Remediating Open Dumps and Recycling of Spaces

1
Remediating Open Dumps and Recycling of
Spaces

• Mrs Almitra H Patel
• Member, Supreme Court Committee for Solid Waste
  Management
• almitrapatel_at_rediffmail.com
• 14.2.2007

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OPEN WASTE DUMPS ARE NOT BEING IMPROVED.

• This FIRST deadline set by the Municipal Solid
  Waste MSW Rules 2000, is the least followed
• Improvement of Existing Landfill sites as per
• provisions of these rules, By 31.3.2001 or
  earlier.
• Perhaps for want of clear directives on how to
  manage the huge variety of open dumps we have.
  But there are do-able solutions for all of them.

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Dumping along highways is the commonest, hard
to handle in-situ, but easiest to STOP
4
Hill town chutes send waste out of sight into
lovely valleys. 1-week bio-stabilised fresh waste
can cover heal these scars with new growth.
5
Dehradun buries its raw waste in trenches in a
seasonal riverbed, hard to treat there. It can be
bio-stabilised above-ground in windrows instead.
6
Many dumps are small. Keep out
leachate-producing rainwater by shaping into
convex heaps, with diversion drain uphill and
catch-drain on lower slope
7
Add soil cover to control smoke fires, and seed
with local plants to help convert methane to CO2
8
Lucknows dumping into the Gomti river-bed is
most shocking, but can be bio-remediated if the
will is there
9
Major garbage hills like Punes create
leachate-pools below
10
which seriously pollute open wells upto 4 km
away, v difficult to restore.
11
This destroys nearby farmland and provoked local
litigation at Hyd too
12
But even vast burning dumps like Hyderabads
Autonagar are being bio-remediated. Pune is next.
13
Both Hyd Pune will run on sales of compost to
nearby farmers with NO Payment To / From the
bio-miner. Only a 5-yr contract is reqd.
14
Instead of wasting water, fuel, skilled firemen
for fire control, cities can spend for
bio-culture JCBs to bio-stabilise incoming
waste as per MSW Rules.
15
Mumbais Gorai dump improve-ment in 2004 is a
proven success.
16
Bio-mining cleared 1 hectare of a 9-meter high
hill of 4-yr old garbage down to ground level in
3 months

• New land was made available for waste disposal at
  a cost of just Rs 9/sft (vs. Rs 600/sft
  for next-door real estate).
• Waste volumes reduced by 35, recyclables were
  recovered. Compost made available for Mumbais
  Horticulture Dept was not used for long because
  of corruption in Dept for purchase of red earth
  and manure.

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Bio-mining needs very simple eqpt

• Compacted old waste was loosened and
• scraped off in layers by a tractor-harrow,
• then sprayed with composting bio-culture
• from a tanker-truck with high-pressure pump,
• formed into windrows turned weekly by JCB.
• Odor-control sanitisers were also sprayed at
  Gorai where high-rise apts came up nearby.

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Tractor-harrows are best for loosening the waste,
which its dozer blade then forms into windrows.
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Composting bio-culture is mixed in large sintex
tanks, then pumped into portable tankers for
spraying.
20
Leachate can also be pumped onto heaps and acts
as good bio-culture
21
Heaps are turned as for aerobic composting of
fresh waste. The SAME HEAT is generated in old
waste!
22
At each turning, hired rag-pickers retrieve
buried recyclables, which partly cover their
labour cost.
23
After 3-4 weekly turnings, the waste is dry,
volume-reduced ready to sieve by either manual
or motorised simple portable sieves.
24
Gorais compost was left for BMPs use as theyd
paid for expt. Gorais full 15 ha. can be
levelled by bio-mining for recreational land use,
and its compost used on-site for landscaping
25
About 15-20 rejects remain after old biomining,
mostly inerts. This is Nasiks engineered
landfill for its similar compost rejects from
new waste.
26
Successful bioremediation is being sabotaged by
greed and politics.

• Gorai dump is to be closed after WP 489/04 in the
  Mumbai High Court.
• Instead of bio-mining and levelling it at a cost
  of Rs 1.5 crores, BMP appointed ILFS as
  consultant for Rs 1.75 crore fee. They recommend
  capping for landfill-gas capture at a cost of
  Rs 40 crore to BMP.
• Bio-mining PREVENTS methane generation!

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Capping must NEVER be done for landfill-gas
capture on dumps with no bottom and side liners
in place.

• Gases will simply leak out through the soil.
• After capping at Malad on which the huge
  MindSpace IT Complex was built, landfill gases
  are ruining their IT hardware and causing serious
  technical problems, though no human morbidity is
  noticed yet.
• The problem will last for maybe 20 years!

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SWM is becoming the new hunting-ground for scams.
This must stop.

• Waste Minimisation is being subverted.
• Consultants recommend and award Exorbitant
  Tipping-Fees instead of rewarding Waste
  Minimisation.
• Bangalore will pay Ramky Rs198 - Rs 351/ton
  tipping fee
• for 20 yrs for 400 tpd, or Rs 2.85 - 5.05 crore
  a year, vs
• Rs 8 crore one-time capital cost of a 400 tpd
  compost plant.
• ILFS recommends Waste-To-Energy for mixed MSW
  despite
• failures and without budgeting haz-waste
  landfills for dioxin-
• containing ash from PVC-containing RDF units. It
  has no
• success story, only a rejected 42-lakh DPR for
  Guwahati.

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Landfilling raw waste is against Rules, but being
resorted to and recommended by consultants.
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We need clear Policy Guidelines

• Consultants should not be appointed for SWM
  unless they have passed a brief certification
  course of CPCB and undertake to follow it.
• Agencies funding or advising SWM projects incl.
  JNNURM must also have personnel trained in
  correct SWM practices and SAARC guidelines.
• Dos and Donts of waste processing disposal
  must be widely disseminated to all Funding
  Agencies, as the Rules do not seem to be explicit
  enough or are deliberately subverted.