The challenge of solid waste management

The reuse and recycling of solid wastes can also serve as a means for conservation of energy. In the light of this, let use see, what are the principles guiding the management of solid wastes. Recognizing that our resources are finite and continued pollution will be difficult to rectify in coming times, the management of solid wastes has become important.

Before disposal, a waste should be considered for the following possibilities:

• Reduction in raw materials and solid waste quantities
• Reuse of waste materials
• Materials recovery
• Energy recovery

i) Reduction in Raw Materials and solid Waste

Solid wastes are generated at the start of the process beginning with the mining of raw material. Thereafter, solid wastes are generated at every step in the process of conversion of goods into products. The products are then used by the consumer whence again wastes are generated. Clearly if a reduction in the usage of raw materials is to occur the quantity of waste must be curtailed. This can be achieved by

(a) Reducing the amount of materials used in the manufacture of a product,

(b) Increasing the life of the product, and

(c) Reducing the amount of materials used for packing the consumer goods.

ii) Reuse of Waste Materials

Reuse of waste materials now occurs most commonly in those situations where a product has utility in more than one application. For example, the paper bags used to bring home groceries are used to store household wastes prior to placing them in containers used for storage for collection. Soup and vegetable containers are used to store cooking medium, like ghee or oil.

Newspapers are used to start fires in fireplaces; they are also tightly rolled and used as logs for burning. While all the above reuses are important, their impact on generation of solid wastes is minimal. A much larger impact would occur if this habit is encouraged on a large-scale, in urban and town communities.

iii) Material Recovery and Recycling

A number of materials present in municipal and industrial waste are suitable for recovery and recycling about 10-15 percent of solid waste are recoverable. Most suitable candidates are the wastes generated by paper, cardboard, glass, ferrous metals, metals (mostly aluminum) and rubber. On the country, plastics, leather, textile and food wastes are unsuitable candidates for materials recovery. This is why; it is advisable to save on the number of polyethylene packets, when purchasing consumer goods.

Fly ash, which is a dust like by-product of the thermal powder plants, is produced in huge quantities. Over 22mt of fly ash from thermal power sector was available for utilization in 1985-86. It appears that the fly ash can be compressed into bricks as such or in combination with cement etc., that can be used for building houses.

iv) Energy Recovery

Alter segregation of wastes in the above-mentioned categories, the remainder is considered for the recovery of heat by burning (incineration). Because about 70 percent of the components that comprise solid waste are organic, the potential for recovery of heat energy is high. The energy content in the waste matter is converted to a form that can be used more easily. The remainder (ash) is also more compact and weighs less, occupying a smaller volume.

A wide variety of waste construction materials, municipal sewage and industrial by-products, forestry waste and urban waste (like rags, plastic bags, newspapers, etc.) are generated by modern human activities. Such wastes can be used for incineration to recover their heat energy. For instance, about 10 percent biomass produced in paddy fields forms rice grain, the remaining 90 percent is usually burnt but can be put to good use. If burnt in skillfully managed incinerators, paddy straw turns out to be far cheaper (about one third) than local as fuel for power generation. It has substantial energy value ranging from 3,200 to 3,500 kcal/kg. The availability of paddy straw is also good. In Punjab alone, bout 5 Mt paddy straw is available. In remote areas, for power generation through small and medium units, the bulk of power needs of the farm sector can be easily met by using paddy straw.

Conservation of Physical Resources

Man is integral part of the biosphere and therefore, is totally dependent on its recourses. His future and even his survival, depends upon the rational use and conservation of the resources available to him.

If the environment is to continue to sustain life, it must be protected from the consequences of our own actions. Breathable air, clean water, fertile soil, and innumerable life forms, are all important resources that are vital to our own survival. This is particularly important because physical resources are limited.

Religion deep-rooted in life

The religion has played a very important and crucial role and has established deep rooted effects about various customs and traditions of each individual society.

Even today, the culture and traditions are directly linked with religion only. Therefore, it is generally referred to as Hindu Culture, Muslim Culture, and Christian Culture etc. Any society belonging to and following customs of particular culture, can not separate itself from religious bonds and bindings.

Accordingly, the members of family can not free themselves easily from the traditions being followed by the family and have to follow customary practices. For this very reason, certain occupations have become hereditary. Thus decisions of society or clan have more influence than the decision of the family, because the decision of society is the decision of large group and it is not so easy to ignore the mandate of society.

The influence of religion can be visualized easily even on such small things as Dress, Food, Marriage, Education, Various celebration of life. The dress we wear is very frequently related or guided by the religious outlook. Hindus wear DHOTI-KURTA, Muslims wear SALWAR-KAMIZ, and so on. Similarly, it is general trend that Hindus, Jain; Brahmins are mostly vegetarians, whereas Muslims and Christians are predominantly non-vegetarians.

Furthermore there are still more specific differences between one family and other; even though they belong to some clan. For example, few traditions and customs differ among Swetamber and Digamber sects of Jain religion. Similarly many minor variations can be easily traced between Siya and Sunni among Muslim and Catholic and Protestants among Christians.

But it is very important to note that impact and influence of religion is so deep rooted that it is very very difficult to escape from it.

In spite of tremendous scientific developments and logical outlook, the individuals and the families becomes so inclined and adjusted in traditions and customs guided by religious agencies, that they can not make themselves free.

Because if they make themselves free from one religion,they adopt another religion and there also they will have to follow some new religious customs and traditions.

Thus the influence of religion remains with individual from his birth till death. Similarly each and every family is influence to great extent by religion and religious institutions.

With the change of orthodox outlook and thinking, the religious thinking and attitude is also becoming more and more progressive and adopting scientific and logical attitudes. Now the religious customs, rituals and traditions are also becoming more and more logical and reasoning based.

This change is gradually bringing a closer association and mixing of religious attitude with scientific reasons. The norms and standards are being modified, so as to retain the basic fundamentals of all the religion, i.e. honesty, truth, love, sympathy etc., and incorporations of scientific approach.

The religion, in fact, establishes and develops the morality and character. The action of hatred, theft, gambling, drinking etc., etc., are labeled as 'SINS' and are said to be punishable by GOD. These notions get deeply rooted in the mind of a child and remain there forever and thus help in building his character. For inculcating these conceptions, the religious attitude of family plays the most important and permanent role.

Thus family like as well as life of an individual is greatly influenced by Education. Now it is not so easy to deceive or befoul an educated person. Education definitely makes a man enlightened.

His approach, thinking and attitude is modified considerably towards his faith in religion and values in life. Accordingly the change in family like is also evident.

The dresses, food habits, general standard of living, item of daily use are becoming almost similar day-by-day, as the education is spreading. Most of the people have started wearing pants-shirts, neck-ties, coat etc. irrespective of their clan or culture or religious affiliation.

Whereas in olden days, it was entirely a different scene. Similarly food habits are changing because children very quickly adopt what their age-mates or class-mates do. The language-spoken and written, and the attitudes and behaviours are acquiring uniformity. Thus education is affecting all social norms and values significantly.

What are the Difficulties faced in Enforcement Environmental Legislation?

You must be aware that despite all this legislative activity the state of the environment in India continues to be gloomy. The rivers and the lakes continue to be choked with sewage and industrial waste. The air quality in some major cities has gained the dubious distinction of being worse than that of the American cities like Chicago and New York.

Forests continue to disappear, and the consequent loss of soil has led to the scourge of floods with sickening regularly. What can the country do to reverse the process and restore a balanced state of the environment?

Although the legislative measures taken and the administrative set-up is sufficiently indicative of the Government’s concern, the implementation does not reflect a sound appreciation of the issue involved in eco-management and development.

Environment is a resource-perhaps the most precious of all the Earth’s resources. It should be treated as such. The measures adopted by the Government until now do not reveal an equal emphasis on the management and development aspects of this vital resource. Often these measures reflect a fire-brigade approach rushing to the spot of fire, after it breaks out. The strategy should lay equal emphasis on attacking the cause of fires. An ounce of prevention in the filed of environment is literally worth a gallon of cure.

Take for example the river pollution in India. It is well known that the major source of pollution of rivers is domestic sewage, which municipalities nonchalantly dump in the nearest rivers. Ninety percent of the pollution of Ganga stems from the 100-odd littoral municipal waste dumpings.

The colossal cleaning-up operation, Ganga Action Plan, will be an exercise in futility if it is not accompanied by a massive effort to prevent the municipalities from dumping their wastes in the river. Every one knows that the technology for treating municipal waste exists. But it costs money and most of the municipalities cannot afford it.

If the Environment (Protection) Act is taken seriously, all the municipalities abutting the Ganga will have to be prosecuted. The Act, rightly, makes no distinction between private and public polluters. But that would be taking a very restrictive view of the law.

The more modern view is that the law must guide and help people and establish a trend of acceptance. Environmental law has little chance of acquiring effectiveness unless accompanied by a whole set promotional measures, ranging from direct financial subsidies to cost sharing, for example, in installing treatment plants.

Litigation is an expensive affair. Environment litigation is more expensive than other types of disputes, since it involves expert testimony, technical evidence and so on. State Boards will-have to be able to afford the expertise and the administrative backing. Most of the State Boards suffer from inadequate expertise and funds to pursue their objectives. There is, therefore, a tendency to seek to exercise gentle pressure on the polluting industry and pursue settlements outside the courts.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with out-to-court settlement of environmental disputes. In fact, in some developed countries, like the United States, a preference is shown toward such a procedure. But in India, officially initiated and sanctioned out of court settlements may aggravate the perennial problem of corruption. Sharing the costs of anti-pollution measures taken by the industry seems to be a better strategy than state-sponsored expensive and length prosecutions.

Admittedly, the state of environment of the country is not rosy; the imperatives of development have sometimes come into sharp conflict with those of the environment; the administrative machinery set up to solve the problems of environment has often failed in its task; the laws enacted to meet the challenger have been generally inept. But these are the failings of a nation wresting with hundreds of problems on thousands of fronts. The water of survival, which is what the sorry state of the nation’s environment poses to the country, inquires first and foremost the will to survive. The Government and, more importantly, the people have demonstrated it in abundance. The rest is a matter of skill and experience, which we seem to be acquiring slowly but steadily.

Why should we conserve our wildlife

You will be curious to know why we should save endangered species. Why is that all policy makers, scientists and interest citizens argue that species extinction is one of the most serious environmental problems? The importance of the need for protecting endangered species is discussed below.

i) Value as genetic reservoir:

Plants and animals possess undiscovered or undeveloped traits, which are very important for the survival of a particular species. When all the genes of all the individual members in a given population are added together, a gene poll is created which is representative of that species. It is important to preserve all gene pools, as they might prove useful to us in future. In any case, we do not know enough about interspecies relationships and ecosystem balance and its stability to allow any gene pool to get eroded or obliterated.

Large gene pools are also important to agriculturists. All domestic crops and livestock have originated from native plants and animals. All those native species are still needed to provide the new genetic characterizes that we need to help solve our present and future food production problems. If steps are not taken to preserve endangered species then these gene pools will be swept away.

ii) Value in maintaining ecosystem stability:

As you know, ecosystem includes abiotic factors like temperature, humidity etc. and biotic factors like plants and animals. The ecosystems maintain a delicate balance of nature.

Each species interests with other species and plays a role in the transfer of energy and materials within and between ecosystem, hence each one, in its own way, contributes to the stability of ecosystems. The function of a species whether plant or animal is very critical to ecosystem stability.

As you may know, the plants occupy the base of food webs, so extinction of a single plant species may lead to the extinction of animal species dependent on that particular plant species. A species lost here and there may be of little consequence for overall ecosystem stability, but in the long run, the cumulative effect of such losses may some day threaten our existence. If we think that each species by itself is dispensable, then bit by bit we will destroy the rich biological world in which we live.

iii) Economic value:

In our daily life, we use many things, which are products of wildlife. Many plants have medicinal value, for example, we get, penicillin from Penicillium, quinine from Cinchona, morphine from opium poppy. A chemical derived from the skeletons of shrimps, crabs and lobsters may serve as a preventive medicine against fungal infection.

Important plant and animal genes are needed to improve domestic crops and livestock. Many genetic reservoirs located in the tropics and subtropics are the source of virtually all the common valuable plants and animals. They provide genetic material needed in the continual battle to improve plant and animal resistance. Loss of these centers would have a global impact on food supplies.

Fish is a source of income to fishing lodges and sporting goods stores. Wildlife is a source of income to recreation and tourism industry. The most popular tourist attractions are national and state parks and forests.

Although the economic value of a given species may not be apparent, we cannot assert that a species has no economic value.

iv) Aesthetic value:

Aesthetic value of a species also promotes its preservation. For example, the taste of wild berries, the refreshing fragrance of wild flowers and the softness of a bed of moss have no monetary value, but still their aesthetic value compels us to preserve them.

v) Inherent value:

Each species has a right to exist. So, if a species exists, then it has a fundamental right to continue to exist without being driven to extinction by human activities. The inherent value of a species cannot be measured merely by the extent to which human beings can get along without it.

How to save endangered Species?

Preserving species is not a simple matter. The problems of wildlife management are very complex and there is much work on three overlapping levels, i.e., technical, legal and personal.

To achieve a desired abundance of a particular species of wildlife, it is imperative to save their habitat because wildlife populations respond very sensitively to their habitants.

Thus, habitant management is an efficient technique. So, we can say that wildlife management includes habitant management.

Land and Soil Pollution - a growing threat

Land is the main resource for agriculture and we have to produce more and more from less and less land to feed our growing population.

There are numerous sources for soil pollution, but the important among them are:

(i) Indiscriminate discharge of industrial effluents on land.

(ii) Waste disposal in rural and urban settlements.

(iii) Soil pollution due to fertilizers and pesticides.

All these three are important sources for soil pollution. Urban wastes, particularly solid wastes, pesticides and fertilizers are the main threat to our environment.

Urban solid waste which comprises biodegradable and non-biodegradable materials is assuming notoriety. They are mostly:

(i) Domestic refuse:

Putrescible, kitchen and food washes, plastic bags, papers and floor sweepings.

(ii) Market refuse:

Mostly putrescible vegetable animal and fish remnants.

(iii) Hospital refuse:

Waters from wards, operation theatre wastes, needles, cotton, gauzes, plaster, pantries, bottles, ampoules, food wastes etc.

(iv) Road sweeping:

Animal excreta, leaves, papers, human excreta, dust etc.

(v) Trade refuse:

Cloth cuttings from tailoring shops, car repairing garages.

(vi) Road construction rubbish:

Rubbish heaped on roads and streets. ,

(vii) Industrial wastes:

Oil soaked rags, thermoplastic wastes, timber wastes, chemical refuse including toxic matters.

(viii) Garden refuse:

Leaves, branches, plants, broken pots, stones, soil etc.

The per capita refuse production in Indian cities varies from 0.15 to 0.35kg/day. Growing unplanned urbanization coupled with lack of sense of sanitation, technological shortcomings and inapt management in metropolitan cities make people suffer badly by solid wastes. Agricultural practices introduce fertilizers and pesticides resulting in both biological and chemical pollution. Persistent pesticides are serious threats to our environment. Among them, DDT, triaging herbicides, benzoic acid herbicide, urea herbicides, organophosphate insecticides, carbonates and organ chloride insecticides poise serious land hazards.

Control measures:

Safe disposal of solid wastes is the best control measures. Utilization of urban wastes for sanitary land fill, biogas production and composting will reduce the load on land. Indiscriminate applications of pesticides are, now also regulated. Biological control of pests should be encouraged to combat pesticides use.

Role of carbon and nitrogen cycle in the atmosphere

Carbon Cycle: Carbon is the basic building block of the carbohydrates, fats, proteins, nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA, and other organic compounds necessary for life. Most land plants get their carbon by absorbing carbon dioxide gas, which makes up about 0.04% of the gaseous atmosphere, through pores in their leaves, Phytoplankton, the microscopic plants that float in aquatic ecosystems, get their carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide that has dissolved in water.

These producer plants then carry out photosynthesis, which converts the carbon in carbon dioxide to carbon in complex organic compounds such as glucose:

Carbon dioxide + water + solar energy -> glucose + oxygen

Then the cells in oxygen-consuming plants, animals, and decomposers carry out aerobic cellular respiration, which breaks down glucose and other complex organic compounds and converts the carbon back to carbon dioxide for reuse by producers:

Glucose + oxygen -> carbon dioxide + water + energy

This linkage between photosynthesis and aerobic respiration circulates carbon in the ecosphere and is a major part of the carbon cycle. This part of the gaseous cycle is shown in greatly simplified in carbon cycle. And some of the ways plants, animals, and decomposers in the biosphere depend on one another for survival. Oxygen and hydrogen, the other elements in glucose and other carbohydrates, cycle almost in step with carbon.

Carbon cycles rapidly between the atmosphere and hydrosphere and living organisms it shows that some of the earth's carbon is tied up for long periods in fossil fuels-coal, petroleum, natural gas, peat, oil shale, tar sand, and lignite-formed over millions of years in the lithosphere. The carbon in these mineral deposits remains locked up until it is released to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide when fossil fuels are extracted and burned.

Nitrogen Cycle:

Organisms require nitrogen in various chemical forms to make proteins and genetically important nucleic acids such as DNA. Klost green plants need nitrogen in the form of nitrate ions (NO,^-) and ammonium ions (NH₄ ⁺). The nitrogen gas (NJ that makes up about 78% of the volume of the earth's atmosphere is useless to such plants, people, and most other organisms. Fortunately, nitrogen gas is converted into water-soluble ionic compounds containing nitrate ions and ammonium ions, which are taken up by plant roots as part of the nitrogen cycle.

The conversion of atmospheric nitrogen gas into other chemical forms useful to plants is called nitrogen Fixation. It is carried out mostly by blue-green algae and certain kinds of bacteria in soil and water and by rhizobium bacteria living in small swellings called nodules on the roots of alfalfa, clover, peas, beans, and other legume plants. Also playing a role in nitrogen fixation, lightning converts nitrogen gas and oxygen gas in the atmosphere to nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide gas. These gases react with water vapor in the atmosphere and are converted to nitrate ions that return to the earth as nitric acid dissolved in precipitation and as particles of nitrate salts.

Plants convert inorganic nitrate ions and ammonium ions obtained from soil water into proteins, DNA, and other large, nitrogen-containing organic compounds they require. Animals get most of their nitrogen-containing nutrients by eating plants or other animals that have eaten plants.