Sustainable Development

One of my article is published in the international magzine
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878029616301505

5^th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

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

Vidyadhar Durgekar,

Environment and Sustainability Auditor.

Bangalore, India

Mobile: +919632715093; E-mail:durgekar@hotmail.com

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.

Year of Survey	1999-2000	2004-05	2010-11
The waste generated in 59 cities in India(Tonnes per day)	30058	39,031	50,592

Table 1-CPCB Status Report of waste generation.

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 2

City	Bangalore	Kolkata	Chennai	Delhi	Mumbai
Area (Sq. Km)	226.16	187.33	174.00	1484.46	437.71
Population as per 2001 Census	4301326	4572876	4343645	10306452	11978450
MSW Generation (Tonnes  /day)	1669	2653	3036	5992	5320
MSW per capita (Kg/day)	0.39	0.58	0.62	0.57	0.45
Garbage pressure(tonnes / sq.km )	9.728	16.548	17.529	4.042	13.708
Pressure on landfill	1400	2500	3050	5000	6000

Table 2 CPCB Status reports Citywise waste generation(2012).

From 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.

Fig 2.Swedish Presona LP 85 VH2 balers(Courtesy waste-management-world)

After the segregation and recycling the waste at this stage, they are either sent for composting or incineration or land filling depending on the quality and type of waste.

Compost is an organic matter that has been decomposed and recycled as a fertilizer. There are many small and large composting projects in the country though the exact figure is unknown. The treatment capacity designed for these facilities in large cities ranges from composting plant, 100–700 TPD. Many composting plants have been closed down or are functioning at a lower capacity. Those functioning are generally being managed by the private sector through a contractual arrangement with municipal authorities. Most of the plants are facing a problem of marketing the compost due to an ineffective marketing mechanism. The capital investment requirement for such projects is typically in the range of Rs 10 to 20 million per 100 MT per day plant depending on sophistication.

Another good natural form of composting is Vermi composting. It is the process of composting through the utilization of various species of worms, to create a heterogeneous mixture of decomposing vegetable or food waste bedding materials, and vermicast. A few vermi composting plants generally of small size have been set up in some cities and towns in India, the largest plants being in Bangalore of about 100 MT/day capacity. Normally, vermi-composting is preferred to microbial composting in small towns as it requires less mechanization and it is easy to operate. There are other problems associated with this process.

The study conducted by Mr. Ranjith Annepu, has revealed that the composts’ quality from the mixed waste were stated to be of very low quality, which is contaminated by heavy metals. The mixed compost samples were below the required stipulated standards for total potassium, total carbon, total phosphorus, and moisture content and exceeded the limits for heavy metals like lead, and chromium. It also, goes further to commit that, if all the MSW generated in India in the next decade were to be composted as mixed waste and used for agriculture, it would introduce 73,000 tons of heavy metals into agricultural soils and in turn into the food chain. (Ranjith Kharvel Annepu,2012)

Industrial composting systems are increasingly being installed as a waste management alternative to landfills. Mechanical sorting of mixed waste streams combined with anaerobic digestion or in-vessel composting are increasingly being used in developed countries, due to regulations controlling the amount of organic matter allowed in landfills.

Fig 3.Anaerobic digestion and air processing components of mechanical biological treatment plant in Germany.

By processing the biodegradable waste either by anaerobic digestion or by composting, the existing mechanical technologies help to reduce the contribution of greenhouse gases to global warning. By deploying this methodology, there are some advantages which are listed below.

1. Renewable fuel (biogas) leading to renewable power
2. Recovered materials through recycling.
3. Digestate - an organic fertiliser and soil improver
4. Carbon credits – additional revenues
5. High calorific fraction refuse derived fuel - Renewable fuel content dependent upon biological component
6. Residual unusable materials prepared for their final safe treatment

Some of the waste which cannot be composed or which can be better incinerated are sent for Incineration. This process converts the waste into ash, flue gas, and heat. Incineration with energy recovery is one of the several wastes to energy technologies such as gasification, pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion. While incineration and gasification technologies are similar in principle, the energy product from incineration is high-temperature heat, whereas combustible gas is often the main energy product from gasification. Incineration and gasification may also be implemented without energy and materials recovery.

An incinerator of capacity 3.75 MW from 300 TPD MSW was installed in Timarpur, Delhi in the year 1987. It could not operate successfully due to low net calorific value of MSW. The plant is lying idle and the investment is wasted. Similarly, a 5 MW power plant based on biomethanation technology was constructed and commissioned in Lucknow, but it did take off because of the stated reason of incompatible quality of solid waste.

Fig 4-Incinerators-Stationary & Mobile

As a forward integration to the waste management the use of the GHG for the power generation will add value to the process as well as reduce cost of managing waste. Gasification is a process that converts organic or fossil based carbonaceous materials into carbon material, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide. This is achieved by reacting the material at high temperatures, without combustion, with a controlled amount of oxygen or steam. The resulting gas mixture is the produces gas which is a fuel used for the power generation.

In India, few cities have been practising composting on a limited scale using aerobic or anaerobic composting. It is also seen that in some places unsegregated waste is put into the pits and allowed to decay for more than six months and sold after sometime. In some large cities aerobic compost plants have been installed, but they are not being utilised effectively. A few towns are practising vermi-composting on a limited scale.

Rest of the wastes, mostly non-biodegradable wastes, are filled up in the systematically engineered pits called landfills. The landfilling is one important method which is required to be used in the disposal of Municipal Waste. During the year 2010-11, there were records of 59 landfills constructed in the country, 376 landfills under planning stage and 1305 landfill sites were identified for future use. In Karnataka 5 landfills are in use and the rest 183 open dump sites are in use for dumping waste.  To some extent, the landfills prevent the leachate and any other pollutant polluting the ground water. There are different types of land filling which are used for different purposes. The municipal waste landfills should be efficiently engineered to prevent leachate leaking to the ground. The single layered, multiple layered and composite layered are the three main types of landfills used to dispose off the municipal waste. The liners are constructed to monitor and prevent the leakage at different levels.

Usually, landfill gas consists of many gases including natural gas or methane, air, ammonia, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulphide, nitrogen and oxygen.

Because of the ill effects of these gases and other issues of landfilling, the landfilling requirement keeps changing with time and innovation of new technology and different countries. The European Union has directed the future landfilling of organic waste to be phased out via the Council Directive 1999/31/EC and in its place the engineered gas recovery is required at existing sites.  This directive requires that, by 2016, the mass of biodegradable organic waste annually landfilled must be reduced by 65% relative to landfilled waste in 1995. It is important to note here that countries like Germany, Austria, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden have accelerated the compliance with more stringent prevention on landfilling of organic waste.

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Fig 5-.Waste Dump site, Bangalore.

3. ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM

If the root cause analysis of the whole issue of solid waste management is carried out, it points out the lack of commitment and culture. Therefore, if any, steps needed to manage the solid waste should start from us-all of us at home and surroundings. The people should accept the accountability as per the ‘Duty of care’ which is a social contract to dispose the waste we generate in a manner which is not detrimental to the wellbeing of others of the society. Even today, most people in the villages and the migrant workers of the large construction sites and the slum dwellers of the cities are constrained to defecate in the open.

We could deduce that there are some basic lacunae, which are in the forefront of the solution to the problem of managing solid waste. They are  as follows:-

        i.            Absence of process approach towards the mitigation of the problem.

      ii.            Absence of long-term vision and commitment.

    iii.            Lack of accountability  and responsibility.

    iv.            Weak legislation and administrative tools.

      v.            Acute lack of awareness and exposure in solid waste management system .

    vi.            Lack of clarity in  roles and responsibilities.

If there is no waste, there is no waste management. Therefore, it is essential that we don’t generate the waste or at least reduce the waste generation. To reduce the amount of waste generated at the source, the most practical methods is to adopt,

i.                        Management system standards approach for environment management and resource conservation,

ii.                        Laws that minimise the use of virgin materials in consumer products.

iii.                        Modifications in product packaging standards can result in reduction of waste packaging material or use of recyclable materials.

iv.                        Levying of cess/fees for waste management services that penalise generators in case of increase in waste quantities and ineffective segregation.

The system approach is based on the closed loop management of the process of SWM. Generally the loop of this SWM, is open after the dumping of the waste. There is no effective process of review and redo after the dumping. Following is a simple chart which describes the system management approach, which has been successfully implemented.

WASTE MANGEMENT  PDCA CYCLE

Planning Define Policy & Directives Legislations Roles & Responsibilities Control Procedures

Doing-Execution. Tendering Selecting.

Assess Review Revise

Check Monitor the implementation

 

Fig 6- Demings PDCA Cycle

Therefore it becomes necessary to prepare and implement an Environment, Health and Safety and Social Impact Assessment. The identification of the aspects and the impacts of the environmentally dangerous substances and analysing the risk due to them on the people and environment is an important phase of any environmental management system. The solid waste has an impact on the environment and the people, therefore, the various impacts of this activity could be identified in a matrix to evaluate and conclude the exact controls required for effective mitigation. The following table is one sample matrix of ‘Aspect Impact’. The action could be identified and recorded under this matrix. A Control Procedure is required for each impact depending on its scoring and legal requirements.

SL NO.

ENVIRONEMNT ASPECTS

ENVIRONMENT IMPACT

PRESENT CONTROLS

N/AN/E

ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN

REFERENCE DOCUMENT

LEG

SEVERITY

PROBABILITY

OTHER

SCORE

LEGAL REGISTER

PROCEDURE

INSTRUCT

1

Ground water contamination by the leachate

Drinking water polluted, Health impacted, Crop.

Scientific Landfill

AN C

Y

5

5

1

25

Control Procedure

2

Surface  water contamination by the run-off

Drinking water contaminated, Health impacted

Proper collection & disposal

AN C

Y

5

5

1

25

SWMR2000/ENV LAWS

Control Procedure

3

Bad odour, pests, rodents and wind-blown litter in and around .Epidemics through the stray animals

Health and hygiene issue

Proper collection & disposal

N C

Y

5

5

1

25

SWMR/ENV LAWS

Control Procedure

4

Generation of  hazardous gas & GHG (e.g. methane) within the waste dump

Health issues and injury

Monitoring

N C

Y

4

5

1

20

SWMR/ENV LAWS

Control Procedure

5

Bird menace above the waste dump which affects flight

Aircaraft accidents

Monitoring

N C

N

4

3

1

12

SWMR/ENV LAWS

Control Procedure

6

Fires within the waste dump

Loss of property  and ijury

Monitoring

N C

N

3

2

1

6

SWMR/ENV LAWS

Control Procedure

8

Unstable slope of the waste dump

Collapse of the dump  structure.Injury

Monitoring

N C

N

2

2

1

4

SWMR/ENV LAWS

Control Procedure

Table 3 Hazards and Risk Matrix.

4. CONCLUSION

There are some innovative technologies being used in the process of Solid Waste Management in Europe and US. There is no doubt that the Indian governments and the cities have adequate resources to tackle the issue of the SWM, but still we find it is a challenge in most cities. For any requirement to be complied with, the society or the concerned authorities needs commitment towards the implementation. It has been exhibited time and again in India, whatever may be available tools or technology, they will always fall short of compliance.

The legislation, planning, implementation and review are important administrative instruments in ensuring the effective management of the municipal solid waste. All other EHS legislation required the citizens to comply with and the government authorities to monitor it. In this case, it is the Municipal authorities which have to comply, have utterly failed. If the citizens failed they are liable for punishment, but similar is not true for Municipal authorities. If they fail there is no liability clause for them to be accountable. This being an inherent defect in the governance system, a method could be devised to put more accountability in the process. Since there is neither any responsibility nor accountability from the point of generation to the point disposal, the problem continues unabated. The accountability should start from the point of waste generation. The generating point should be levied some tax burden for excess or un-segregated waste which could be utilised for the SWM. The waste performance of each commercial unit, apartment or some area wise could be calculated to issue further benefits from the governments.

The SWM Rules 2000 and draft of 2013/15 are inadequate to combat this issue. The new draft SWM 2015 also has failed to include the planning, review and accountability requirements. The content is filled with only implementation. The law is an instrument of enforcement. It is only suggestive guidelines without defining the compulsion. These laws of SWM are still in a nascent stage which requires more progressive law with a vision of future.

The other administrative tool through which the Muncipal authority executes the responsibility of the SWM is the tender process. The Indian tender system has its inherent problem of the L1 bidder selection. If we go for L1 bidder then the Technical bid and evaluation is required to be made tougher by defining each technical requirement and its impact requirement including competence and exposure in detail. In most of the Indian SWM tenders these are not clearly mentioned because of which incompetent contractors take up the contract and mess up the whole issue. One more point which is ambiguous in the tender is the termination and liability clause. These tender documents follow age old government process. The modern international tendering procedures could be adopted.

In Indian waste dump yards, the waste pickers identified in SWM Rules 2013, work officially for picking up some recycle items in total unhygienic and dangerous environment, which is not only detrimental to their physical being in view of adverse health conditions but also the psychological degradation. Unless we respect human beings for their social wellbeing, no measures, can mature to implement the sustainable way of waste management.

To conclude; the whole issue could be handled more effectively, through a turnkey project of the whole activity by contracting on BOT principle of PPP concept to a demonstrated and proved competent company elsewhere in the world, with strict monitoring by the accountable persons from the Municipal authority. However more important is to prepare the society for the same. The solution can  be foreseen from the next generation if they are educated from the childhood by including this in their curriculum.

REFERENCES

1.      Arnold van de Klundert., Justine Anschutz.( 2001). Integrated Sustainable Waste Management, Paper prepared for the CEDARE/IETC Inter-Regional Workshop on Technologies for Sustainable Waste Management, held 13-15 July 1999 in Alexandria, Egypt.

2.      Christensen Thomas H,.(2011). Solid Waste Technology & Management, John Wiley and sons Publication.

3.      Daniel Hoornweg, Perinaz Bhada.(2012). What a Waste, A Global Review of Solid Waste Management.World Bank.

4.      Jean Bogner.(2005).Waste Management, Cambridge University Press, London U.K.

5.      United Kingdom. Mechanical Biological Treatment of Municipal Solid Waste. Dept Env food and civil supplies, UK, 2013.Retrieved from, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/221039/pb13890-treatment-solid-waste.pdf.

6.      Prabhaker G, Chapla J.(2012).Solid Waste Management studies in Karimnagar town, Telangana, India, 12 Nov 2014. International Research Journal of Environment Sciences. Retrieved from http://www.isca.in/IJENS/Archive/v4/i1/3.ISCA-IRJEvS-2014-246.pdf

7.      P.U.Asani.(2016).Solid waste management, India Infrastructure report. Retrieved from http://www.iitk.ac.in/3inetwork/html/reports/IIR2006/Solid_Waste.pdf

8.      George Tchobanoglous & Frank Kreith.(2002). Handbook Of Solid Waste Management ,Mcraw Hill, USA.

9.      United Kingdom, Planning for Sustainable Waste Management. Companion Guide to Planning Policy Statement.(2006). Department of Communities and local government. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/7780/150805.pdf.

10.  Ramachandra T.V,Management of Muncipal Solid Waste, Commonwealth of Learning,Indian  Institute of Science,2014.

11.  Ranjith Kharvel Annepu.(2012). Sustainable Solid Waste Management in India, Open dumping of waste in India. Columbia University.

12.  United States, Solid Waste Management, A Local Challenge With Global Impacts.Solid Waste Management. Environment Protection Agency.(2002). Retrieved from

13.  Bangalore. Future with no landfills, Recommendations of the Expert Committee on Municipal Waste Management.(2013). Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike.

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