resolving landfill conflicts-solid waste management principles

8/8/2019 Resolving Landfill Conflicts-Solid Waste Management principles

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RESOLVING LANDFILL

CONFLICTSTHROUGH WASTE REDUCTION

Mrs Almitra H Patel, Member

Supreme Court Committee on Solid Waste Management50 Kothnur, Bagalur Road, Bangalore 560077

[email protected]

www.almitrapatel.com

98443 02914IIT Chennai 11.10.2010



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WHY NO EARLIER LANDFILLS?

Before the 1960s, city waste was all organicand highly prized by farmers for composting.

So the British created huge grass farms for

sewage but no spaces for city solid waste.

The Plastics Yug and Urea Subsidy has now

made city waste unwanted, so cities dump it

outside their city limits, on highways, river-

banks or suburban farmland, even in lakes.



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OPEN DUMPS ARE NOT LANDFILLS!

Growing cities, growing waste meant larger andhigher dumps. These release methane gas as they

decompose, and also stinking black ³leachate´ liquid

which flows downward, polluting ground-water, wells.

So the West, esp USA with vast empty lands, created

µLandfills¶ with waterproof bottom & side liners to keep

leachate out of the ground, and pipes below airtight

covers to capture methane and just ³flare´ (waste) it.

Even lined landfills leak after 30 years, so Europe has

BANNED BELOW-GROUND LANDFILLS FROM 2012.



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INDIA LE ARNT FROM OTHERS

India¶s Municipal Solid Waste Rules 2000recognise the importance of city compost for

our soil health as in Vedic times & even now.

Organic waste has by law to be STABILISED

(like leaves on a forest floor) to a humus-richearthy water-retaining microbe-rich powder.

This is called compost, after sieving. It restores vitality

to soils made infertile by too much chemical fertiliser.

Even huge old dumps are being µbio-mined¶ by fertiliser

companies to recover compost for co-marketing with

urea and to create fresh waste-management space.



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L ANDFILL AVOIDANCE IS KEY

Our MSW Rules require municipal bodies to

³MAKE USE OF W ASTES TO MINIMIZE

BURDEN ON L ANDFILL´.

Suryapet (pop. 103,000) has shown how

easily this can be done. Less than 10% of

their collected waste needs land-filling. Andsale of sorted dry waste employing 8 waste-

pickers earns the city Rs 1 lac a month.



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KEEP W ASTES UNMIXED AT

SO

URC

E &IN

TRAN

SPOR

TCitizens will keep dry

waste out of food waste

if they SEE the city is

serious about managing

them separately and

properly as here at

Suryapet.D

aily, eighttractors lift 32 tons/day

from 32,000 homes etc.



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OUR RECYCLING IS VIBRANT

India¶s huge informal sector of rag-pickers,kabadiwalas, waste buyers and recyclers

supports 1-2% of big-city employment.

SEGREGATION IS KEY TO REDUCE WASTE QTY.

If 15% to 25% recyclables are collected AND

TRANSPORTED SEPARATELY, and debris/silt is

collected in a separate trip, the organic content

of compostable waste goes up from 45% to 80%.

Only non-recyclables and non-compostables are

allowed to be ³landfilled´ in lined landfills.



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ONLY ADMINISTRATIVE WILL

IS NEEDED FOR GOOD MSW

Random dumping outside towns needs to be replaced

by eco-friendly waste processing and disposal in

designated locations, which are far from homes, water

bodies, wetlands, National Parks and heritage sites.

Of course this will be objected to by nearby residents IF

IT¶S UNHYGIENIC and not as laid down in MSW Rules.

Suryapet, AP, pop. 1 lac, achieved dustbin-free ZERO

GARBAGE status of 32 tons/day waste by vermi- /composting and dry waste sorting on just 1/2 acre land

within the town! NO LANDFILLING was needed as

CLEAN INERTS were used for highway widening.



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ZERO WASTE IS CATCHING ON

In AP: Tenali, Eluru, Nandyal, + 50 KrishnaDistrict panchayats collect plastics-free waste.

In TN: Kulithalai copied the Suryapet model

and should be an example for Ambattur etc.

In Gujarat: 89 small towns do vermicomposting.

In Kerala: 200 apartments in Kochi use

onsite 200 BIO-BINS TO MINIMISE WASTE

BY DECENTRALISED COMPOSTING.

Why not in small town clusters in Tamil Nadu?



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REPL ACE DUMPER PL ACERS

WITH B

IO-BIN

S like Kochi¶s:



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BENEFITS OF BIO-BINS

Waste from 100-200 families is added daily to

one bio-bin with a little bioculture, and moved

from one end of bin to the other to mix & aerate.

After 15 days left to mature and 2nd bio-bin used.

No smell, no leachate, 50% volume reduction.

WASTE IS STABILISED, AS PER RULES.

10-15-day stabilised waste is fed to earthworms

for profitable Self Help Group income generation.



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NOBODY WILL OBJECT TO

ST ABILISED PL ASTICS-FREE

W ASTE MGT NE ARBYCities must be sincere and considerate. The

Chief Officer should do waste processing as

if he is prepared to personally live next door.

It is unacceptable to not use one¶s own

SWM sites because of sloppy managementand insist on dumping near distant villagers

and threaten Chennai¶s water-supply lifeline.



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AMB ATTUR¶s SWM PL AN is FL AWED

SWM Rules are already 10 yrs old. Yet Ambattur isplanning for source separation AFTER 5 YE ARS!

Waste quantities ar e grossly exaggerated.

27 tpd for tiny pop 30,265 Valsaravakkam

= 892 gm/capita/day! More than 3.5 timesthe small-town average of 250 gcpd!

This can be entirely managed by many local bio-bins or

stack and vermi-composting. Avoiding many daily 18 kmtrips by six mini-lorries to a faraway common site will give

huge savings in transport, useful for town improvements.



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MINIMAL SPACE IS NEEDED FOR

PLASTICS-FREE WET WASTE.

Suryapet¶s vermi- and stack-

composting is very compact



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COLLECT INERTS SEP ARATELY

Ambattur has NO PL ANS TO REDUCE the30% inerts it collects along with its mixed waste!

Suryapet does Door To Door collection of

SEGREGATED garbage 5 - 8am + 8:30 - 10am,and 10am - Noon from shops, offices & hospitals.

2-5pm is for SEP ARATE LIFTING OF SILT into

wheely-bins unloading into a separate tractor trip.

Drains are SPOTLESS! Silt widens the highway.

No landfill is necessary as everything is useful.



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RECYCLING MINIMISES W ASTE QTY

Ambattur¶s inflated waste quantity will reduce

30% by keeping out silt and inerts, and another

25% by recycling all non-compostable wastes.

Why continue sloppy habits of collecting all mixed

and then try to sieve sand out for bricks or landfill?

RDF from such low-calorie waste has failed many

times. Minimum 3500 kcal/kg is reqd, not 1100 kcal/kg!

TN is a leader in µplastic roads¶, 1200 km 4 yr ago!

No litter, plus Bitumen Road life is 250% better!



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SHREDDED PLASTICS MAKE

EXCELLENT BITUMEN ROADS :

1200 km in Tamil Nadu in 1 year!

Tamil Nadu Rural Dev Dept gave

plastic shredding machines to

self-help groups, purchased itat Rs 12 per kg to replace 10%

bitumen by weight, making far

better roads at no extra cost.

Collect through schools:1 free pencil for 1 kg plastic;

Sell pooled class collection for Eco Club activities

Help kabadiwalas BUY all drywaste from homes.



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CONSULT THE PEOPLE!

ALL will cooperate in a win-win situation.Consult SHGs in the 4 small towns below ½

lac pop, and waste pickers and buyers in

Ambattur, how to generate jobs from waste

to become a model Zero Garbage Town.

Consult Kutthambakkam farmers and dairymen

on how they can benefit from city compost and

vermicompost produced within the towns withoutany dumping upstream of a drinking water lake!

Avoidable forcible pollution of grazing land, wetlands,

lakes by NIMBY towns unwilling to change is criminal!

resolving landfill conflicts-solid waste management principles

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