Mumbai's solid waste management plans expensive, dangerous

The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (mcgm) is expected to spend almost Rs 500 crore to develop waste processing technologies and scientifically manage its dumpyards at Gorai, Deonar, Mulund and Kanjurmarg (see map Mumbai dumping). Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (il&fs), Mumbai-based consultants, have prepared the plans. But experts say the project will just be a drain on mcgm's finances.

For Clean India to work, country needs to solve its waste disposal problem

Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious project to make India a clean country, aims to teach citizens to reduce and even clean their own waste. But first a matter of real urgency needs to be sorted out: India needs to increase landfill area, even as it looks into overhauling its municipal solid waste management system.

India generates about 60 million tonnes of trash every year. Ten million tonnes of garbage is generated in just the metropolitan cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Kolkata.



The landfills of most of these cities are already overflowing, with no space to accommodate fresh garbage waste.

Segregation - The first step to keeping 60% of our waste out of the landfill!

Introduction | Why it’s important to segregate

Any and all waste management interventions are futile if they don’t address one fundamental problem:  the lack of waste segregation at source. As long as people put their recyclable, organic, hazardous and sanitary waste in the same bin, the corporation collects and dumps it at either Perungudi or Kodungaiyur landfills. Sadly, the majority of Chennai’s citizenry take this for granted to be the only solution to household waste. Before you nod in agreement, let’s look at some facts: 47% of the waste going into landfills is organic waste and 18% is recyclable waste.

New age alchemists

More and more companies are making wealth from waste and, in the process, saving the environment from devastation. Business Today looks at five of these green businesses.

FABRIC FROM PLASTIC
Arora Fibres recycles discarded plastic bottles into polyester used as packaging material

Don't chuck out those plastic bottles that have been piling up in your kitchen for days. They can be re-used to make polyester fabric. Rupinder Singh Arora, Chairman of Arora Fibres Ltd, has been recycling discarded plastic bottles into polyester staple fibre since 1994 after he saw the colossal damage to the environment from mountains of bio-degradable plastic being burned in the country. "We were the pioneers in this field.

wastelands-of-india-heres-how-metros-manage-their-trash

For days starting Jan 28, a massive fire swept through Mumbai’s Deonar dump, a 90-year-old landfill that should have long been shut. It’s a similar story across India’s metros — of poor urban waste management leading to mounds of refuse, some as tall as five-storey buildings.

Mumbai

An ageing mound bears the brunt

Daily Waste: 9,600 Tonnes
No. of landfills: 3 – Deonar, Mulund and Kanjurmarg
Agency responsible: The Shiv Sena-held Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation

(Complaints are not uncommon…)

Can incinerators help manage India's growing waste management problem?

Hari Pulakkat, ET BureauApr 28, 2015, 10.12AM IST                                         

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.

Okhla waste-to-energy plant safe: Jayanthi Natarajan

Justifying the controversial waste-to-energy plant set up at Okhla, Union environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan, has said the emissions from the Jindal plant are well within the limits set under the Municipal Solid Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000.

Replying to a question by Jayprakash Narayan Singh, a BJP MP from Jharkhand, whether the residents near Yamuna river in Delhi are facing breathlessness due to smoke and odour emanating from the plant, the minister on March 13 stated in the Rajya Sabha that the technology used at the plant is certified as per the Rules.