CONTRASTING PARADIGMS
Technically a sanitary landfill site is an essential and
integral infrastructure component of a robust and successful solid waste
management system for any urban centre. However, one school of thought –
primarily representing environmental activists of varied hues has attempted to
project it as “least preferable” or “least favoured” option. This is so because of, among others, the
misplaced perception as regards its footprint, and possible emissions of
leachate and landfill gas, if any. This
school of thought perceives that a bulk of the problem can be solved by the ‘3R’
principle – reduce, reuse and recycle. This school of thought also perceives
that municipal waste - being ‘solid’ as it is termed to be, warrants ‘recovery’
of residual matter/value to the maximum
extent without taking into account the multitude of social, behavioural,
climatic, technological, institutional and financial challenges which together
undermine the techno-economic viability of the proposition. Accordingly it offers
a hierarchy of options for municipal solid waste management which corresponds
to an inverted pyramid as shown in Exhibit 1.
EXHIBIT 1: INVERTED HIERARCHY OF MUNICIPAL SOLID
WASTE MANAGEMENT OPTIONS
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This is a noble paradigm which attempts to reduce
consumption, minimise waste and maximise recovery, however it appears to be
oblivious of increasing urbanisation, changing life styles, partial affluence
and the juggernaut of ‘consumerism’ percolating down to the lowest strata of
the society; and the sustained impetus by the national and state governments
for higher economic growth – more so driven by the overwhelming forces of
globalisation. This paradigm attempts to balance a pyramid on its head and
defies the conventional engineering wisdom (and that of the Egyptian
civilisation!) of ensuring a wide base for any structure or system to be stable
and long lasting. To the hardcore professionals who have spent all their lives
working in the field of SWM, this inverted pyramid only represents imagination
of poets or work of an artist/ graphic designer. It is not surprising that
across India, cities which have been prevailed upon to embrace this paradigm
are finding their solid waste management systems falling flat and urban
landscape characterised by unmitigated and indiscriminate disposal of waste.
In contract to this, across the world cities where solid
waste management systems have been implemented successfully have relied on the
hierarchy of options which is represented by an upright pyramid as illustrated
in Exhibit 2. In this hierarchy a sanitary landfill site (as against an open
dump site) forms the bedrock of a robust infrastructure and management system
as it recognises that bulk of the problem is addressed by this option while the
other options - corresponding to the numerous ‘Rs’, being still relevant but
have only selective and decreasing role to play.
EXHIBIT 2: UPRIGHT HIERARCHY OF OPTIONS FOR
SUCCESSFUL MANAGEMENT OF MSW
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VIRTUES OF AN SLF
From land area requirement point of view while a sanitary
landfill site may still be ‘least favoured’, but it is most essential (and
therefore desired) because of a wide range of virtues, as listed below, that it
offers to city managers and public health engineers.
· Reliable:
A properly constructed, operated and maintained sanitary landfill site works
under all weather conditions, irrespective of precipitation or variations in
temperature, etc.
·
Elastic: An
SLF can easily accommodate shock loads or variations in waste quantities
arriving at the site without any problem of process disruption or malfunctioning
on account of overloading, etc.
·
Forgiving: An
SLF does not have any specific requirements as regards waste characteristics,
and therefore can accept mixed MSW of any composition throughout the year. It
does not penalise for, or malfunction due to presence of contraries, inerts or
toxins which is usually the case with mixed MSW.
· Accommodative: An
SLF does not require segregation of waste as a prerequisite which apparently is
turning out to be an insurmountable proposition as experienced over the last 14
years after the introduction of MSW Rules, 2000. An SLF can accept waste pre-
or post- treatment without demanding or mandating any specific levels of
organics or inerts; without making distinction between food waste from five star
hotels and pathogenic sludge from street drains, between slaughterhouse waste
and road sweepings, between wholesale vegetable market waste and construction
debris, between domestic waste and non-hazardous hospital or industrial waste,
etc.
· Dependable: In
the event of a plant shut down or closure or under any unforeseen events, an
SLF offers
backstopping so that waste is never left open in unsafe manner.
· Robust: A well constructed,
operated and maintained SLF safeguards surface and groundwater resources; prevents
nuisance due to odour, insects, birds, other vectors; and protects public
health at all times.
· Affordable
source of resource recovery: Under proposer boundary
conditions and operating parameters, an SLF enables sustainable recovery of
landfill gas as a renewable source of energy at least cost.
·
Affordable: An
SLF involves least cost of operation and maintenance and represents least life
cycle cost option.
Given
the multiple virtues, an SLF can be compared to a ‘mother’ which helps in keeping the house in order and safeguarding
health of urban residents at all times. On the other hand, treatment plants (based
on diverse technologies) which apparently have been given high priority for
‘resource recovery’ are characterised by, among others, tough requirements for
(a) consistency in feedstock quantity – aversion to overloading or in some
cases even under-loading (b) consistency in feedstock quality - extreme
aversion to toxicity or fall in calorific value, rise in moisture content,
inerts, etc. (c) consistency in weather conditions, (d) consistency in
operating conditions, e.g., temperature, pH, etc., (e) unavoidable adverse
environmental footprint, (f) high operating and maintenance costs, (g) high
and unsustainable replacement costs, and last but not the least, (h) woefully and
disproportionately low returns on investment, etc.
THE DESIRABLE AND CURRENT APPROACHES
Therefore
construction of an adequate size sanitary landfill should be the first step
towards improving solid waste management in a city. Subsequently a city manager
can move up the hierarchy of options as illustrated in Exhibit 2 to achieve
various ‘Rs’ and thereby reduce load on SLF. This approach corresponds to
putting the horse at the right place, i.e., before the cart.
However,
the current approach adopted by various cities across the country is reverse of
the universally proven approach and therefore it is not surprising that there
is no significant forward movement of the ‘cart’ in any part of the country as
regards safe disposal of waste. Attempting to change behaviour of lakhs and
millions of people is a humongous task – given that a large number of residents
in our urban areas are used to open defecation; a large number are not educated
or not concerned and committed towards environment, so what to expect for
source storage and segregation; given the inconsistencies and weaknesses in
collection, transport and delivery system; given the poor administrative and
financial resources available with ULBs, etc. Addressing these challenges
itself will take a long time, before treatment plants can be expected to
perform their defined role of volume reduction, let alone ‘value addition’, if
any.
The challenge of finding space?
Until
that happens, Indian policy needs to recognise the profound utility and
potential of an SLF with regard to protection of environment and public health.
Unfortunately after 14 years of the MSW Rules, 2000 the policy does not take
into account the overwhelming evidence of a large number of failed treatment
plants, instead it deems SLF as an undesirable infrastructure. Moreover, it is
intriguing that based on the recently released draft MSW Rules 2013, apparently
the recent advisory from the highest policy making authority has even deemed
disposal of mixed MSW into SLF as virtually illegal. This hands-off treatment
to SLF is given on the premise of paucity of land resources, however we have
numerous examples where land has been acquired and allocated for other
development purposes. For instance while Noida and Greater Noida (near Delhi)
do not have either a treatment plant or an SLF, but a large piece of land was
made available for construction of a Formula-1 racing track on the outskirts
which is apparently used only for 3-5 days in a year. Likewise, while Raipur
does not have an SLF but over 200 sq.km. of area was acquired for development
of a greenfield city of Naya Raipur and where over the last 10 years no
significant habitation has developed. Likewise, several years back land for
special economic zones could be acquired in various parts of the country but
none with same zest for SLFs.
The policy influence from an advanced
setting
Indian
policy of giving least preference to sanitary landfills appears to be based on
the policy of the European Union. However, it needs to be recognised that
Europe has reached this stage only after undergoing a great deal of
experimentation and learning over an extended period of 30 to 40 years.
Secondly, European policy recognises that embracing of strict standards needs
to be supported by a host of legislations, directives, financial incentives and
taxes. For instance restrictions on landfilling and particularly the policy of diversion
of organics from landfills which were introduced through the Landfill
Direction, 2001 are supported by (a) the directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention
and Control (IPPC), (b) the incineration directive, (c) specific Community
directives on a range of hazardous waste streams, e.g., waste oils, PCBs/PCTs,
battries (d) targets for recycling and recovery on complex waste streams, e.g.,
packaging, end-of-life vehicles (ELV), waste electrical and electronic
equipment (WEEL). Moreover, this strict policy of waste diversion is eventually
supported by the ‘principle of producer responsibility’ which was incorporated
back in 1996 and which has provided a stable source of financing to offset the
cost disadvantage of recycling as against landfilling or energy recovery. The
latter places the cost of recycling primarily on producers which in turn
encourages them to design products differently, thereby making recycling easier
and less expensive (European Commission, 2005[1]). Finally it also needs to
be recognised that despite having a rather elaborate framework of policies,
legislations, incentives and taxes, and some of the most advanced treatment
systems, Europe as a whole relies on well designed and managed sanitary
landfill sites for nearly 50% of the waste it produces.
Indian
waste policy cannot pick up management principles selectively from advanced
economies and hope to achieve equivalent high level of compliance or quality of
environment. It needs to give time to the large number of implementing agencies
to move up the learning curve, along with a host of incentives, legislative
tools as well as support by way of capacity building. Until that happens, the policy
needs to allow adequate space for the implementing agencies to follow the
practicable waste management hierarchy as depicted in Exhibit 2 and offer
appropriate role for sanitary landfills as the bedrock of integrated waste
management systems.
Acknowledgement: The Author would like to express his
gratitude to Mr. N. C. Vasuki, Former CEO of Delaware Waste Management
Authority and Former President of International Solid Waste Authority and Dr.
Brajesh Kumar Dubey, Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering,
University of Guelph, Canada for their valuable suggestions, inputs and
encouragement in developing this paper.
