What is the issue?
- The Ghazipur landfill collapse has highlighted the poor status of waste management in Indian cities.
- It demands a scientific approach to the problem, to keep check on any such tragedies in future and to capitalise through waste management.
How is waste management approached in India?
- The reality is that except for few Indian cities, most of the cities only 'dump' waste and not 'manage' them as such.
- Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 are hardly being followed by the cities.
- National records reveal that out of the collected 80% of the generated waste, only a mere 28% is being processed.
- Urban local governments leave the task of value extraction to the informal system of garbage collectors and recyclers.
- These informal systems are inefficient in recovering resources in discarded materials as they are just dumped.
- Moreover, the Swachh Bharat programme, intended to address all these, focuses too narrowly on individual action rather than a collective systematic approach.
Why is waste management so important?
- The volumes of wastes generated are estimated to grow in the coming years.
- A mere shifting of collected waste from the cities is increasing the pressure on the suburban areas.
- Moreover the stench from the landfill is a serious cause of concern for the people living in the colonies adjacent to it.
- It is also being the cause for many deadly diseases like tuberculosis, typhoid, dengue, malaria and encephalitis.
- Further, the methane gas produced by bio-degradable waste causes fire, and people are forced to inhale the poisonous gases from the smoke emitted.
- Additionally the unregulated use of plastics is polluting the rivers, lakes and sea, and is being ingested by cattle feeding on dumped refuse.
- All these firmly increase the need for addressing the issues with waste management.
What should be done?
- Tonnes of waste generated should necessarily be treated as a potential resource.
- Segregating the waste at the source into dry and wet is a prerequisite for adopting a scientific mode of waste disposal.
- The wet waste or organic refuse can be used for composting or production of methane for household use or power generation, and the dry waste can be sent for recycling.
- Furthermore, the municipal bodies should adopt an integrated system for transporting and very importantly scientifically processing the waste segregated at source.
- India should also make some regulations on the use of plastics.
- Central Pollution Control Board should undertake periodic assessments of the preparedness of urban local bodies in this regard.
- Above all, managing waste also requires a behaviour modification among citizens and institutions.
Source: The Hindu
