The Hindu              16.08.2013

Zero-Waste Chennai is possible

Zero waste is both a goal and a plan of action. The goal is to ensure resource recovery and protect scarce natural resources by ending waste disposal through incinerators, dumping, and landfills. The plan encompasses waste reduction, composting, recycling and reuse, changes in consumption habits, and industrial redesign. In a zero waste approach, waste management is not left only to politicians and technical experts; rather, everyone impacted - from residents of wealthy neighbourhoods to people living around city’s waste dumps, private, and informal sector workers who handle waste - all have a voice. Let us look at some zero waste communities.

Flanders, Belgium

The Flemish region of Belgium, Flanders, has become the torchbearer of waste management in Europe. Through various policy and community interventions, it has achieved the highest waste diversion rate in Europe - almost three-fourths of residential waste produced in the region is reused, recycled, or composted, and it has managed to stabilise waste generation. Approximately 4,900 tons of organic materials were composted or treated through anaerobic digestion every day. By 2010, approximately two million people started composting at home. The most unique aspect of the model is that the per capita waste generation has held steady since 2000, showing a rare example of economic growth without increased waste generation.

Pune, India[1]

Over the last two decades, Pune’s waste pickers have created a remarkable transformation in their city’s municipal waste management system and in their own lives. These informal sector collectors of recyclable materials formed a union to protect their rights and bring dignity to their work. The union has been so successful that it has allowed them to implement door-to-door collection covering nearly 500,000 homes. As a result, the rates of source separation, and separate treatment for organics is progressively improving across Pune. The cooperative of waste pickers diverts enough waste to avoid 640,000 tons of greenhouse gas emission and saves the city corporation nearly Rs.90 lakh annually[2].

Taiwan, China

The island of Taiwan faced a waste crisis in the 1980s because of lack of space to expand its landfill capacity. When the government turned to large-scale incineration, the community’s fierce opposition not only stopped the construction of dozens of burners, but also drove the government to adopt goals and programmes for waste prevention and recycling. Since then, waste generation in Taiwan dropped from 8.7 million tons to 7.95 million tons between 2000 and 2010, despite a 47% increase in GDP in the same period. The Taiwan Environmental Protection Agency (TEPA) adopted zero waste goals in 2003 which among other measures laid strong emphasis on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) - making producers responsible for changes in design and production to reduce the waste generated by their products and packaging.

Alaminos, Philippines[3]

Alaminos is at the forefront of implementing the Philippines’ decentralised waste management law. Through an NGO partnership, village leadership has established comprehensive zero waste strategies, including backyard and village-level composting, source separation programs, and small-scale sorting facilities.

As a result, open burning and dumping have virtually ended. All this was made possible by a bottom-up planning process that brought together local officials and stakeholders.

The Hindu               14.08.2013

Waste-to-energy project in Coimbatore soon

In its effort to find a solution to the problem of waste accumulating at the Vellalore dump yard, the Coimbatore Corporation has planned to establish a waste-to-energy plant.

According to Commissioner G. Latha, the civic body was in the very initial stages of the project in that it was readying a proposal to engage a consultant to prepare a detailed project report. The consultant would take at least a couple of months to study the solid waste management programme before coming out with a proposal to implement the waste-to-energy project.

Based on the recommendation, the Corporation would call for expression of interest from companies with expertise in setting up waste-to-energy plant.

The entire process could take more than a year, Ms. Latha said and added that the Corporation was hopeful of completing the project by the end of 2014. But the process had begun. The Corporation would have a consultant by the month end and the detailed project report in another three.

The Coimbatore Corporation planned to set up the waste-to-energy plant to burn around 400 tonnes waste a day. The Corporation at present collected around 800 tonnes a day.

The concessionaire struggled to process the waste in that he was unable to segregate the waste, prepare compost from the bio-degradable waste, recycle the non-degradable waste and safely dump the reject waste.

The Corporation on its part was trying its best to segregate the waste at the door-to-door collection stage. But it had not been as successful as it wanted it to be. As a result, the civic body had been sending mixed waste to the Vellalore dump yard. Commissioner Ms. Latha said that to start with the Corporation planned to have a 400 tonne-capacity plant. But it wanted the option of increasing the capacity. The civic body’s decision go in for the plant comes after officials visited Pune, Nagpur and a few other cities where such projects had been successful. Meanwhile, the Corporation planned to complete its bin-management project in the next few days. The Commissioner said that the process of numbering the bins would be complete in the next week. The mobile phone application for sanitary supervisors was also ready. After a formal launch, the supervisors would be on their toes emptying bins at the scheduled date and time. There would be no let up on this front.

She welcomed the residents’ participation in the project by asking them to message the number on the bin if the waste was not removed as per schedule.

Proposal to engage a consultant to prepare a detailed project report getting ready.