Article: Sustainable Garbage Management (0 Responses)

Subject Article: Sustainable Garbage Management

The segregation of garbage at source is the essential solutions for climate change
Main Point
phenomenon which is based on sustainable development.
Category Environment
Message Towards sustainable garbage management

In metro cities the municipal corporation waste (MSW) is increasing in geometric

proportion. Corporations go on identifying new landfill sites. Closure of existing and
commissioning of new dumping grounds is always controversial due to expenditure and
pollution impacts .Thousands of crores of rupees are being spent on landfill garbage
management with incineration technology on long term basis.

In fact the popularizing the idea of earning carbon credits with incineration process
undermines the potential of recycling in conserving energy. Furthermore the green
energy designation creates a social acceptance of waste and detracts from efforts to
reduce waste and use resources more efficiently, both more important areas of focus in
advancing towards sustainable resource management. It will also ensure more materials
are sent to incinerators for destruction contrary to the goals of sustainable source
management.

Garbage burning plants call for great deal of capital investment with relatively small
economic returns. In order to keep the normal operation status the plant requires
constant garbage supplies. In case of private operation the consequence tend to be a
long term agreement called put or pay. This can curb the initiative of locals o reduce
reuse and recycle the waste.
Recycling and composting are 25 times more effective at reducing emissions then waste
to energy. Data available as under.
1 ton paper recycled-17 trees saved
1 ton glass recycled-67% energy, 90%primary material saved
1ton aluminum recycled-4 tonnes bauxite ore saved
1 household completely recycled -1car off the road
1 job at incinerator-10 jobs in recycling
Actual experimental studies on aerobic composting of agriculture and municipal solid
wastes reveal that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission can be reduced by 13%,
methane emission by 11% & nitrogen oxide emissions by 14%

Aerobic composting is probably a major key to help solve or compliment the global and
local efforts to arrest mans rendezvous towards environmental disaster. The reduction in
CO2 emission for aerobic composting of organic garbage on dry basis is as
y=0.825xwhere Y is the weight of emission & X is the weigh of biomass composted.
Addition of the compost to the farm lands will minimize nitrogen oxide emission
equivalent to approximately 5%of total anthropogenic CO2 released to air as well as
enhancing the carbon absorption by the soil roughly to equivalent to another 5% of the
total CO2 emission .These are the relevant mitigating effects of aerobic composting on
the global warming phenomenon. Excess nitrogen fertilizer in agriculture areas is also a
major concern in terms of food security.

Even for the WTE(waste to energy) technology it is recommended if materials that

cannot be recycled or reused then they should be sent to WTE facilities.
Thus the segregation of garbage at source is one of the essential solutions for climate
change phenomenon which is based on sustainable development.
A community committed to source separating organics for composting and following the
principle of reuse recycle reduce is helping much for reducing GHG without affecting
GDP.
I am trying for source separation and composting in my society as far as possible and
can say that source separation is not difficult. Even the composting also can be done
with little monitoring. Last year our society generated 250kg of biomass composted
means roughly 1250 kg organic garbage saved from going to landfill and reducing
pollutant emissions CO2 and nitrogen oxides as per above calculations and also
methane emissions on landfill site and transportation cost.
The main hurdle in source separation is light weight plastic carry bags which are freely
available to people to throw away garbage packed in it. The use, storage, sale and
manufacture of these light weight plastic bags should be banned strictly.
Even for WTE ( waste to energy technology) it is recommended that if materials cannot
be reused, recycled then they should be sent to WTE facilities to recover energy.
Let us think to try to solve the garbage problems in sustainable ways and solutions will
be evolved themselves.
Ref :science & technology lecture by prof Casiono S Abrigo ,
Case study of landfills and incinerations by ChiTianwu,
Equity watch

Jayashree Joshi
Tel -28870271
mob 9967619142