TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE WASTE MANAGEMENT

TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE WASTE MANAGEMENT THROUGH TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS, EFFECTIVE POLICY, SUPPLY CHAIN INTEGRATION AND PARTICIPATION

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Vidyadhar Durgekar,

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the performance of sustainable waste management through effective policy, legislations, supply chain integration and participation in technology. It compares a standalone impact analysis of the aspects and the hazards of the municipal solid waste. Considering the practical difficulties and issues on site of the waste disposal in the Cities, this paper does an matrix based analysis to arrive at the solution.

Keywords: Sustainability; Hazards; Risks PDCA; PPP; Attitude.

1. INTRODUCTION

‘Waste is a left-over, a redundant product or material of no or marginal value for the owner and which the owner wants to discard (Christenson Thomas H, 2006).

We generate waste as an output of our consumption lifestyle. Management of Solid Waste in India, more so in the Bangalore, is in crisis. In the advanced countries, we find that the Solid Waste Management (SWM) is comparatively better managed. The waste management in Indian cities is still considered to be a challenge. It seems to be a small issue for the ignorant few. But, in fact, it is an issue with multi-dimensional impact and concerns. If we work on a systematic process with right technological mix, the same could be tackled effectively. The prevention, segregation, recycling, composting, incinerating, and land filling of waste are the few ways of managing the solid waste. But how efficiently, we define our policies and plan, draft laws and procedures for the use of technology in solid waste management, will be the one which will ensure effectiveness and that we will discuss in this paper.

As per the estimation of the World Bank Report, presently, the municipal solid waste amounts to have increased to about 3 billion residents generating 1.2 kg per person per day (1.3 billion tonnes per year). By 2025, it is likely to increase to 4.3 billion urban residents generating about 1.42 kg/capita/day of municipal solid waste i.e. 2.2 billion tonnes per year(Daniel Hoornweg, Perinaz Bhada,2012). The statistics enumerated in the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) status report is given in Table 1.

As per the same status report the total municipal solid waste generated in India during the year 2009-12 is 127485.107 MT/day. As per the IITK report, the per capita waste generation ranges between 0.2 kg to 0.6 kg per day in the Indian cities amounting to about 1.15 lakh MT of waste per day and 42 million MT annually.( P.U.Asani, 2006).Indian solid waste still comprises mostly, of large proportions of organic matter as well as inert material. The CPCB status report gives the figures as mentioned in Table the above, it could be inferred that the waste quantities are increasing gradually. The municipal authorities are not matching up to the increase to mitigate the risk of solid waste. Therefore, it is easily noticeable that garbage is littered on roads and foot paths in many cities and towns. The main reason could be the lack of organised system of waste management, as well as the commitment from all, including the residents and the authorities, with reference to compliance with the requirement of Municipal Solid Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000 in ‘totality.”[1]

The solid waste management has generated considerable amount of disturbances and concern in the society. The issue came to public notice, when the affected persons started revolting. The impacts of unscientific solid waste management are many, among which the few are mentioned below and are charted in the aspect and impact matrix below in Table 4.

i.                   Ground water contamination by the leachate generated by the waste dump

ii.                 Surface water contamination by the run-off from the waste dump

iii.               Bad odour, pests, rodents and wind-blown litter in and around the waste dump

iv.               Generation of hazardous gases and greenhouse gases (e.g. methane) within the waste dump.

v.                 Epidemics through polluted atmosphere and stray animals

vi.               Fires within the waste dump

vii.             Bird menace above the waste dump which affects flight of aircraft

viii.           Erosion and stability problems relating to slopes of the waste dump

Therefore, it is essential that the Indian society understands the necessity to mitigate the issue and take immediate steps to control the menace of ineffective solid waste management. This paper tries to evaluate the root causes along with its effective administrative and engineering control measures taking into consideration the past experiences and text references.

2. SOLID WASTE GENERATION AND MANAGEMENT

The process of SWM includes the following procedures depending on the selection, where most of them are mechanised barring a few like manual segregation.

i.       Source collection and segregation

ii.     Transportation

iii.   Segregation

iv.   Recycle

v.     Composting,

vi.   Vermi- composting,

vii. Anaerobic digestion/biomethanation,

viii.Incineration, gasification and pyrolysis, plasma pyrolysis

ix.   Production of Refuse Derived Fuel(RDF),

x.     Palletisation and

xi.   Sanitary landfilling/landfill gas recovery.

There are quite a few options in selecting the technology for the purpose of managing the solid waste. There are technologies available to segregate in the dump yard. The waste segregation is a challenge for all the households. Once the culture of segregation becomes part of our daily life the whole process will ease out. There is a requirement for a technology for segregation at source.

After the collection it requires to be transported to the waste yards. The responsibility of the municipal authorities to collect and shift the waste commences from here. These activities are normally contracted to a contractor. The collection process is more tedious because the people have varied behavioural patterns. The inefficiency of the source segregation cascades over to this phase posing more problems to the authorities. In absence of any mandate for them to behave in a certain way to segregate the municipal waste, they tend to use their own method and intelligence, which poses problems to the collecting professionals.

The contractor’s main motive is profit. Because of the contractor’s diverse interest, their focus on the issue is limited to complete the job. But how best to complete the job is not part of any contract. They need close monitoring by the persons within the governance mechanism with accountability for the responsible persons. There are quite advanced waste transportation vehicles, which Indian cities are yet to procure and use.

There are enough collection centres for the apartments in the cities, but the public waste collection centres are rare. If there is any, the collection is either, not being done regularly, or not done leading to public nuisance. The responsibilities of the restaurants, hotels and other eating places are not effectively mandated and monitored. 

Fig 1.Waste collection site in India.

After the waste is collected in the waste collection sites, they are again segregated mostly with mechanical equipment. The automated and intelligent waste segregation technology using scanning spectroscopy technology is used in NASA and nuclear plants in USA.

Most advanced balers are used to sort the waste and bale all waste paper, plastics, and other waste materials.

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