A new rapid bioremediation process that can remove garbage hills. By Isher Judge Ahluwalia ,
Most Indian cities are
surrounded by hills of garbage, which are a testimony to our neglect over a
long period of managing and disposing of the waste we generate in the course of
our household activities and commercial activities in the cities. The waste has
been dumped for decades, dry and wet, plastic, textiles, and what have you,
without sorting, on the outskirts of the cities. Even after the Municipal Solid
Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000 specified that landfill sites
should be allocated on which sanitary landfills should be developed to receive
the final residual waste, the sites have been used only as open dumpsites for
all kinds of waste, mixed together.
The proliferation of
airless open dumps of garbage leads to emissions of methane, which absorbs the
sun’s heat, warms the atmosphere and contributes to global warming. Methane is
over 20 times more potent as a heat trapping gas than carbon dioxide. At the
same time, leachate, a black liquid oozing out from the waste as it slowly
decomposes over a period of 25 to 30 years, contaminates soil and ground water,
the latter being used by many in the urban areas as a primary source for
drinking. Foul odour from the waste rotting in airless heaps, and smoke from
the fires that routinely erupt in them, are other consequences of dumping waste
in the open. The garbage hills are now closing in on the cities as the cities
expand. The city residents have been going from pillar to post, from courts to
the National Green Tribunal, in the hope of some corrective action. Let us recall that it
was civic action — a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court in
December 1996 by Almitra Patel, one of the authors of this column — that had
put solid waste management on the agenda of the government. The court issued an
order to set up an expert committee in January 1998 with Patel as a member, to
submit a report on sustainable techniques of managing waste. Based on this
committee’s report, the Municipal Solid Waste Rules, 2000 were notified by the
Ministry of Environment and Forests.
Even though the
progress has been very slow, we now have Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016
which cover much more than only municipal areas, provide for collection charges
and for penalties on waste generators for non-compliance, and most importantly,
unlike the earlier Rules, make it the duty of every waste generator to
segregate the wet waste from the dry, that is, keep the two kinds of waste
unmixed. This is actually in line with the duties outlined in Article 51A (g)
of the Constitution which lists among every citizen’s fundamental duties, “to
protect and improve the natural environ-ment including forests, lakes, rivers
and wildlife.”. Current laws in India are also very progressive in that they
require “appropriate biological processing for stabilisation of waste”, whether
or not the processed waste can be used or sold as compost, while landfilling is
restricted to non-biodegradable inert wastes or pre- and post-processing
rejects.
The challenge lies in
implementation. The earlier so-called landfills, actually old dumps, are
without bottom liners and side liners. Capping of these dumps is not a solution
because it leaves methane and leachate to form for decades within the
cosmetically covered heap. The disastrous effects of building on and around a
“closed landfill” were so clearly demonstrated at Malad in Mumbai, where
trapped landfill gases seeped sideways through the soil into the basement of
the adjoining Mindspace Commercial Complex, wreaking havoc on every possible
electronic equipment and causing unwellness for residents nearby. The good news is that
we have a simple, low-cost solution of bioremediation to remove the garbage
hills and their lingering ill effects, which permanently achieves near-zero
emission of harmful gases (such as methane, hydrogen sulphide, and ammonia) and
leachate... read more:
