SOLID WASTE MANAGMENT: CONVERTING WASTE MENACE INTO A WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY

 SOLID WASTE MANAGMENT: 

CONVERTING WASTE MENACE INTO A 

WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY. 

#Environment #Pollution 

WHY THIS TOPIC? 

Millions of tonnes of garbage is getting accumulated in every 

possible open space in and around cities and towns and also 

in water bodies across India. The launch of  #Swachh Bharat with ranking of Indian cities has highlighted the importance 

of waste management but it requires more collaborative and 

citizen driven initiatives to comprehensively deal with this 

accumulating monster impacting the quality of life and 

environment around us. 

INTRODUCTION 

Waste management rules in India are based on the principles 

of "sustainable development", "precaution" and "polluter 

pays". These principles mandate municipalities and 

commercial establishments to act in an environmentally 

accountable and responsible manner—restoring balance, if 

their actions disrupt it. The increase in waste generation as a 

by-product of economic development has led to various 

subordinate legislations for regulating the manner of disposal 

and dealing with generated waste are made under the 

umbrella law of Environment Protection Act, 1986 (EPA). 

Specific forms of waste are the subject matter of separate 

rules and require separate compliances, mostly in the nature 

of authorisations, maintenance of records and adequate 

disposal mechanisms. 

With rapid urbanisation, the country is facing massive waste 

management challenge. Barely a quarter of the 1.43 lakh MT 

of garbage generated every day in Indian cities gets 

processed. The remaining three-quarters are dumped in the 

open. Solid Waste Management (SWM) is one among the 

basic essential services provided by municipal authorities in 

the country to keep urban centres clean. However, almost all 

municipal authorities deposit solid waste at a dumpyard 

within or outside the city haphazardly. Experts believe that 

India is following a flawed system of waste disposal and 

management. 

Health and safety and environmental risks are a major 

concern. The workers as well as the waste pickers are not 

provided with proper health and safety equipment like boots 

and gloves. The working conditions are unhygienic, the 

chance of transfer of infection is high and because of this if a 

worker gets sick he loses his wages. The workers are also not 

provided with medical insurance. The environmental risk is 

also high because the landfill sites are not maintained 

properly and the leachate gets leaked into the underground 

water. 

MAIN BODY 

Sources and types of solid waste: Residential:-the residence 

might be single family or multiple family dwellers the types of 

waste they produce are paper, food wastes , cardboard , 

leather, yard wastes, textiles, glass, special wastes, metals, 

plastics , ashes, wood and household hazardous wastes

ustrial: – industries produce ashes, food wastes, 

packaging, special wastes, housekeeping wastes, construction 

and demolition materials and hazardous wastes. 

Commercial & Institutional: – they produce wood, metals, 

cardboard, glass, special wastes, Paper, food wastes, 

hazardous wastes. 

Municipal services: – landscape and tree trimmings, Street 

sweepings, general wastes from beaches, parks, and other 

recreational areas, sludge. 

The key to efficient waste management is to ensure proper 

segregation of waste at source and to ensure that the 

waste goes through different streams of recycling and 

resource recovery. Then reduced final residue is then 

deposited scientifically in sanitary landfills. Sanitary landfills 

are the ultimate means of disposal for unutilised municipal 

solid waste from waste processing facilities and other types 

of inorganic waste that cannot be reused or recycled. Major 

limitation of this method is the costly transportation of MSW 

to far away landfill sites. 

A noteworthy first step was propelling sanitation to the top of 

the policy agenda under the flagship Swachh Bharat Abhiyan 

programme. The Clean India Dashboard tracks programme 

achievements, 24x7. Almost 90 megawatts (MW) of energy is 

generated from waste-to-energy (WTE) projects. 

Nevertheless, the disproportionate focus of the programme 

on toilet construction and eliminating open defecation 

deflects attention from colossal failures in waste 

management systems. 

There has been technological advancement for processing, 

treatment and disposal of solid waste. Energy-from-waste is 

a crucial element of SWM because it reduces the volume of 

waste from disposal also helps in converting the waste into 

renewable energy and organic manure. Ideally, it falls in the 

flow chart after segregation, collection, recycling and before 

getting to the land fill. But many waste to energy plants in 

India are not operating to their full potential. 

Installation of waste-to-compost and bio-methanation 

plants would reduce the load of landfill sites. The 

biodegradable component of India’s solid waste is currently 

estimated at a little over 50 per cent. Bio-methanation is a 

solution for processing biodegradable waste which is also 

remains underexploited. It is believed that if we segregate 

biodegradable waste from the rest, it could reduce the 

challenges by half. E-waste components contain toxic 

materials and are non-biodegradable which present both 

occupational and environmental health threats including 

toxic smoke from recycling processes and leaching from e-

waste in landfill into local water tables. 

The concept of common waste treatment facility is being 

widely promoted and accepted as it uses waste as a resource 

by either using it as a co-fuel or co-raw material in 

manufacturing processes. This has led to rise of Public Private 

Partnership (PPP) models in waste management which has 

open doors for doing business in waste management. 

Bio-medical waste (management and handling) rules, 1998 

prescribe that there should be a Common Biomedical 

#Waste Treatment Facility (CBWTF) at every 150 kms in the 

country. CBWTFs have been set up and are functioning in 

cities and towns. However, establishment of functional 

CBWTF throughout the country must be ensured. Integrated 

common hazardous waste management facilities combine 

secured landfill facility, solidification/stabilisation and 

incineration to treat hazardous wastes generated by various 

industrial units. They contribute about 97.8 per cent of total 

landfill waste and 88 per cent of total incinerable hazardous 

waste generated in the country, as per an environment 

ministry report. 

Focus on 3 R’s-Reduce, Reuse, Recycle with collaborative 

participation of State and Non-state actors: It is the only 

way to save the environment from getting deteriorated. We 

are quickly running out of space and now it is important that 

all of us learn the three R’s of the environment and put it into 

practice. 

Reducing the amount of waste produced is the best way to 

help the environment. For instance buying products with 

minimum packaging, borrowing things which we do not use 

often, starting a compost bin, saving energy and water by 

turning are ways to reduce. To reduce the environment 

damage caused by cars, increase use of carpooling with 

friends, walking, taking the bus, or riding your bike instead of 

driving are the necessary steps to be taken. Same way 

salvage does for the environment. It helps to reduce the 

waste by sorting out articles of use. 

Instead of throwing away articles try to find various efficient 

ways to reuse it. For instance, replacing few things in our day 

to day life like using cloth sacks in place of plastic bags, re-

useable lunch bags without creating waste. Donating old 

clothes, toys and furniture to the needy and poor. Use writing 

paper on both sides etc. 

The process of changing the waste and non-useable materials 

into potentially useful materials. It is the key component of 

modern waste reduction procedure. There are some 

ISO standards related to recycling such as ISO 15270:2008 for 

plastics waste and ISO 14001:2004 for environmental 

management control of recycling practice. Recycling reduces 

the consumption of raw materials and energy usage. It also 

reduces air and water pollution by reducing the need of 

conventional waste disposal. Usage of recycled materials will 

help the environment to be green again. 

CONCLUSION

Around 100 cities are set to be developed as smart cities. 

Civic bodies have to redraw long term vision in solid waste 

management and rework their strategies as per changing 

lifestyles. They should reinvent garbage management in cities 

so that we can process waste and not landfill it (with 

adequate provisioning in processing and recycling).To do this, 

households and institutions must segregate their waste at 

source so that it could be managed as a resource. The Centre 

aims to do away with landfill sites in 20 major cities. There is 

no spare land for dumping garbage, the existing ones are in a 

critical state. It is reported that almost 80 per cent of the 

waste at Delhi landfill sites could be recycled provided civic 

bodies start allowing waste managers to segregate waste at 

source and recycle it. Compost pits should be constructed in 

every locality to process organic waste. Community 

participation has a direct bearing on efficient waste 

management. Recovery of e-waste is abysmally low, we need 

to encourage recycling of e-waste on a very large scale level 

so that problem of e-waste disposal is contained.