N. Vittal, the former CVC, has quoted Prof. Lant Pritchett of the Harvard University in his ‘Mumbai Mirror’ (January 12, 2009) article – Prof. Lant Pritchett in a recent T.V. Programme while describing the state of governance in India has called India a ‘flailing state’.
On the one side, Prof. Pritchett concedes that India’s policy makers are among the best. They have the right concepts & goals and draw up impressive plans. However, when it comes to implementation, there is uniform failure. This observation of Prof. Lant Pritchett aptly describes the situation in the field of SWM in this country. The MSW 2000 Rules can easily be termed as one of the best framed rules at the international level. However, it is at the level of implementation that we have not succeeded so far.
It is not that urban bodies did not take up these rules seriously and started implementing the same. However, most of the projects, which were started with good intentions, have either been closed or are facing problems. A study carried out in India (UNDP, 19911) analysed 11 Mechanical Municipal compost plants constructed between 1975 to 1985 ranging from 150 to 250 tons refuse handling capacity per day. The study concluded that in 1991, only three were in operating condition and that these plants were operating at much lower capacities than their designed capacities. In the post-2000 scenario, some of the Municipal Corporations have also run into litigations with the operators who had promised free processing for the MSW and had drawn rosy pictures of implementation of MSW 2000 Rules to that urban local body. My personal research and discussions directly with so many Municipal Corporations have given me an interesting picture about the state of waste processing plants in different cities. A few are being quoted below:-
Delhi (Okla) Municipal Corporation:
It’s installed capacity is 300 TPD. However, it has been functioning with only 80 TPD capacity. Per day production of compost is 10 to 16 tons. MCD was unable to run the plant. Hence, it has been taken over by IL&FS and they are marketing compost through fertilizer firms like Coromandel, Zuari.
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, Gujarat:
It had an installed capacity of 500 TPD. It was shut down one and half years back because there was no provision for tipping fee and no sanitary landfill for rejects. There was problem in marketing of compost.
Thane Municipal Corporation, Maharashtra:
The operator started processing with no cost to corporation on a 17 acre land in Kopri with installed capacity of 30 TPD. Present status – closed and went into arbitration. The Arbitrator decided against the Corporation. TMC owes around र 18 crores today to the operator. The land is still in possession of the agency.
Kolhapur Municipal Corporation, Maharashtra:
The operator started with an installed capacity of 160 TPD. The agreement signed for 30 years. The agency was to pay र 4.8 lakhs fixed annual payment to Kolhapur Municipal Corporation as royalty. Present status – Plant is closed because there was problem in compost sale and also there was no sanitary landfill. It was closed in 2003.
Kolkata Municipal Corporation, West Bengal:
The operator started with installed capacity of 700 TPD. Present status – closed. The Company never took more than 200 TPD of waste in reality. The land given to the Company is much more than required for composting. However, the Company has not been accepting 700 TPD mixed waste as per agreement and has only been accepting 200 or less TPD because of marketing problem of compost. In litigation, they are now demanding segregated market waste only.
Nashik Municipal Corporation, Maharashtra:
The installed capacity of composting plant is 300 TPD. This is being run by the Corporation itself and has been in operation since last six years. The Corporation spends 2.5 crores annually in running the compost plant whereas it gets revenue out of sale of 30 TPD of compost annually, which is around र 60 lakhs. The officers agree that there is difficulty in running the plant. The Corporation has also developed a sanitary landfill of five hectares at a cost of 2.5 crores.
These examples throw various ‘sustainability’ issues with regard to waste management in the country. Though waste processing technologies in general, and selection of appropriate technology, in particular, can be termed as serious issues in this regard, to my mind ‘right financial model’ for such projects is the main issue upon which sustainability of any SWM project is critically based. This may seem to be a much generalised statement, as it is true about any long term project or for that matter any project, but this has to be highlighted here as ‘the critical factor’ due to the following reasons:
- Waste management projects (long term), as said earlier, are in their initial phases, and there is no successful long standing project in the country worthy of replication.
- There are so many domestic players/operators/agencies entering this sector without much experience.
- There are so many foreign players/agencies knocking at our doors with their technologies. These technologies are yet to be tried in Indian conditions with our nature of garbage and hence city administrators are reluctant to go ahead in many cases, where they are fully justified.
- There are agencies, which in order to take up new projects, are prepared to quote unrealistic prices or even ready to pay royalty to urban local bodies, like in Kolhapur. Whether the Chennai project (Box) is viable in the long run, is yet to be seen. Our experience of Kolhapur, however shows otherwise.
- In our country implementation of environmental laws are one of the last priorities and generally, short cuts are adopted by industries, as strict monitoring is absent at every level.
- For policy makers at the local level, spending for garbage is still a taboo. They are ready to make large allocations, for example, for roads and gardens, which are more visible aspects of development, but not much willing to allocate required budget for processing of waste and creation of sanitary landfill in their city backyard.
The Committee constituted by Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in 1999 had suggested composting as the main technology of MSW processing in the country. However, in India, compost is not yet accepted as a fertilizer on a large scale. The agro policy framework still foresees massive subsidies for chemical fertilizers. Banks also consider composting, a venture which entails high risk due to its lack of long term success and hence, the collateral securities are unreasonably higher. ‘Enterprises/agencies also depend on the availability of cheap municipal leaseholds, whereby securities for long term use are often only partially granted’ (Christian Zurbugg, et al 20042). The same study points out that due to high operating and transport costs and the poorly developed market for compost, the expected profits could not be realised as planned. Composting of mixed waste also had a negative effect on compost quality and thus on its acceptance by farmers. In such a situation, if some operators are offering free processing services or even royalty to urban bodies, the whole scenario gets confused. On the one hand, its success in future is doubtful, if we go by earlier experiences and real financial calculations and on the other hand, it confuses administrators and decision makers in other urban bodies about the actual cost of waste processing.
The small but successful example of Nashik Municipal Corporation shows that municipal bodies have to spend for sanitary landfill and also have to pay for the difference between the sale proceeds of compost and cost of processing and land filling to make it sustainable on a long term basis. This, converted into per ton basis, is termed as ‘tipping fee’ or ‘gate fee’. Unfortunately, in our country the concept of tipping fee or gate fee is still not popular. It is so probably because our general psyche is against spending for something like waste and on the other side, it is so because there are agencies which are promising ‘gold from waste’ to the urban local bodies. I would like to quote from one study: “If there are financial profits from composting activities, they are very small. Currently, it is not possible to achieve “gold from waste”, as is sometimes stated.” (28th WEDC Conference, India, 20023). The tipping fee based waste processing and land-filling model is the universally accepted and successful model all over the world. Few examples of tipping fee paid elsewhere are as follows:
Prevailing tipping fee
Note:-
Exchange Rate • INR = 47.05 USD, 1 INR = 65.28 EURO
• INR = 32.25 SGD
Countries in Europe and South East Asia have shown that whatever is the technology, there is no ‘free’ waste processing model which is ‘sustainable’ also. As urban administrator, we have to be guarded of false promises and must be looking into the actual financials of the company, including funding arrangements, its projects, the operating cost, the source of revenue, etc. One must go into details of operations and close the agreements with minutest details before awarding the work, as agencies may promise something and finally deliver something else. Sincere and quality implementation of environmental laws has substantial costs involved.
The benefits are also many and long term, which cannot be ignored. Hence, municipal bodies should be ready to pay for the viability gap to make the project sustainable. This attitude will help urban bodies from falling prey to unrealistic projects and in choosing the right kind of SWM projects on a long term sustainable basis.
Hazardous Industrial Waste Management
Hazardous wastes and their disposal are increasingly becoming a problem globally for various reasons. India is no exception. While all industries generate considerable amount of waste, certain industries generate wastes that are hazardous in nature. Such wastes, because of their characteristic quality of being corrosive, flammable, reactive, toxic or persistent are termed as ‘hazardous wastes’. In spite of new technologies, improved production, waste treatment and management strategies like reduce, reuse and recycle; there is still a certain quantity of waste that needs to be disposed off in a scientific way.
The hazardous waste (HW) generated in the country per annum is estimated to be around 4.4 MTA while as per the estimates of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) derived from correlating HW generation and economic activities, nearly five million tonnes of hazardous waste is being produced in the country annually.
This estimate of around 4.4 million MTA is based on the 18 categories of wastes which appeared in the HWM Rules first published in 1989. Out of this, 38.3% is recyclable, 4.3% is incinerable and the remaining 57.4% is disposable in secured landfills. Twelve states of the country – Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan – account for 97% of total hazardous waste generation. The top four waste generating states are Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. On the other hand, states such as Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and all the North-Eastern States excepting Assam, generate less than 20,000 MTA.
Given the wide variations in quantity and nature of waste generated across the States & Union Territories (UTs) and also considering the wide variations in climatic as well as hydro-geological conditions in different regions of the country, the approach to waste management has to be essentially state-specific.
Consequent upon amendments made in the year 2000 and subsequently in 2003, the State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) and Pollution Control Committees (PCCs) are in the process of re-inventorising HW generated. The current exercise has brought to light the serious shortcomings in the earlier inventorisation.
As a result, the total quantum of waste generated as well as its composition in terms of suitability for landfill or incineration, would undergo substantial changes. Nevertheless, the geographical distribution of waste generated and its distribution amongst the states are unlikely to undergo major changes. It is necessary to prepare a reliable inventory, as this forms the basis for formulating a suitable HW management strategy and developing infrastructure (treatment/disposal facilities) for waste management. While field verification supplemented by stoichiometric assessments would be the ideal way forward; reasonably reliable estimates can be made based on product wise waste streams generated and quantities thereof.
In India, there are over 13,000 industrial units located in 340 districts, out of which nearly all units have been granted authorisation for multiple disposal practices encompassing incineration, storage, land disposal and other disposal (mostly recycle and reuse) options.
The amount of HW generated in this country is quite small in comparison to that of USA, where as much as 275 million tons of HW is generated annually. However, considering the fragile ecosystem that India has, even this low quantum of HW (around 4.4 million MTA) could cause considerable damage to natural resources if untreated before release.
India’s fragile ecosystem could be seen from the following:
- Air pollution in Indian cities is highest amongst the world
- Over 70% of the country’s surface water sources are polluted and, in large stretches of major rivers, water is not even fit for bathing
- India has among the lowest per capita availability of forests in the world, which is 0.11ha as compared to 0.50ha in Thailand and 0.8ha in China
Significance of SMEs in HW generation
Nearly 50% of the total industrial output in India is contributed by the small and medium sited enterprises. These also account for 60-65% of the total industrial pollution. However, most of these industries generate HW, which find their way uncontrolled into the environment. According to the National Productivity Council, New Delhi, there are more than three million small and medium scale industries, which are spread throughout the country in the form of clusters/industrial estates. SMEs in India cannot afford to adopt and maintain adequate HW treatment and disposal technologies. In the absence of common disposal facilities, the waste generators have been accorded temporary permission to store waste in their premises except in areas serviced by common facilities that have come up in the States of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh (where storage period should not exceed more than 90 days).
The lack of common facilities has been a major factor in mushrooming of illegal dump sites since most of the units in the small and medium sector do not have adequate space within their premises to arrange for storage over several years. Therefore, it is urgently required to make available common HW collection facility in the areas in all the states where SMEs are operating
The Karnataka Experience
There are several working Hazardous Waste-Treatment Storage and/or Disposal Facilities (HW-TSDFs) in India.
Karnataka is supported by the Hazardous Waste Management Project (HAWA) in the improvement of HW management system. Proper HW management consists of component segregation and collection in companies, transport to a TSDF, pre-treatment and subsequently, final disposal in a scientifically secured and fully engineered landfill. Thermal pre-treatment of organic/liquid HW is to be done in special rotary kiln incinerators or in the form of co-processing with conventional fuel in cement kilns, after proper blending in specialised plants; thereafter the residual ashes and slag will finally be disposed off in the landfill.
HAWA is a project under the Advisory Services in Environmental Management (ASEM) programme which is a joint programme of the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) aiming at environmental improvement and sustainable development.
The GTZ which supports developmental programmes has its presence in more than 120 partner countries. It supports currently 2,700 projects across the world and operates within the scope of the development policy formulated by the Federal German Government on a public-benefit basis, using any surpluses exclusively for development-related purposes.
The Project
Substantial results were achieved, such as a comprehensive inventory of HW generated, including prospects for the future, TSDF site selection close to Bangalore, geo-technical and hydro-geological investigation of the site, environmental
The first phase of theTSDF at Dobbaspete, near Bangalore began in June 2001. During this phase the project received technical support form GTZ for technical planning, institutional development and all other preparatory works. The second phase, the implementation phase was from June 2004 to May 2007. During the current phase, since 2007, the construction of TSDF landfill has been completed. The TSDF is operational since January 2009.
The proposed facility at Dobbasapete site is based on the conceptual design which reflects current European standards and practices which have been adapted to Indian conditions. The facility comprises of the following components:
- Waiting Area, Entrance and Security Cabin
- Weigh Bridge and Control Building
- Sampling Area
- Administration/Operation Building
- Delivery, Treatment and Storage Area
- Vehicle Washing Area for Trucks
- Disposal Facility (Engineered Landfill)
- Solar Evaporation Pond.
- Rainwater Harvesting Pond
- Workshop and Garage
All vehicles will be required to report at the security gate at the entrance, before entering the fenced facility. Incoming vehicles carrying waste will use the truck parking/waiting area which is located close to the sampling area. A designated waiting area outside the fenced area will provide parking for vehicles reaching during the night.
Vehicles will be weighed before being directed to the sampling area. The outgoing vehicles will be also checked, weighed and manifest sheet verified.
Samples of waste collected from the vehicles would be subjected to laboratory test for acceptability and given clearance accordingly. In case of non-conformity, the waste will be stored in the intractable waste shed until a decision is made after further analysis, negotiation or decision
by KSPCB.
The TSDF has basic capabilities for pre-treatment of wastes prior to disposal in the secure landfill, which includes: Reduction of moisture content of sludge/semi-solid wastes by mixing with drier wastes; neutralisation of slightly acidic wastes by mixing with alkaline wastes or lime reagent and stabilisation of waste by mixing with PFA and lime or cement and lime. These activities enable the operators to minimise the hazardous nature of the wastes being landfilled, minimise leachate generation and ensure the minimum concentrations of hazardous substances in any leachate which is generated.
Landfill
The leachate pond is expected to evaporate the moisture during its one year cycle and the resulting sludge after evaporation will be returned to the landfill.
This facility has very minimal requirement of water. All used water willbe recycled and rainwater harvesting will also be implemented. Water will be drawn from the test wells (ground water monitoring wells) periodically for purposes of analysis only.
This TSDF has a multilayered sealing system at the bottom of the landfill. The landfill is mostly above the ground (a maximum of 3m below the ground). Hence, the presence of the landfill will not affect the ground water table. A ground water table at 60-90m is ideally suited for a landfill.
No smoke or smell emanates from the landfill. Also, no smelly organic liquids will be accepted.
For more information: Dr. Jurgen Porst, Senior Advisor, ASEM-GTZ
Consortium offers Corporation र 41.85 per tonne of waste
Chennai: A consortium of private firms that bid for the solid waste processing facility at Kodungaiyur dump yard has offered to pay the Chennai Corporation र41.85 per tonne of waste. The Corporation Council approved the bid on Tuesday.
Bangalore-based firms Terra-Firm Biotechnologies Limited, Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company and Tanglin Developments had formed a consortium to bid for the waste processing facility. The only other bid received for the project was from a consortium formed by India Cements that withdrew its financial bid during the evaluation process.
The tenderprocess for the Kodungaiyur facility was delayed because the Council had earlier rejected a bid that was tabled before it in a meeting held in July. The bid was made by Ramky Enviro Engineers and Ramky Infrastructure Limited, which asked for र 69.30 to process a tonne of waste.
Mayor M. Subramanian said that the tender was cancelled because the civic body had got a much better deal for the proposed waste processing plant at Perungudi, where Hydroair Tectonics (PCD) Private Limited offered a payment र 15 per tonne of waste.
The bid would now be sent to the State government for its sanction. If approved, the consortium would have to develop the facility on a design, build, operate, maintain and transfer basis. It would have to run the project for 20 years and annually increase the royalty by 5% of the previous year’s rate.
The consortium has proposed to compost waste, produce refuse-derived fuel and generate electricity. Debris would be put in sanitary landfills. The Corporation would have to provide 1,800 tonnes of garbage every day.
Courtesy: The Hindu