Waste management needs vision, not white elephants
Our story on the life and times of our garbage junketeers, the worthy team of 36 who crossed the seas to undertake a study of garbage treatment plants in Germany, Austria and Italy, brought into focus a colossal waste of public money.
The government is well within its rights to extend an all paid for foreign trip only on two accounts. a) The purpose of the trip is specifically defined with the confirmation that each delegate chosen will contribute to the desired purpose of the trip and b) each delegate has to place record his/ views and observations on the field visit which in turn should be deliberated.
The grand visit to Europe should be tested on these bench marks. While a crore of rupees has been spent on airfare and accommodation, the issue is not about the amount since a trip for 36 people would have cost that kind of money. The yardstick for measuring can only be on the basis of the two bench marks above. The government order sanctioning the trip issued by the Director Science and Technology on October 25, 2013 states “The government has decided to initially set up two Solid Waste Management facilities, one at Calangute- Saligao and the other at Cacora. The technology for the Solid Waste Management Facility has been selected. The state government has also decided that a delegation from the state should visit and observe the working of similar plants operating on similar technologies”
According to a delegate with a sound knowledge of waste treatment, the first plant in Italy was a compost plant using wet garbage, the second a dry waste polistic separation unit and third plant that treats wet waste. When the monitoring committee set up for Solid Waste Management wanted to know the specific technology from the Science and Technology department after the trip, they were initially shown a prototype of the Banguinim plant. The technology that has been decided has also been questioned by Committee members who feel that the biogas dependent, bio-methanation, method has not really worked in India because of the nature of the food waste which is heavy and clogs the pipes of the plant. The bio gs reactor set up in Panjim in 2007 failed as the technology could not anticipate the heavy content of meat and fish that was generated This actually clogged the entire piping system. To top this, almost 10,000 litres of sludge had to be emptied out from the system.
Incidentally, the BITS campus on the way to the Dabolim airport has a similar facility which has almost gone to seed because there are no takers for the left over post methanation sludge. So far no gas and electricity has been generated from the use of this technology.
While it is not debatable that Curchorem needs a scientific water treatment facility and so does Saligao, there is also a need for questioning the approach of creating 100 tonne waste treatment plants to cater to five or six municipal council areas or have sustainable smaller units in different councils which can cater to the neighbouring villages. The 100 ton capacity Curchorem plant will receive not more than 30 tons of garbage even if you include Quepem and Canacona’s waste load. The Kaiserlautern plant in Germany, from which the delegation to Europe draws inspiration, gets 700 tons of segregated, organically treated garbage at temperatures of 8 degrees where waste putrefaction does not take place.
While waste management is of critical priority, it must be done by bench marking simple basics. The mix between the nature of garbage and technology as well as the governments’ philosophy of how to manage solid waste is important. Unfortunately there is no clear philosophy or direction leaving planners, environmentalists and the people at large confused about the direction the government is taking on waste management. That is why potential white elephants like the Saligao and Curchorem plants are created and then further amounts are spent sending 36 people on a Europe holiday.
