Cement Energy and Environment

SOLID WASTE- NO TECHNOLOGY FOR PECULIAR INDIAN CONDITIONS Uniqueness of Indian waste means that technology is yet to be developed A large metropolis is a good place to study the magnitude of the problems of solid waste man agement in Indian cities. In Bengaluru, now often called the garbage city, Lorries collect and carry solid waste far out from the city and dump or bury them in open grounds. These malodorous landfills and dump yards emit toxic gases and pollute the ground water. The city is still looking for good places to dump wastes. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, garbage dumps sprout by the side of the streets. Experts cite many reasons why Bengaluru has such a crisis of waste accumulation. For example, lorry owners have process contracts but are just transporting the waste. Sound regulations and management could reduce the crisis in the city a bit, but the big problem would remain and not go away: there is no technology that can handle such a heterogeneous collection of wastes. "India needs extensive R&D with high investment to solve the solid waste problem," says Absar Ah mad Kazmi, professor of civil engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee . Kazmi has been researching on solid waste management, and is convinced that it is a most difficult problem to solve. Indian waste differs in composition from place to place, and no one in the world has found a technology appropriate to handle any kind of waste. No expert considers landfills a solution. Recycling is hard, as sorting is not done at source and mechanised sorting is inadequate and expensive. "The only way out is decentralised handling of waste with segregation at source," says Kumar Suba Rao, founder of Aruna Green Ventures, a company that makes products to recycle organic waste. Kumar, who had worked in the waste management industry in Canada for over two decades, feels segregation at source has to be implemented through legislation. About half of Indian waste is organic, and hence can be used for composting and as manure. Plastics, although a small part of the waste, do present a problem as they do not degrade. Scientists have found bacteria that can degrade plastics, but no such plant exists even on a small scale. One day, synthetic biologists could engineer an organism capable of converting plastic into harmless constituents , but at the moment there are only two ways to handle them: recycling or incineration . In recent times, incineration in a Waste to Energy (WTE) plant is being touted around the world as a solution to handling waste. Many environmentalists criticise this procedure; that it creates too many nano particles or that it gives an incentive to produce more waste. However, WTE has its champions too , who say that good pollution control measu res can reduce the nano particle levels to well below that of coal plants. "Waste-to energy plants can be considered a good medium term solution," says Ranjith Annepu, a solid waste management consultant. "Its main goal is to destroy waste and not to sell power." In the Indian context, however, the process is not easy to implement. Pollution control devices are expensive. The plant may not recover enough money through selling power as Indian waste does burn well and produce high amounts of energy And yet, since there is no good alternative at the moment, large cities have no option but to use them at a high cost. Reduce the waste we generate, and the plant becomes more expensive to run. Increase the amount of waste, and we spend more money on pollution control. No wonder solid waste is a hard problem to solve. Some facts: ~ 70 million tonnes ~year I SOlid waste generated inurban India COMPOSITION OF INDIA'S SOLID WASTE: 51' organic mattef (food r;dS1e.ve:getable and fruitS) t 7.5 rec'jdables {plast 1c. paoer metal] ltt. inert !stone silt.ash) CONVERTINGRESOURa INTO POISON: Landfills generate toxk fumes and carbOn diOxide COmllostinlofmixed ·~e introduces toxicmetals into the food chain 8urnin& plastks and other waste exposes people directly to dioxins and furans. among toxic comPOOods on eartn Bumin& also prodU<ts particulatematter and ottwr pollutants MiUion$oftonnes of plastiC enter the oceans and degrade, comn·l& ba<k (O hu!TOO food ~n through fiSh 34 .,