Waste management

G.L Khajuria
The waste is a serious threat to the public life particularly in rural areas as these are generated in predominantly organic forms. And an incorrect disposal can tantamount to multihued disease such as water borne diseases which include diarrhea, cholera, typhoid, malaria to the extent of dengue and the like. As per the estimates, people in rural areas are generating 0.4 to 0.5 million metric tons of the organic and recyclable solid waste per day and that constitute 88%-95% of the total disease burden. All this is fundamentally due to lack of clean water, sanitation and above all improper waste Management. The figures are as per Government of India (GOI) ending year 2008.
In 2016, the Ministry of Drinking water and sanitation, Government of India issued a letter to all principal  secretaries of State Government of cleanliness index and solid and liquid wastement (SLWM) to raise awareness in cleanliness campaign in almost all areas such as villages, Gram Panchayats, tehsils and the districts.
It was hoped that this will generate improvement in cleanliness, hygienic and quality of life in rural areas but unfortunately , the mission did not make the headway to the extent it was  so aimed at and targeted for.
The solid and liquid waste management (SLWM) is as such an important determinant of improved sanitation in any community.
The goals of sanitation will not be met adequately unless otherwise the waste is safely and  disposed off. And in rural areas, this aspect is oftenly ignored owing to lack of infrastructure, Non availability of sustainable technology. Interestingly enough, the Indian diversity extends to its waste generation also. The wide varied diversity, topography and climate in unison play a pre dominant part.
Rural communities have oftenly been known to use and reuse  resource resulting thereby zero waste generation. However, ofcourse with the passage  of time and other factors, the situation is drastically changing given the growing consumerism, changing food habits and easy availability of plastic bags  and non bio degradable packages. And most of waste management options are based on the principles of reduction,  recycle and recover.
Under solid and liquid waste management (SLWM), the following activities are warranted to be undertaken. One, the solid waste management, the state shall have to decide areas i.e collection, segregation and safe disposal of household garbage. And in this context, decentralized system such as household compositing and biogas plants are of paramount importance
Activities related to maximum reuse of solid organic as manure should preferably be adopted and such technologies should include NADEP compositing or to say vermin-compositing methods.  The amount of funds  so allotted for SLWM may be used to  setting up incineraters in school and other women’s community sanitary complexes, primary health centers or in any other suitable places in the village where collection mechanization are convenient. The technologies may include appropriate options that are socially acceptable and above all environmentally safe.
Secondly, in liquid waste management, the state warrants to be identified with suitable technologies and the methods adopted for liquid waste management on maximum reuse of such waste for agriculture purposes.
In the third place, the treatment of waste water technologies that can be considered include waste stabilization Pond (WSP), Duckweed based wastewater treatment and finally phytoroid technology developed  by NEER.
Economic implications in terms of capital, operational and maintenance (O and M expenditure) socio cultural aspect of acceptability  and adoptability. The technical aspect for robustness in respect whether   and environmental conditions have their own part to play alongside operational practices. And capacity to sustainabile operation and maintenance process and technologies.
(The author is Former Deputy Conservator of Forest J&K)
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