Watte waste!

Homes in the city have started to sell waste for a price. Starting Monday, residents of some roads in Perambur opted to sell their waste including vegetable waste for Rs.2 per kg. This has been facilitated by NGOs with the support of the Chennai Corporation. Members of the NGOs, carrying weighing machines, purchased waste at the doorstep of residents in some stretches of Perambur. The members of the NGOs have planned to procure waste from residents and hand over money on the spot.

The sale of waste on Monday covered just a few streets, yet it is an indication of the path the Chennai Corporation will take in the future. A senior official of the Chennai Corporation said the civic body has decided to intensify source segregation to cope with the garbage problem.

The civic body has accepted proposals from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre for installation of biogas plants by promoting source segregation. It is also planning to put in place a system for rewarding residents who support source segregation with cash amounts on a periodic basis. Some of the top contributors to source segregation will be selected based on a lucky draw for the cash award to be announced periodically. This will motivate residents to contribute to source segregation, the official said.

The city will soon be covered by more NGOs and a variety of such plants to promote source segregation.

Source: The Hindu, 12th Feb, Chennai

Plastic Recycling Unit, Chennai residents seek closure

A section of residents of Chromepet has appealed to the State government to shut down or shift a unit that recycles plastic containers carrying hazardous waste.

 The group that gathered under the banner of the ‘Struggle Committee of Chamber’s Colony’ claimed the plant was a health hazard to the few hundred families in the colony.

The residents, in an appeal to Municipal Chairman K.M.R. Nissar Ahmed, noted that the unit had begun functioning a few years ago as a godown to store empty and used cans of hazardous chemicals. The cans would later be disposed off to buyers. Of late, the unit had also begun recycling the cans. As these containers had residues of hazardous chemicals, the process of recycling saw many such chemicals released into the air. Residents said that among the chemicals that were released were vinyl chloride, ethylene oxide and xylem and this had led to complaints of irritation in the eyes and difficulties while breathing.

They also submitted a petition urging the intervention of the local body as well as Chief Minister’s Cell and Kancheepuram Collector and asked the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board to send a team of officials to make a spot visit and initiate action. 

Mr. Ahmed said preliminary enquiries had revealed that the unit had obtained all the necessary approvals. However, a thorough check of the unit would be done based on the grievances submitted by the residents, he added.

 Source: The Hindu, Chennai

Delhi case study - Power, Waste and a Debate

THE SUNDAY STORY The Delhi government is buoyant that it has finally found a solution to tackling the ever-increasing piles of waste.

By the end of this year, Delhi will have its second waste-to-energy plant generating electricity at the landfill near Ghazipur. A similar plant, Timarpur Okhla Waste to Energy plant, sited in the vicinity of a residential colony and a hospital, has started generation since the beginning of this year.

The Delhi government is buoyant that it has finally found a solution to tackling the ever-increasing piles of waste. No government wants to grapple with millions of tonnes of waste dumped on prime land, polluting the groundwater and the air and threatening to multiply.

Delhi, with limited space, views waste-to-energy plants as a win-win solution. “Energy production is incidental. Our main concern is waste,” says Shakti Sinha, Principal Secretary, Power, summing up the government’s perception of these plants.

“The plants are absolutely safe,” he asserts. “We use state-of-the-art technology, and these are run as per the European Union norms with strict monitoring. The plants do not pose a threat to the people or the environment.”

But environmentalists and residents are not convinced. They still want the government to rethink the policy to set up waste-to-energy plants that burn waste, releasing harmful dioxins into the air.

“The government’s main concern is land. It is the only source of resources- generation for an urban local body. By burning waste, they are reclaiming land,” says Duny Roy of Hazards Centre, a non-governmental organisation. The government, he argues, should have learnt its lessons from an older, defunct waste-to-energy plant at Timarpur, which was shut down after it failed to serve its purpose.

Opposition to these plants is not only based on the risk the technology poses to the health and the environment, but also on the amount of electricity they generate. Production is as little as 16 MW at the Timarpur Okhla plant and will be 10-12 MW at the Ghazipur plant, a relatively small quantum.

“The financial viability of the Timarpur Okhla plant is dubious, and it is unlikely to be a commercially successful project,” says Bharati Chaturvedi of Chintan, an NGO working to reduce ecological footprints and increase environmental justice.  

Environmentalists have been red-flagging the issue of dioxins that will be released when the waste burns, and the threat dioxins pose to health is well documented, she points out. Both Mr. Roy and Ms. Chaturvedi agree that tackling waste is a challenge, but they disagree with the government’s policy of dealing with it.

“We need to cut down on waste, the packaging industry is a culprit; from food to refrigerators, everything comes packed in fancy packaging and all of that adds to the waste. Wet garbage, which forms the bulk of our waste, can be turned into compost, some waste can be recycled, building material can be used too,” says Mr. Roy.

Ms. Chaturvedi pitches for emulating global best practices such as reusing, recycling and composting.

“Waste is also a source of livelihood for some. Waste-pickers should be allowed to segregate waste, take what can be put to use. In San Francisco, for instance, there is a material recovery facility where even that city’s waste-pickers come to sell. Residents are also sensitised to not dumping together wet, hazardous and recyclable waste. In Holland too, there are shops, much like our own Kabariwallas, where metal and other recyclable wastes are segregated, the Philippines has laws on waste-pickers and designated junkshops. Burning waste is not the only solution.” 

Brushing aside the concerns, the government insists that the opposition to the plants stems primarily from the “not-in-my-backyard” mindset. “Everyone wants to get rid of waste, but they want it to be done somewhere away from their neighbourhood,” says an official of the Delhi government.

Mr. Sinha wants the sceptics to reconsider their stance. “Forget Timarpur, the current waste-to-energy plants are based on technology that does not harm. Look at the amount of waste that has piled up all around us, Ghazipur has five million tonnes of waste, and it is growing. There is no more space for a landfill in Delhi. Even if a single megawatt of power generated at this plant is 25 per cent more expensive than what is produced at a thermal plant, it is well worth it.”

Source: The Hindu, National Daily, Delhi

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