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Light up with
TRASH
dump their waste in water bodies. Since, scientific
processing/treatment, methods call for requirement of
land, for many local bodies, burning the trash comes
as an easy option. Combustion reduces the volume
of material by about 90 percent and its weight by 75
percent but also increases the hazards of air pollution.
There is indeed a strong case for managing waste in a
technically sound and economically rational process.
Waste management is a technology process that
has a cost-benefit equation. In poorer countries, rag
picking personnel make a living out of sorting MSW.
But smarter MSW management techniques can throw
up alternative opportunities.
MSW to MWe
Several high income countries have put effective
waste management practices in place. According
to a World Bank Report, urban waste worldwide is
expected to touch 2.2 billion tonnes per year. This is
tonnes of waste, literally wasted. Waste to energy
or WTE, is a workable solution that has a long term
perspective.
T
rash is generated, not in heaps but
in tonnes, to use a figurative way of
speak. With increasing population
and changing lifestyles, municipal
solid waste or MSW, is increasing
phenomenally. In poorer countries, the
most common way seems to burn it.
But the gases released during burning
are pollutants. If waste is not managed
efficiently, we humans are likely to be
smothered in the waste we generate. A
World Bank report estimates that by 2025
there will be 1.4 billion more people living
in cities worldwide, with each person
producing an average of 1.42 kg of MSW
per day.
All the waste that is thrown, lands somewhere – as
pollutants in the air affecting the air we breathe,
plastic waste choking marine life in the oceans and
polluting rivers. Several countries in the world do not
have a structured waste collection and treatment
process. They are simply dumped in non-scientific
landfills or in illegal dumping grounds. Some cities
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