Poor waste management is raising more than a stink in Mumbai
What is most striking about the huge fire that engulfed Mumbai’s Deonar dumping ground for five days and worsened the city’s air quality, causing respiratory diseases to residents even several miles away, is the sheer callousness of the authorities in waste management.
The 89-year-old dumping ground is one of India’s oldest and largest, but the administration’s track record in maintaining it has been extremely poor. Consider some of these aspects: the ground, spread over 132 hectares, receives 3,700 tonnes of waste daily, so much so that the garbage dump is 30 metres high in some parts.
Yet, there are no proper waste management mechanisms in place. Plans to set up a waste-to-energy plant at the ground is reportedly hanging fire owing to bureaucratic hurdles, prompting the Bombay High Court to pull up the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), that oversees the facility, last year. The high court has said it will disallow any further construction at the site if the BMC drags its feet in installing proper waste management mechanisms.
The various agencies are falling head over heels trying to identify the cause of the fire. It is becoming increasingly evident that such a large facility, which is vulnerable to fire, and has a history of such fires, did not have a proper security mechanism to prevent access to criminals who could have deliberately caused the fire.
There seems to be 36 guards employed at the ground, but how is that these miscreants were not spotted and apprehended? There is even a theory that an aggrieved contractor, whose contract was being terminated, could have been behind this.
But whatever be the reason, the fact remains that for five days, a thick blanket of smog covered parts of the city, leading to a series of ailments and closure of over 70 schools in the region. While the fire has now been brought under control, except for some intermittent flares, the garbage could still pose danger, especially owing to the methane gas that emanates from the fire.
Mumbai being a coastal city, does not have a harsh winter, unlike the northern cities, and therefore, the winter smog isn’t as bad, either. However, the fire resulted in the city’s air quality getting deteriorated to "poor" and "very poor" last weekend, placing it among the ten most polluted cities in the country. Satellite images showed the plume of smoke not just over the eastern part, where Deonar is, but spreading across the entire city as well as into the Arabian Sea and other coastal areas in Raigad district.
Managing increasing garbage is a challenge that every city faces, but those in the developed world have moved on to new ways of waste management by closing down open dumping pits and shifting to sanitary landfills where waste is isolated from the environment until it is safe.
Recovering resources from waste is becoming commonplace in many countries, where the calorific content in waste is converted into electricity. Recyclable materials are also extracted from waste, reducing the volume of waste that needs to be disposed.
Composting, or the technique of using organic waste materials such as food, plants and paper for agriculture and landscaping is another option. Also getting popular are methods of converting waste into other solid, liquid or gaseous forms that can then be used to generate energy.
Closing down the Deonar dumping ground, which handles 35 per cent of Mumbai’s garbage, may not be an immediate alternative before the BMC. But it has to quickly move to ensure that proper garbage treatment methods are in place, and should cordon off the area to prevent any further foul play.
It has now been revealed that the state pollution control board had served the BMC as many as ten notices in the span of a year on its poor garbage management at Deonar, but those had fallen on deaf ears. Any more of such lackadaisical attitude can prove to be more disastrous to the city that’s already on the edge when it comes to dealing with its mountains of garbage.