Opinion As Srinagar becomes an urban and tourist hub, a scientific plan to deal with the city’s waste management problem
Under a new plan, the Srinagar Municipal Corporation through scientific means shall excavate, stabilise, process, treat and dispose of the existing legacy waste in an environmentally sustainable manner
Srinagar city over the years has evolved in multiple ways. The pace of life has taken off and so has the rural to urban migration, leading to the construction of new houses and colonies (Express photo by Shuaib Masoodi) Written by Faz Lul Haseeb
Srinagar city over the years, has evolved in multiple ways. The pace of life has taken off, and so has the rural to urban migration, leading to the construction of new houses and colonies. As tourism has improved, new hotels have sprung up, guesthouses are being registered, and people are converting their residential houses into homestays. Young entrepreneurs are setting up cafes and restaurants and food carts, and kiosks have started to sprout throughout the city. The city that produced 238 tonnes of waste per day (TPD) in 2012 is now producing 525 tonnes per day. The quantity is expected to shoot to 800 tonnes per day by 2030. The city has rarely had a scientific waste disposal plan and has always been dependent on its single landfill site at Achan in the outskirts of Srinagar city.
Achan was set up as a landfill site in the 1980s and for the past four decades has served as the city’s primary dumping ground. According to estimates and surveys by Srinagar Municipal Corporation, the total waste dumped at Achan is more than 11 lakh metric tonnes and thus has led to a huge outcry about its scientific disposal and further waste management. Backed by funding under Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0, the Srinagar Municipal Corporation, under the Housing and Urban Development department, has formulated a robust plan to remediate the existing legacy waste in order to liberate the people of Srinagar from this foul-smelling stench and unscientific waste management.
Under this plan, the Municipal Corporation, through scientific means, shall excavate, stabilise, process, treat and dispose of the existing legacy waste in an environmentally sustainable manner. By installing an electronic weigh bridge, it is proposed that a minimum of 30,000 metric tonnes of waste is “scientifically” treated every month for a period of 30 months to ensure that the dumping site is reclaimed from toxic environmental pollutants and is free from the mountain of garbage that has been acting as an eyesore for the residents of Srinagar. The SMC shall install an adequate number of trommels, conveyors, bailing machines, magnetic separators and air density separators among other machinery to ensure that the entire waste is processed according to Solid Waste Management Rules 2016. This processing shall produce a number of by-products such as RDF (refuse-derived fuel), recyclables, enriched soil and compost. The RDF and recyclables shall be disposed of by coordinating with cement industries and authorised recyclers respectively. And the good soil free from leachate and heavy metals recovered after due processing shall be used for construction and agricultural purposes at the local level. It is pertinent to mention that any sort of inert waste recovered has to be free from recyclables and hazardous waste. Inert waste fundamentally can be defined as “non-recyclable”, “non-combustible” and “non-biodegradable” waste. For this, SMC shall prepare an “inert waste disposal area” to ensure that the “remediation process” does not leave any sort of inert waste behind.
It is possible that over the years, biomedical waste may have seeped into Achan and may be part of the huge pile of garbage that currently occupies the landfill site. To ensure complete recovery of the landfill site, the SMC shall ensure that any biomedical waste recovered during this process shall be collected separately and disposed of according to the Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules, 2016. Hazardous waste found, if any, shall be disposed of separately according to the Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2016.
Any landfill site shall always be plagued with the problems of “leachate”. According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), leachate means the dark, smelly liquid that seeps through or is generated within solid waste and has extracts of dissolved or suspended materials from it. A “leachate pond” shall be developed to collect, treat and dispose of the leachate. For this, channels would be created to lead the oozing leachate into the pond, followed by sprinkling of bio cultures and aeration using compressor pumps. Aeration shall help the added microbes in digesting the polluting solids suspended in the dark and turbid leachate. This shall also help in the reduction of odour as odour control is an integral part of any waste treatment process. Bio-enzymes and herbal-based products shall also be used to relieve the adjoining population from the stench that travels for kilometres together.
To ensure accountability of the entire process, a fresh contour survey has been carried out to assess the quantity of legacy waste and to ensure that volumetric reduction of the waste is monitored properly, a supplementary contour survey shall be carried out every month. This shall help in understanding the exact amount of waste that is reduced and shall help the corporation in comparing the waste present “as of now” and the waste that “will remain” after the process of remediation ends. The whole process shall be carried out strictly within the ambit of the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016, Noise Pollution Rules 2000, the CPCB guidelines and shall be monitored through CCTV cameras. The operations shall be viewed through the Integrated Command and Control Centre of the SMC, and the data from the electronic weighbridge can be fetched at the ICCC to maintain strict vigilance on the amount of waste processed each day.
To ensure that there is a distinct separation between legacy waste and fresh waste, the areas have been demarcated. This shall ensure that no mixing takes place and the corporation is able to treat and process the legacy waste while the fresh waste keeps on coming in everyday. The fresh waste shall later on be treated by the new Integrated Solid Waste Management plant that the corporation is setting up, but given the infant nature of the project, that is a story for another day.
Haseeb is Commissioner Srinagar Municipal Corporation & CEO Smart City Srinagar
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