methods as stepping stones towards claiming the title of India’s first zero waste state.
(Published under Creative Commons from Mongabay India. Read the original article here)
