what is the economic use of organic waste in India ?
Answers
Inadequate organic waste management leads to a plethora of problems such as environmental pollution, eutrophication, esthetic damage to urban landscape, greenhouse gases emission and effects on human health. Unwise and non-scientific disposal of wastes not only poses a grave threat to environmental quality but also results in loss of economic value of wastes. Since organic wastes are an abundant pool of organic matter and valuable plant nutrients, agricultural recycling of these wastes appears to be a promising alternative enabling value addition and their resourceful utilization. Land application of organic wastes stabilized through techniques such as composting, vermicomposting and anaerobic digestion yielding excellent organic fertilizer like compost augments soil fertility and crop yield. Additionally, the practice incorporates indirect environmental benefits such as reduced greenhouse gas emissions, land conservation due to reduced landfilling of wastes and substitute to chemical fertilizers. Economically also, agricultural utilization of organic wastes reduces the cost of landfilling, transportation of wastes, imports and production cost of chemical fertilizers and opens avenues for rural employment. However, effective utilization of organic wastes for agricultural purposes requires thorough and strict risk assessment to prevent the adverse effects of contaminants like heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants to ensure agro-environmental sustainability. The present article aims to enlist the positives and negatives associated with this practice enabling to devise an approach or strategy deriving maximum environmental and economic benefits.
Answer:
More than 3,000 dumpsites in India need to be reclaimed or closed permanently. Unscientifically constructed landfills create irreversible damage to the environment: They generate leachates, emit greenhouse gases, pollutes groundwater, etc.
A leachate is any liquid that, in the course of passing through waste, extracts soluble or suspended contaminants. It is hazardous in nature.
The environmental, ecological and socio-economic implications often make land disposal a menace to be managed.
As speculated in the Planning Commission Report (2014):
“… If the current 62 million tonnes annual generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) continues to be dumped without treatment, it will need 340,000 cubic meters of landfill space every day (1,240 hectares per year). Considering the projected waste generation of 165 million tonnes by 2031, the requirement of land for setting up landfill for 20 years (considering 10-meter-high waste pile) could be as high as 66,000 hectares of precious land, which our country cannot afford to waste.”
There is an urgent need, therefore, to reclaim the prevailing dumpsites to ensure land availability (referred to as extended landfill capacity) and recycle untapped resources deposited at old dumpsites.
Notably, two approaches can undertake to treat legacy waste — or aged waste:
Scientific capping, which is typically applied to landfills constructed scientifically (engineered landfills / sanitary landfills).
Landfill mining / biomining, which is a technically assisted and economically managed extraction of recyclables and other revenue-generating fractions from waste materials already been disposed of by landfilling