(Complaints are not uncommon…)
Can incinerators help manage India's growing waste management problem?
The plant has been controversial right from the beginning, with residents complaining about foul smell and fly ash. It is run by the Timarpur-Okhla Waste Management Company (part of the Jindal Saw Group), and has the capacity to process about 1400 tonnes of waste per day. It was built at a cost of Rs 290 crore. The current Delhi government has promised closure of the plant, but things have not moved after chief minister Kejriwal's promise soon after he was sworn in. It is hard for the government to close the plant, as it would mean confronting an additional 1400 tonnes of garbage every day, apart from having to deal with other legal and administrative issues.
Such complaints are not uncommon around WTE plants, but they have come up anyway because of the pressing need to dispose of waste. WTE plants are indeed located in cities in the developed world, and that too in countries with some of the strictest pollution control regulations. There is one right in the heart of Paris. Large WTE plants are situated in Vienna, Hamburg, Taipei, Singapore and other cities. Residents do not like them in their backyard, but environmental regulators have not found much fault with the plants. "Controversies have always been a part of waste incineration," says D Sastry, associate vice-president of Ramky Engineering. The world over, WTE plants have come up due to sheer necessity. India is no different, and it is planning a series of such projects around the country. India generates nearly 70 million tonnes of municipal solid waste a year, of which about 80 per cent is dumped without precautions in landfills. These landfi lls are toxic places that spew gases like dioxins and the greenhouse gas methane for a long time. Land is getting scarce as well, while waste generation is increasing rapidly.
A few years ago, the National Task Force on Waste to Energy estimated a potential of 439 MW of power from 32,890 tonnes per day of waste (12 million tonnes a year). The committee estimated that India's municipal waste production will be 165 million tonnes a year by 2031 and 436 tonnes by 2050. India has no waste land to fill with such enormous amount of waste. Neither does it, or anybody else, have the ability to segregate and recycle all its waste. Composting has so far not worked in India because of poor segregation and other reasons, although it has several advantages. In the long run, the world has no alternative to stop creating waste.
Since this is hard, in the short to medium term, WTE plants seem to be the only alternative to take care of what cannot be reused or recycled or composted. This is why cities around the world are using this technology, while working hard to make sure incineration becomes as safe as possible.
Controlled burning is not the only way to convert waste to energy. Gasification is a good and non-controversial method for organic waste. Over 50 per cent of India's waste is organic, and hence a candidate for composting or gasification. However, for non-organic and mixed waste incineration is the only way out. This is the logic that is followed in developed countries. "It is always a comparison between alternatives," says Ranjit Annepu, who studied India's waste problem at Columbia University. "The problems with waste to energy plants come down to how the operator is operating the plant and how they are regulated."
Like composting, incineration has also not worked well in India. As early as 1984, a plant was set up in Delhi with technical help from Denmark. This was closed down due to administrative and technical reasons. Selco set up a plant in Hyderabad in 2002, and Sriram Energy set up another plant in the same year near Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. Both of them closed down due to financial reasons. Jindal's was set up in 2007, and it has met with opposition. None of this means that the idea does not work. "Just because waste-to-energy plants in India have not been successful," says Sunil Kumar, scientist at the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, "we cannot say that the technology does not work."
A few years ago, the National Task Force on Waste to Energy estimated a potential of 439 MW of power from 32,890 tonnes per day of waste (12 million tonnes a year). The committee estimated that India's municipal waste production will be 165 million tonnes a year by 2031 and 436 tonnes by 2050. India has no waste land to fill with such enormous amount of waste. Neither does it, or anybody else, have the ability to segregate and recycle all its waste. Composting has so far not worked in India because of poor segregation and other reasons, although it has several advantages. In the long run, the world has no alternative to stop creating waste.
Since this is hard, in the short to medium term, WTE plants seem to be the only alternative to take care of what cannot be reused or recycled or composted. This is why cities around the world are using this technology, while working hard to make sure incineration becomes as safe as possible.
Controlled burning is not the only way to convert waste to energy. Gasification is a good and non-controversial method for organic waste. Over 50 per cent of India's waste is organic, and hence a candidate for composting or gasification. However, for non-organic and mixed waste incineration is the only way out. This is the logic that is followed in developed countries. "It is always a comparison between alternatives," says Ranjit Annepu, who studied India's waste problem at Columbia University. "The problems with waste to energy plants come down to how the operator is operating the plant and how they are regulated."
Like composting, incineration has also not worked well in India. As early as 1984, a plant was set up in Delhi with technical help from Denmark. This was closed down due to administrative and technical reasons. Selco set up a plant in Hyderabad in 2002, and Sriram Energy set up another plant in the same year near Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. Both of them closed down due to financial reasons. Jindal's was set up in 2007, and it has met with opposition. None of this means that the idea does not work. "Just because waste-to-energy plants in India have not been successful," says Sunil Kumar, scientist at the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, "we cannot say that the technology does not work."
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