A peep into Waste management.
Author : C.P.Hariharan
E mail id.: Cphari_04@yahoo.co.in
Most of us maintain our own house neat and clean but just do not take care when it comes to maintaining our environment neat and tidy as cleanliness takes a back seat in our society.
Gutkawale litter a lot as they not only throw away the package at random but also spit indiscriminately.
Yet another menace is urinating and defecating in the open. They contend that public toilets are not so clean and they have no other go but to use open fields.
Old habits die hard.
Despite there are enough public dust bins, many people do not take the trouble of walking two more steps up to the dust bin and deposit the garbage there but they prefer to throw away the garbage right from their balcony at random.
Builders dump the debris rather indiscriminately in open fields as they are not supposed to throw away the same in public dust bins. Debris causes a lot of dust pollution.
Usage of too much paper leads to felling of more trees which is detrimental to clean and green environment. Most of the offices have gone green. More to follow the suit yet.
Continuous construction works by individuals and public works create a lot of pollution due to debris.
Vehicular pollution needs no elaboration as there is no check in the population of vehicles. Pollution check of vehicles has been made mandatory in order to control pollution.
Industrial effluents, hydrogen sulphide from carcasses of animals add fuel to the fire of polluted environment.
They litter in open fields by using the same for various religious and other social functions. Even if they do little bit cleaning before the function, they never bother to clean the ground after the function. Rather, they only aggravate the situation.
Not only that the existing trees are not being maintained in proper ways but also they are being felled indiscriminately at random to give room for various public projects like metro.
Sweepers sweep the dust rather than the garbage itself which pollutes the environment.
People have extended their flats indiscriminately encroaching plinth area around their flats which are otherwise available for parking and planting of saplings etc.
Polluting rivers also damage the environment.
Stray dogs and cattle also contribute their own to add fuel to the menace.
Segregation of garbage enables recycling of waste. Waste management has become a specific branch of science tree. They segregate the garbage into biodegradable and non biodegradable.
Ozone layer of the environment has been hit in the worst possible manner due to pollution, providing room for enhancing global warming.
Unless we manage the waste properly, presence of co2 and nitrous oxide will trap the heat from radiating beyond ozone layer and will boost global warming which we are already experiencing in alarming proportions.
Burning of wood in winter also adds to the smog.
People are becoming more and more aware about the need for maintaining cleanliness.
Put your garbage only in public dustbins specifically provided for it.
Information technology has enabled paperless office.
Rag pickers help a little bit to clean the environment.
Proper toilet habits should be developed among pupil.
Public smoking should be banned as it contributes to pollution.
PM ‘ s Bahratiya Swachata Abhiyan though under run way, still yet to take off. Cooperation of people is also quintessential in maintaining clean and green environment.
In cities, only ground floor owners can plant more saplings and nurture and nourish the same. Some people resort to roof top gardening and horticulture.
Trees give us a lot of life saving oxygen in the process of photosynthesis.
We should reciprocate to the nature by planting, growing and grooming more saplings.
Building houses is not a sign of development or civilization. Rather, planting saplings would have given us immense benefits like plenty of oxygen , cool breeze, sufficient rains , avoiding soil erosion and landslides, maintaining ecological balance, welcoming and accommodating fauna, to mention a few.
Cleaning is not a singleton exercise but it is a continuous process. it should be a concerted effort at community level. Initiative for cleaning should come from the community level.
Every year from October 2nd to the ensuing full week should be celebrated as service week. This will inculcate the pupil regarding the need for maintaining a clean and green environment. They should be taught to clean the surrounding s of the school. Awards should also be initiated and conferred to the best performers. In this way not only a competitive spirit can be developed among the pupil but also this would serve as a great tribute one can ever think of giving to sri Gandhihi.
Hygienic waste management: Prevention is better than cure
We should keep the city neat and clean and should not litter at random which obviates the necessity of the very cleaning process itself as also the investments in street bins, which is the best way. Thus, a city without bins will ultimately become clean and remain clean. Collection of food waste from door to door is an age old cost effective practice which precipitates the fertility of soil. Indiscriminate use of chemicals makes the land barren and infertile. Indian soil needs organic manures and composting is the best option for India to prevent loss of fertility of soil.
Indiscriminate dumping outside the city limits should be abolished. There should be a time frame for improving the existing landfill sites for long term future use and making them ready for operation. Setting up of waste process and disposal plants and a provision of buffer zone around such sites will go a long way in tackling the menace of waste. Biodegradable waste should be processed by composting, vermicomposting etc. and land filling should be restricted to non biodegradable rare waste and compost rejects.
Wet food wastes and dry recyclables like paper, plastic, glass and metal should be segregated and they should not be mixed so as to enable recycling and reuse of segregated materials. Garbage and dry leaves should not be burnt. Biomedical wastes and industrial wastes should not be mixed with municipal waste. Routine use of pesticides on garbage has been banned.
Littering and throwing away of garbage at random has been banned. We need to segregate the wet food wastes and dry recyclable garbage and deposit the same in multi containers of hand carts or tricycles to avoid manual handling of waste or else put in trucks at street corners at regular pre-informed time. Dry waste should be given to rag pickers or else to unorganized vendors who eke out a living out of it and thus can avoid picking them from public dustbins. High rise buildings and societies, colonies and institutions should have their own arrangement for garbage disposal.
Waste collection is free of cost for public. At the same time, polluters should be charged. The major outlets of waste are hotels, eateries, marriage halls, hospitals and clinics and wholesale markets, shops in commercial and office complexes, cattle sheds, slaughter houses, fairs and exhibitions, inner city cottage industry and petty trade. Debris and construction waste should be stored within the premises and not on the road or foot path and disposed of at prefixed sites or landfills by the builder. They have to pay if they rely on public transport.
Sweeping should be done throughout the year by allotting specific areas and shallow drains to each individual sweeper so as to fix responsibility. Silt from drain should not be dumped on road sides but should be directly loaded on carts for shifting to the transfer point. Silt and debris should not be dumped at sites meant for composting.
Quantitative statistics of garbage collected and disposed should be maintained in order to monitor against targets through effective MIS. In metro cities computerized weigh bridge should be installed for monitoring purposes. Where there is shortage of vehicle, they should work on shift basis. Localized, ward basis composting of wet waste in adjoining parks is desirable for recycling of organics so as to save transportation costs to scarce far flung disposable sites.
In upcoming colonies waste management infra should be made mandatory. Construction of temporary toilets at the dead ends of sewage disposal lines is desirable. Regulating cattle movements and building sheds for them or else relocating them outside large cities to monitor garbage generation.
Cities which have been given fiscal autonomy for fund raising must give priority to obligatory functions like waste management rather than discretionary functions. Solid waste management and other charges should be based on cost of living index and should extract administrative charges for constant littering. Funds should be earmarked for solid waste management and allocated to those who assume responsibility for waste management.
As the supreme court plans to monitor the Municipal Solid Waste through high courts in each state, hygienic waste management is poised to become a reality soon.
Tons of wastes are being generated from gigantic metro cities like Delhi daily. Hence, the need for waste management need hardly be over emphasized.
Latest technologies.
Zero waste
Zero waste is a philosophy rather than just a process or technology. it is an innovation. Zero waste is a goal that is moral, cost effective, efficient and visionary that causes changes in life styles where all rejected materials are designed to resources for others to use.
Zero waste means systematic designing and managing products and processes to avert and to do away with voluminous waste and their toxicity, save and recover all resources and not bury or burn them. Implementing zero waste will obliterate all effluents to land, water or air that pose a great threat to planet, human, animal or plant health.
Zero waste entails the need for a change in attitude of people for taking responsibility for generating the waste by ensuring that it is recycled, reused and resold or else turning it into energy. We cannot stop generation of waste but we can manage the same in all possible ways.
The idea of reusing every bit of waste possible and turning the remainder into energy is a really appreciable and a tenable system of waste management which could solve many of the world’s environmental problems in the backdrop of the way waste is being managed worldwide currently. Though, in the initial stages it may seem invincible there are countries which have set glaring examples.
Extended producer responsibility (WEEE - waste of expensive electrical and electronic equipment)
Cost of electrical and electronic equipments is colossal. Hence, repair and maintenance is a better alternative. Toxicity and complexity of WEEE hampers recycling. Pace of generation such waste is faster than our ability or willingness to recycle them. Developed countries dump WEEE in emerging economies. This practice needs to be curbed and it is difficult to monitor as the same is done rather illegally.
Holding the producers responsible for dealing with products which are at the fag end of their life cycles will alleviate the problem to some extent in the backdrop of heaps of WEEE piling up and will be beneficial in the long run.
Extended producer responsibility puts onus on producers rather than on waste management companies to find effective ways of recycling and reusing the WEEE. Through this captive production, costs can be minimized. Reuse, buyback and recycling are alternatives available to them. Sometimes they outsource waste management.
Anaerobic Digestion
Previously the process of converting bio waste into compost and fertilizer was done in the open which created odour problems. In order to combat this problem, in vessel compost plants have been developed.
Anaerobic digestion is the most innovative and useful technologies ever developed by our industries recently which involves the process of in vessel treatment of waste. It not only provides a solution for our organic waste but also it enables us to convert the resulting gases into energy. To put it in a nutshell, the process is degradation of waste by micro organisms in an environment devoid of oxygen. It can be easily used to treat organic solid waste and waste waters of almost any kind. The process is quite fast and the remainder can be used as fertilizer while the biogas produced is converted into energy.
Generation of food waste or sewage cannot be done away with altogether. Anaerobic digestion is not only a process of waste management process but also it is a source of renewable energy.
Waste to energy
Waste to energy is a novel concept and it has the advantage of removing waste completely rather than reuse or process it.
Most plants still use the conservative technology of operating by incinerating waste and converting the heat produced into energy .But, as it is dangerous and noisy, alternative ways of waste to energy like gasification, pyrolysis, thermal deplymerization and plasma arc gasification have been developed making greater progress in this field.
Gasification and plasma arc gasification convert bio waste into synthetic gas made up of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. This gas is burnt to produce electricity and steam.A plasma gasification plant uses plasma torches which operate at approximately same temperature as that of in the surface of sun to create an environment with solid, liquid and gas turned into syngas, This process breaks the molecular bonds of waste into elements .This syngas is converted into energy and the waste completely disappears.
Waste to fuel
In the wake of ever increasing prices of fossil fuels, converting waste into fuel provides a feasible solution. Bio fuel is the most common form which consists of an array of various fuels derived from organic matter including bio waste. Bio fuel can be liquid, solid or gas and can be used to run vehicles or can add to other types of fuels. Biogas a product of anaerobic digestion and syngas generated during gasification are types of bio fuels.
Landfill gas also plays a vital role in this field. Most landfill-gas-to-energy projects turn otherwise harmful emissions into electricity to power homes. But, it is also being increasingly used as a vehicle fuel or as a substitute for mines, household gas supply.
Separation of waste at source
The sequence of events in a waste hierarchy is reduce, reuse, recycle, energy recovery and dispose. When western countries follow such hierarchy, we are yet to adopt such practices and are just resigning in collecting the waste in bins and wear a casual attitude towards waste management.
Even if, MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) can be collected and demarcated into various elements i.e. recyclable and organic waste, it is always better to segregate waste at the source of generation. The advantages are.
Quality input for recycling so that more value can be generated.
Decrease in occupational risks of waste workers.
Waste can be transferred to the place of processing instead of sending for separation and processing separately.
Many segregation schemes are in vogue. It is lift to the discretion of municipality to decide which scheme works best for it.
Collection of food waste in separate bins so as to avoid feeding of organic waste into landfill. Thus, bio waste can be converted into compost or biodegraded in safer ways without emitting harmful gases.
Collecting glass bottles, aluminium and plastics separately enables easier safer and more efficient recycling.
Sorting technology
People in general just don’t care to deposit their waste in the right bin due to ignorance and carelessness. It is not practical to have separate collection schemes, we need a means, the sorter to separate the mixed waste to make it reusable.
Sorting technologies range from water based technologies such as Arrow Bio which segregates organic parts from recyclables, to the whirring, whizzing and sorting machines that are exhibited at trade fairs.
When a mixed waste is fed into a single stream recycling facility, it will enable manual segregation of items, according to the weights of paper, plastics, metals and glass etc, use of screens for segregating according to size, magnetic segregation of items like iron, ultra violet optical scanners coupled with use of air pressure for segregation into discrete bins.
Many companies are coming with new innovations in this field. Now even paper and wood can be sorted according to quality.
Impact of waste on climate change.
Emissions from landfills have a bearing on climate change .The solutions lies in preventing sending organic waste to landfills or processing the waste before feeding into landfill, or else to capture the methane from the landfill and convert the same into energy.
Waste industry plays a crucial and critical role in mitigating green house gas emissions. As the world at large struggle to address this issue of carbon foot print, waste sector activities aim at reducing carbon. carbon credits are also being initiated and awarded to those who monitor GHG emissions.
Waste is a major source of renewable energy. Incineration and other thermal processes for waste to energy, capturing landfill gases and utilization, and anaerobic digestion play a very vital role in reducing fossil fuel consumption and GHG emission.
Waste sector offers a package of proven, pragmatic and economical technologies to reduce GHG. Location specific technologies that fit the culture and need of each location are being adopted.
Prevention, minimization, reuse and recycling of waste are widespread. This reflects the enhancing potential for reducing the GHG by conserving raw materials and fossil fuels.
By resorting to aerobic and anaerobic treatment technologies, organic wastes can be recovered and turned into soil conditioners and manures. These processes mitigate GHG emissions by fixing biogenic carbon in soils thereby improving the fertility of soil and adding soil nutrients.
Changes in laws also favor the waste sector to make great leaps. Even if, cost of implementation of waste management processes is prohibitive, benefits will outweigh cost to the planet and cost of dealing with GHG.
Using waste management as a tool to combat GHG and climate change is one of the most innovative and sensible concepts in waste today. The role of waste industry in averting climate change need hardly be over emphasized.
Author : C.P.Hariharan
email id. : cphari_04@yahoo.co.in
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