AIR POLLUTION, WASTE MANAGEMENT AND LIVELIHOODS: PATTERNS OF COOKING FUEL USE AMONG WASTE PICKER HOUSEHOLDS IN DELHI

ABSTRACT

While the problem of Delhi’s air pollution is well recognized, as is the class bias of the judiciary in targeting certain sources of air pollution over others, what is less will understood are the unintended consequences of air pollution interventions on indoor and outdoor air quality. This paper shows how the National Green Tribunal has targeted one source of air pollution in recommending waste-to-energy technologies that deprive waste pickers of their livelihoods. The pandemic-related lockdown provides an opportunity to assess the impacts of livelihood deprivation on fuel use. Using data collected from surveys of waste pickers, this paper shows that decreases in income are related to an increase in reliance on solid fuels. Therefore, we argue that air pollution interventions designed to control air pollution from poor waste management have the unintended consequence of increasing air pollution from a different source (biomass burning for cooking) that specifically impacts waste pickers by increasing their exposure to indoor air pollution, while also undermining the government’s urban air pollution mitigation efforts overall.

Keywords::

• Air pollution
• cooking fuels
• Delhi
• waste management
• waste pickers

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the staff at Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group, particularly Ishani Palandurkar for managing the survey, the teachers who conducted the surveys and the survey respondents for donating their time to this research. In addition to the three anonymous reviewers, we also thank Dr. Clayton Rosati for their valuable comments.