FEATURE ARTICLE

KIRTI BANSAL

The landll site in Ghazipur

Managing solid waste is increasingly becoming a technological and social challenge.

In India, along with technology, spreading social awareness among the countrys
citizens is imperative if we have to successfully tackle the increasing piles of waste.

HE Millennium Indraprastha Park

is the longest park in Delhi created
over an area of 34 hectares and stretching
2.7 km along the Ring Road. There is
nothing to suggest that the huge park
lush green with trees and shrubs and
owers has come up on a huge landll
site. This beautiful park took birth thanks
to a scientic approach towards garbage
disposal and land reclamation.
About 5 km away at Ghazipur, yet
another 30-acre garbage dump, nearly
50 metres high, is not only being turned
green but the methane released by the
landll will be captured and converted to

SCIENCE REPORTER, JUNE 2014

compressed natural gas. This is the result

of a unique experiment being conducted
by the East Delhi Municipal Corporation
in collaboration with Gas Authority of
India Limited (GAIL). The landll will
no longer discharge toxins like lead and
mercury into groundwater, or particulate
matter into the air.
On the northwest fringes of Delhi,
efforts are on to convert 20 acres of the
Bhalswa landll site into a lush green
patch. Erosion control blankets are being
xed on the slopes to prevent the soil from
eroding. Then grass and ower saplings
would be planted over these blankets to
complete the transformation.
The above success stories and
efforts to reclaim waste dump yards are
testimony to the increasing concerns for
managing the colossal waste generated in

26

Efforts to reclaim the landll site in Ghazipur

FEATURE ARTICLE

The Millennium Park in New Delhi has come

up on a landll site

at a rapid pace. About 55 million tonnes

of waste is generated every year at an
average rate of 0.5 kg of waste per person
per day. It is expected to cross over 125
million tonnes by 2030.
And how is this waste being
managed? Much of it is dumped on the
outskirts of cities in low lying areas with
no compliance of regulations. Transport
of waste in open vehicles leads to
littering of waste, causing breeding of
mosquitoes and ies, ultimately affecting
public health. The disposal is unscientic
polluting air and water. The landll sites
are neither well equipped nor managed
efciently. There is no segregation of
waste, which so important for scientic
waste management.

Classifying Waste
In order to implement cost-effective
management strategies that are benecial
to public health and environment it is
practical to classify the waste. Some major
classes of waste according to the manner
in which they are generated are:
1. Municipal (kitchen waste, paper, wood
pellets, disposable tableware, leaves, etc.)
2. Industrial (coal combustion solids,
waste from pulp and paper industries)
3. Hazardous (residues from solvent and
paint manufacture, petroleum rening,
etc.)
4. Biomedical (syringes, body uids,
cultures from pathological laboratories,
etc.)
5. Construction and demolition (concrete,

CONSTITUENTS OF INDIA MSW DUMPS

Leaves
Fruits
Hay and straw
Vegetables
Fine organic matter
Food waste
Paper
Plastic

27

asphalt, metal, rocks and soils)

6. Agricultural (animal manures and crop
residues)
7. E-waste (batteries, portable computers,
mobile telephones etc.)
Municipal solid waste predominantly
includes domestic waste either in solid or
semi-solid form. It is broadly classied as:
Biodegradable waste: food and kitchen
waste, green waste( grass, owers, leaves
etc)
Recyclable material: paper, glass,
bottles, plastics, fabrics etc
Inert waste: soil, pebbles, dirt, ash etc.
About 115,000 tonnes of municipal
solid waste is generated every day with
a yearly increase of 5% (Central Pollution
Control Board, India). The characteristics
of municipal solid waste collected from
any area depend on food habits, cultural
traditions of inhabitants, life styles,
climate, etc.
Although the composition of waste
is changing in India with increasing use
of packaging material but still the Indian
waste largely comprises of organic matter
compared to developed countries as
shown in Table 1.
The Ministry of Environment and
Forests has notied the Municipal Solid
Waste (Management & Handling) Rule,
2000 under the Environment (Protection)
Act, 1986 to manage the Municipal Solid
Waste (MSW) generated in the country. The
entire responsibility for the implementation
lies with municipal authorities and the
major functions include:
Organizing house to house waste
collection.
Conducting awareness programmes to
disseminate information to the public.
Providing adequate community storage
facilities.
Use of colour code bins and promotion
of waste segregation.
Transport of wastes in covered vehicles.
Processing of wastes by adopting an
appropriate combination of composting,
anaerobic digestion, pelletisation, etc.
Upgradation of the existing dump sites
and disposal of inert wastes in sanitary
landlls.
However, there is no comprehensive
short and long term plan with the
municipal authorities to handle MSW in
accordance with the MSW Rules, 2000.
About 25% of waste is not collected at
all and the majority of the municipal
authorities do not have preparedness to set
up waste processing and disposal facilities.
SCIENCE REPORTER, JUNE 2014

FEATURE ARTICLE
TABLE 1:

COMPOSITION OF SOLID WASTE IN PER CENT BY

MASS

Countries

Organic

Paper

Plastic

Glass

Others

USA

23

36

16

Canada

33

28

11

13

France

25

30

10

12

17

India

44

3.8

44

China

36

3.6

54

Malaysia

43

23

11.2

15

WASTE HIERARCHY
Stages

Includes

Using less material in design and manufacture

Keeping products for longer, re-use
Using less hazardous material
Checking, cleaning, repairing, refurbishing whole items
or spare parts
Turning waste into a new substance or product including
composting
Including anaerobic digestion, incineration with energy
recovery, gasication, and pyrolysis which produce
energy (fuel, heat and power), and materials from waste
Landll and incineration without energy recovery

Treating Solid Waste

There are several methodologies available
for the treatment of Solid Waste.
Waste management hierarchy: It
indicates an order of preference for
action to reduce and manage waste, and
is usually presented diagrammatically in
the form of a pyramid.
Land lling: It is a technique for the
disposal of waste into or onto the land.
All types of waste such as residual,
commercial, residential etc and the
unutilized waste left after its processing
are also dumped into landll sites.
Major limitations of this process are that
transportation of the MSW to a far-away
site increases the cost and dumping leads
to emission of the two major GHGs,
methane and carbon dioxide, into the
atmosphere. Land ll sites hold potential
for the recovery of the landll gas for
electricity generation but there is a risk of
ignition in the absence of gas ventilation.
The cost of pre-treatment to upgrade the
gas quality may also be signicant.

as bacteria under warm, moist, aerobic

or anaerobic conditions is known as
composting. It is a simple and cost effective
process which increases the moisture
holding capacity of the soil. However,
the process is not suitable for wet waste.
Issues of large land requirement, methane
emission, ies, bad odor and marketing
of compost are of major concern. In
contrast to this, vermi composting is
preferred in small towns because it
requires less mechanization and is easy
to operate. In this process earthworms
are fed on partially decomposed matter.
The worm casts out a ne, odorless and
granular product used as biofertilizer in
agriculture.

Waste is a valuable
resource if addressed
correctly through
policies and practices.

Composting and Vermi Composting:

Formation of the compost (humus) by
the degradation of organic matter in
the presence of microorganisms such
SCIENCE REPORTER, JUNE 2014

28

Waste-To-Energy (WtE): Waste to energy

projects have been proven worldwide
but are yet to establish in India because
its nancial viability and sustainability
is still being tested. The main factors
that determine the techno-economic
viability of WtE projects are quantum of
investment, scale of operation, availability
of quality waste, statutory requirements
and project risks. WtE projects generally
involve high capital investment and 5005000 TPD waste.
Such plants are viable in developed
countries because of the gate fees charged
by the facility for the service of waste
disposal, in addition to its revenue income
from power sales. It is thereafter the sole
responsibility of the facility operator to
treat and dispose of the accepted waste
as per statutory requirements. However,
at present in India, revenue from power
sales is the only source of revenue for WtE
plants.
Some WtE technologies are:
Incineration: MSW can be directly
combusted in incinerators with the
temperature varying between 980 C to
2000 C. It can reduce the waste volume
by 80-90% but is not much practiced in
India due to high organic material (5060%), moisture content (40-50%) and low
caloric value (800-1100 kcal/kg) content
in MSW.

FEATURE ARTICLE
Pyrolysis/Gasication: Pyrolysis uses
heat under oxygen decient condition to
break down the solid waste producing
a mixture of combustible gases (mainly
methane,
hydrogen
and
carbon
monoxide), liquids and solid residues.
Biomethanation: The organic waste is
acted upon by anaerobic microorganisms
under anaerobic conditions with the
release of carbon dioxide and methane.
This method is suitable for only the
organic biodegradable fraction of MSW
and produces 100-150 kwh per ton of
waste.
Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF): It is a fuel
produced by either shredding the solid
waste or treating it with steam pressure
in an autoclave. The RDF pellets can be
conveniently stored and transported.
Burning RDF is more clean and efcient
prior to incinerating MSW. However,
the process is energy intensive and not
suitable for wet MSW such as during the
rainy season.

WtE Plants in India

The rst large-scale MSW incineration
plant was constructed at Timarpur, New
Delhi in 1987, which was capable of
generating 3.75 MW power from 300 TPD
MSW. It was set up at a cost of Rs. 250
million (US$5.7 million) by Miljotecknik
volunteer, Denmark. The plant was out
of operation after six months and the
Municipal Corporation of Delhi was
forced to shut down the plant due to low
net caloric value of MSW.
Another
incineration
plant
was
constructed at BARC, Trombay (near
Mumbai) for burning only the institutional
waste, which includes mostly paper.
A 5 MW project in Lucknow was
started in 2003, based on biomethanation
technology. The plant only reached
1 MW and was closed down within
six months due to ineffective waste

ZERO WASTE
Zero waste is a conceptual goal that aims at
eliminaon rather than managing waste. It
represents the closed-loop philosophy (cradle
to cradle) resulng in no waste. It is a new
way of thinking about protecon of health of
everyone who produces, handles, works with,
or is aected by waste.
The zero waste campaigns are being
adopted worldwide in many countries.
Canberra was the rst city in the world to
adopt the zero waste vision in 1996. ZeroWIN
(Towards Zero Waste in Industrial Networks)
is a ve year project running 2009-2014,
funded by the EC under the 7th Framework
Programme. It has 30 academic and industrial
partners across Europe who will integrate
their experse and try the chosen strategies.
The zero waste Kovalam project in
Kerala is the rst iniave towards zero
waste in India. It is an ongoing programme of
Zero Waste campaign near the Saphalyam
Complex, Palayam, Trivandrum
Thanal and is jointly supported by
Greenpeace, GAIA (Global Alliance for Incineraon Alternaves) and KHRA (Kerala Hotels
and Restaurants Associaon). Indian Tobacco Company (ITC), Bhadrachalam (A.P), Miranda
House, an environmental NGO and Sarita Vihar, a residenal colony in Delhi are some
examples that have taken iniaves towards the Zero Waste vision.

Industries should not be produce products that cannot

be reused, recycled or treated
rate is about 50-150 kg/h and its efciency
further.
segregation system, which led to
poor quality of MSW being delivered
to the plant. Nisargruna biogas plant
developed at BARC is an improvement
on biomethanation technology as it can
process all biodegradable waste rather
than human waste and cow dung (material
for conventional biogas plant).
Two different designs of gasiers
exist in India. The rst one (NERIFIER
gasication unit) is installed at Nohar,
Hanungarh, Rajasthan by Navreet
Energy Research and Information (NERI)
for the burning of agro-wastes, sawmill
dust, and forest wastes. The waste-feeding

BARCs Nisargruna biogas plant

29

about 70-80%. About 25% of the fuel gas

produced may be recycled back into the
system to support the gasication process,
and the remaining is recovered and used
for power generation. The second unit
is the TERI gasication unit installed at
Gual Pahari campus, New Delhi by The
Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).
In India, many RDF plants are in
operation at Hyderabad, Guntur and
Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh. The
Hyderabad RDF plant was commissioned
in 1999 near the Golconda dumping
ground with a 1000 t/day capacity (but
receiving only 700 t/day at present). The
RDF production is about 210 t/day as
uff and pellets, and it is going to be used
for producing power (about 6.6 MW).
The RDF plant at Deonar, Mumbai was
set up in the early 1990s for processing
garbage into fuel pellets. It is based on
indigenous technology. However, the
plant has not been in operation for the
last few years. A similar project has been
established in Bangalore and has had
regular production of fuel pellets since
October 1989, compacting 50 t/day of
garbage, converting into 5 t of fuel pellets,
which can be designed both for industrial
and domestic uses.
SCIENCE REPORTER, JUNE 2014

FEATURE ARTICLE
CARBON CREDITS
Carbon credit is the tradable cercate or permit
that allows the holder to emit one tonne of carbon
dioxide or carbon dioxide equivalent gases. These
gases are Methane, Nitrous oxide, Peruorocarbons,
Hydrouorocarbons and Sulphur hexauoride. If any of
these gases are reduced from the atmosphere, carbon
credits can be earned, which could then be sold. But if
carbon credits exceed their allowance they could be
purchased from other organizaons.
Credits generated are known as CERs (cered emission reducons). CDM (Clean
Development Mechanism) under the Kyoto protocol along with VCS (Veried Carbon
Standard) provides a robust plaAorm to develop GHG emission reducon projects which will
further earn carbon credits (emission reducons).
Solid waste management pracces release high quanes of green house gases in the
atmosphere. This sector therefore creates signicant opportunies for carbon migaon,
which could eventually become tradable carbon credits. Some waste to energy projects in
India have already started earning carbon credits.

MSW processing plant in Hyderabad

WtE plants in Delhi

The city of Delhi generated approximately
8,000 MT of Municipal Solid Waste
(MSW) every day in 2013 at the rate of
500 g/capita/day. More than 65% of the
MSW collected is disposed off in landlls.
The remaining amount of MSW is sent
for either composting or WtE plants for
energy generation. For treatment and
processing of MSW, currently there are
three WtE plants.

The Hyderabad
RDF plant was
commissioned
in 1999 near
the Golconda
dumping ground
with a 1000 t/
day capacity
(but receiving
only 700 t/day at
present).
Okhla plant: The waste to energy plant
at Okhla is in operation and operates on
mass combustion of MSW as its working
technology. In this plant, 16 MW/
day power is generated with the input
volume of 1350 TPD of waste. In this
plant segregation of waste takes place
before combustion. Air Pollution Control
Systems such as Turboreactor and Fabric
Filtration Air Quality Control System are
provided in this plant to prevent emission

Okhla w2e plant

On the northwest fringes of

Delhi, efforts are on to convert
20 acres of the Bhalswa landll
site into a lush green patch.
Erosion control blankets are
being xed on the slopes to
prevent the soil from eroding.
of gases without treatment. However,
the plant has been under re for quite
some time on account of not adhering to
pollution control norms.
Gazipur Plant: The waste to energy
plant at Ghazipur is under construction
and proposes to adopt mass combustion
of MSW as its working technology. The
process would involve conversion of
MSW to RDF and then combustion of
RDF to generate electricity. In this plant,
12 MW/day power will be generated
with the input volume of 1300 TPD of
waste. The plant has a capacity of taking
up 2000 TPD waste.

Narela-Bawana
plant
(MSW
Combustion): The Ramky waste to energy
plant at Bawana is under construction and
will operate on mass combustion of MSW
as its working technology. In this plant, 12
MW/day power will be generated with
the input volume of 600 TPD waste per
boiler for 3 boilers. It is a part of Ramkys
Integrated Waste Management Plant.

Tackling Waste
Processing and managing waste is a
technological challenge. This challenge
will further intensify as population
increases and industries are set up.
It is also a social challenge. Unless
efforts are made to create awareness and
people are educated about the need to
segregate waste before processing, not
much headway can be made in efciently
managing the increasing piles of waste
throughout the country. We have to
reduce the waste, segregate, and change
our consumption habits.
At the same time industries should
not be produce products that cannot
be reused, recycled or treated further.
There is a need for trained man power
to implement the waste management
technologies. Waste is a valuable resource
if addressed correctly through policies
and practices.
Ms Kirti Bansal is a Research Intern with the
National Institute of Science Communication and
Information Resources (NISCAIR), CSIR, New
Delhi.

SCIENCE REPORTER, JUNE 2014

30