Wastech (International Summit and Expo) 4Rs: A way to ... (International Summit and Expo) 4Rs: A way to Sustainability Indian Scenario on Waste Management Roop Salotra ... transport,

© Confederation of Indian Industry

21st November, 2014

Wastech (International Summit and Expo)

4Rs: A way to Sustainability

Indian Scenario on Waste Management

Roop Salotra

Member, CII National Committee on Environment

Advisor, SRF Limited


Contents

● Introduction

● Regulatory Framework

● Municipal Solid Waste

● Industrial wastes

● E- Waste

● Plastics waste

● Suggested Improvements

● Way Forward


Introduction to Solid Waste

Types

o Municipal

o E-Waste

o Plastic

o Bio-medical

o Agricultural

o Industrial (Hazardous and Non-hazardous)


Regulations for Waste Management

The Environment Protection Act of 1986 aims to establish a sufficient protection system for the environment and gives power to the central government to regulate all forms of waste throughout the country

● Section 7 regulates industry operations and processes for maintaining standards of pollutants emitted and discharged

● Section 9 concerns the furnishing of information in the case of accidental spillages

● Section 9(3) refers to the ‘Polluter-Pays’ principle

Bio-Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1998 aims at ensuring proper disposal of bio-medical waste including its segregation, packaging, transport, storage, record keeping, accident declaration.

In the year 2000, GOI framed the Municipal Solid Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules for effective solid waste management. The Rules recommend the use of different technologies by municipal bodies to reduce the damaging environmental and health impact of untreated solid waste.


The Batteries (Management and Handling) Rules, 2001 apply to manufacturer, importers, dealer, recycler, auctioneer and bulk consumers involved in the manufacture and use of batteries and its components.

The Hazardous Wastes (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2008 stipulate safe and environmentally sound handling of environmental waste by producers and owners of hazardous waste including its storage, recycling, import, export, sale, transfer, treatment, transport, accurate labelling and record keeping guidelines.

The Plastics (Manufacture, Usage and Waste Management) Rules, 2009 are designed to regulate the use of plastics in its various purposes including maintaining a minimum thickness of plastics and recycling waste.

The E-Waste (Management and Handling Rules), 2011 intended to tackle the problematic situation of disposal of electronic waste in India. This refers to waste generated in India as well as the vast amount of waste that is illegally imported into India for disposal. It also stipulates obligations for dealers, producers, refurbishers, dismantler, recycler, transporter, collection centres of e-waste.

Regulations for Waste Management-Contd.


Solid Waste Generation across India


Current Scenario: Municipal Solid Waste

● The total municipal solid waste generated in urban India is 68.8 million tonnes per year or 188,500 tonnes per day. This is expected to reach 160.5 million tpy (440,000 tpd) by 2041. (The Daily Pioneer, 2013)

● Open waste dumps divert land from more productive uses and depress the value of surrounding land. Children from poor homes, stray animals are found to loiter there for food. They also reduce the aesthetic value of the environment.

● Decomposing organic material in the dumps lead to foul odour and release of high amounts of green house gases, particularly methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

● Waste pickers who contribute to waste management continue to be unorganised and exploited by small traders.

● In spite of the regulations, many cities and towns have not been able to implement SWM measures. The following are some of the challenges faced by Urban Local Bodies:

o Funds: to establish and operate integrated MSW management facilities

o Technical Expertise: to set up and operate MSW management facilities

o Commercial competence: to engage the private partner transparently e.g. Inviting ‘’Expression of Interest’’, ‘’Request for Proposal’ and evaluating the proposal technically and financially and finding appropriate Land along with a buffer zone for MSW management


Industrial Wastes

● As per the National Inventory of Hazardous Wastes for India

published by CPCB in the year 2009, there are 36,165 number of hazardous waste generating industries, generating about 62,32,507 MT of hazardous wastes every year. The category-wise classification of this quantity is as follows:

� Land-fillable HazWaste - 27,28,326 MT per annum

� Incinerable HazWaste - 4,15,794 MT per annum

� Recyclable HazWaste - 30,88,387 MT per annum

● The States of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh generate the maximum quantity of hazardous wastes with their relative contribution as 28.76 %, 25.16 % and 8.93 % respectively. The States of Chhattisgarh (4.74 %), Rajasthan (4.38 %), West Bengal (4.17 %) and Tamil Nadu (4.15 %) are the other major generators of hazardous wastes. These seven (7) States together generate about 80.29 % of the country’s total hazardous wastes.

● Therefore, the opportunities for waste management and utilisation are maximum in the aforesaid seven states.


Industrial Wastes - Challenges

● SMEs may account for one third of the total hazardous wastes generated.

● There are high risks from occupational and environmental exposure.

● Therefore, affordable waste management solutions needs to be created for a larger manufacturing sector with SMEs as its backbone.

● Some challenges in safe disposal of Hazardous wastes especially in SME sector include:

� Low level of technology

� Unskilled management

� Unspecialised workers

� Lack of modernisation

� Lack of awareness


Initiatives towards Safe Handling and Disposal of Industrial waste

● Fly Ash Utilisation: The fly ash utilisation, while preparation of cement is one of the major initiatives taken by cement industry. This has not only resulted in greater utilisation of fly ash but has also resulted in reduction in Green House Gas emissions from this sector.

● Co-processing of Hazardous waste: The cement industry has also taken up co-processing projects under the technical expertise of Central Pollution Control Board. This has resulted in safe disposal of hazardous industrial manner in a safe and environmental sound manner.

● Red Mud Utilisation: The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate change is working on red mud utilisation. There will have advantages like savings in caustic consumption by 10-15 kg per tonne of alumina, minimising land requirement by 50 to 60 per cent, and doing away with wet red mud storage thereby eliminating environmental hazards.


Current Scenario : e-waste

● The rapid growth of the electronic industry coupled with high product obsolescence leads to the generation of large quantities of electronic waste (e-waste), one of the fastest growing waste streams worldwide.

● According to UNEP, it is expected that, by 2020 e-waste from old computers in India will increase by 500 per cent from its 2007 numbers and waste from discarded mobile phones would be higher by 18 percent. According to recent studies, almost 2.7 million tons of electronic waste are being generated annually in India.

● On the other hand, e-waste can be a secondary source of raw materials as metals such as silver, copper, plastic can be recovered from it before it is discarded.

● As per MAIT-GTZ study of 2007, about 95% of e-waste recycling takes place in the informal or the unorganized sector.

● This results in recycling firms in the formal sector of waste recycling do not get enough amount of e-waste to run their recycling unit smoothly and hence resort to imports.

● The recycling in the informal sectors essentially involves dismantling and sometimes include the extraction of precious metals but these units use highly polluting technologies that pose extensive health hazard to all those involved in processing of e-waste.


Current Scenario & Challenges: Plastic

● Plastic is made up primarily from petroleum, cellulose, coal - all natural yet non-renewable materials. They take up finite resources in its manufacturing and polymerization process and release fugitive emissions.

● Burning unused plastic causes release of gases such as carbon monoxide, chlorine, hydrochloric acid, nitrides, benzene. Lead and cadmium pigments used in LDPE, HDPE and PP plastics can leach out.

● Plastics pollute beaches and oceans causing damage and death to aquatic life. It looks un-esthetic, spoils the landscape, clogs drains and makes land infertile where dumped.

● When mixed with other forms of waste, it cannot be recycled and also causes problems in landfilling.

● India is trying to mitigate the impact of plastic waste in India but social challenges to collection of recyclable waste and substitution with virgin materials are limiting factors.

Tribune India, 2000


Suggested Improvements

● Incentives and subsidies could be offered for sustainable technologies (bio-methanation, composting, vermi-composting).

● Reduce – Reuse – Recycle should be the message communicated to individual households to change their mind set about waste generation and its inherent value. Besides that, Composting of wet garbage at household or municipality levels could be encouraged.

● Segregation of waste i.e. selection – segregation – processing of paper, plastic, e-waste needs to be practiced. In addition, enough capacities at the level of Urban Local Bodies needs to be developed to ensure recycling/disposal of segregated waste.

● Strict adherence to regulations need to be practiced through effective monitoring.

● Integration of the informal recycling sector giving legal recognition and strengthening of the informal sectors to get them integrated into the mainstream activities of safe and environment friendly recycling.

● Improved research and technology catering to the local needs is necessary and a step in the right direction.

● Recording reliable data on the quantity, composition, calorific value and seasonal variations of MSW will help municipalities to come up with a structured responses to their own needs


● Specifically on e-waste management, following solutions may be looked at:

� Requirement of taking multiple Authorizations from every state pollution control board by the producer wherever their product is being sold. It is suggested that a single authorization at CPCB level would be practical in implementation. Alongwith that, all the returns are suggested to be filed at CPCB level, which will create a central database for management of e-waste in the country.

� The Government of India may set directions as well as fiscal incentives for the local bodies as well not-for-profit organisations for creation of Producer Responsibility Organization.

� Fiscal incentives needs to be created by central as well as the state governments for setting-up of collection centres in various states in India.

� Mass awareness drives to be launched in both English and vernacular language about the available collection centres across various locations in respective states.

� There is a need to formalise the Informal recyclers on account of better networking and door-to-door collection. Besides that, informal recyclers should be made aware of ill-effects of unscientific handling of e-waste.

� Awareness campaign at School/colleges level may be initiated by the Ministry alongwith the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Inclusion of the topic of e-waste management in the Academic syllabi would have a far reaching effect in terms of awareness creation.

Suggested Improvements


Immediate Opportunities

● On 2nd October, 2014, Prime Minister Modi has launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Campaign Clean India) evoking national interest and asking for nation-wide cooperation on cleanliness.

● In order to take it further, corporate India has already started taking up additional activities towards creation of mass awareness for waste collection and disposal.

● As the Swach Bharat programme links well with the 100 Smart Cities announcement made by the PM, there is further opportunity to many private companies in waste management sector to partner with government agencies for ensuring success to Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.


Thanks

Documents

Wastech (International Summit and Expo) 4Rs: A way to ... (International Summit and Expo) 4Rs: A way to Sustainability Indian Scenario on Waste Management Roop Salotra ... transport,