Waste Management

Management of waste
Waste is generally defined as "something, which is not put into proper usage at a given time". As the population increases, the amount of waste generated also increases. The accumulation and improper disposal of waste leads to environmental pollution and accelerates the spread of communicable diseases. Of the 52,000 tonnes of solid waste generated per day, only 2,832 tonnes of waste gets to be treated.

Waste can generally be categorized according to its origin as

• Domestic waste
• Industrial waste
• Hospital waste 

Domestic waste production is the main problem pertaining to India. All the cities and towns produce large amounts of solid waste whose disposal is the main problem. Every Indian generates about 250 - 300 gm. of waste per day. Mumbai, the largest garbage generator in India, produces 5000 tonnes of waste per day. Improper disposal of this waste results in diseases like diarrhea, malaria and even epidemics like plague. It provides a good breeding ground for vectors which carry fatal diseases.

Waste management aims at curtailing the waste from the initial stage of production. Wastes could be managed by making the manufacturing process efficient, reusing the waste generated and by recycling the waste products.

Sufficient research findings are available for adequate design of sanitary landfills, which are effective in keeping the surface and ground water free from toxic leaching. Waste management will relieve the stress on the natural resources and provide a clean and sustainable environment.

Indian Farm Forestry Development cooperatives
Wastelands in India are a significant resource on which many rural people depend for food, fodder, and fuel wood. This project provides an opportunity for the rural poor to restore degraded lands and improve their living conditions. The project target was to reclaim 20,000 ha of wastelands through 100 self-sustaining Primary Farm Forestry Cooperatives (PFFCs) in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh (UP), and Madhya Pradesh (MP).

Major Achievements
21,451 ha of wasteland have been transformed into green forest with 68 different species having survival rate of around 75%. The soil and water conservation activities were undertaken on 10,281 ha.

113 self-sustaining cooperative societies were developed which are pro-poor and pro-woman and can manage natural resources. The PFFCs have gained financial and institutional strength and 727 SHGs have greatly helped in capital formation at the village level. External resources have been mobilised by some PFFCs to undertake community development works.The women members constitute 37% of the total membership and their improved status is visible in the increased participation at the village.
Income generation activities have been promoted by the provision of Rs 2 crore. 1,011 members have benefited by taking loans amounting to around Rs 76.2 lakh. Rs 44.1 lakh has been recovered. Various micro-enterprises (dairy, piggery, flour mill) have been undertaken.

Lessons Learnt till Date
This is one of the very few attempts to bring management of common property natural resources under the cooperative sector.
Techniques for developing different kinds of wastelands-waterlogged, saline, ravines and steep and rocky, have been developed with the assistance of research institutions and demonstrated on the ground. Innovative approaches such as developing medicinal plants or introducing poplar for farm forestry have proved to be successful.
The efficiency in acquiring lands, formation of cooperatives and raising woodlots in a relatively short period of time points towards efficient project management. The efforts made by the communities in protecting the leased land from biotic interference and steps taken in controlling soil erosion and surface water runoff is paying yields resulting in natural regeneration of the existing rootstock.
An ecosystem based approach in which linkages of the land being addressed with all the land and natural resources available in a village could improve this intervention.

Waste Management : NGO Intervention

Gramalaya : Vermi-composting - The experience at Kalmandai Slum
by the SHE - Team members
Solid waste management in the urban slums is a major problem both at the household-level and at the city-level. Vermi-composting is one of the most efficient methods of converting the organic wastes and crop residues into a rich plant nutrient mixture. The role of earth worms in solid waste management, waste water treatment and organic household waste recycling is immense. Experimental plot was prepared in a pot in the Documentation Centre of Gramalaya and in the vacant site of Kalmandai toilet complex with 4000 worms of Eisenia foetida.
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Waste Management : Corporate Intervention

Abbott India Limited
The Goa Plant has obtained Hazardous Waste authorization from the State Pollution Control Board and is treating its wastes as per the directives of the authorization. A modern effluent treatment plant is operational at the Plant, treating and discharging wastewater with parameters of treated effluent well below the limits set by the local Pollution Control Board. The treated effluent is recycled for horticulture within the site.
Water recycling activities have been encouraged and implemented. The emissions from boiler and generator stacks are monitored regularly and are well below the limits set by the State Pollution Control Board.
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ACC : Transforming And Managing Wastes
ACC has achieved spectacular results in the utilization of two hazardous and pollutant industrial wastes - namely slag from steel plants and fly-ash from thermal power stations - to make blended cements that offer unique advantages to concrete. ACC also pioneered the use waste sludge from the fertiliser industry to make cement. The company is actively engaged in the promotion of alternate fuels and raw materials and in co-processing waste materials through the effective use of cement kilns as co-processing units. These include agro-wastes like rice-husk and other husks, bagasse, used tyres, domestic and hospital wastes. ACC takes pride in extending its waste management services to help minimize the discharge of wastes.
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Alembic : Effluent Treatment Plant
Alembic considers the protection of the environment as its direct responsibility and all its processes and technologies incorporate this feature.
A clean and a green environment is an absolute necessity and Alembic ensures this by using state-of-the-art Effluent Treatment Plant for all the waste generated.
Alembic's sprawling green campus houses a large percentage of its employees. It actively supports and funds various environmental organizations in their crusade to make this place a better world to live in.
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Arvind Mills : Effluent Treatment Facilities
All the production / processing units are provided with adequate wastewater / water treatment facilities, to meet the requirements of regulating authorities as well as our reputed customers like Levis, Nike etc

Arvind Mills at Santej has one of the largest effluent recycle plants in Asia with recycling capacity 10,500 m3/day. The latest & best of the technologies available in water / wastewater treatments can be seen in operation in this plant.

The Arvind International (division) has Effluent recycling facilities comprising Chemical, Biological & tertiary treatment and it is of 800-m3/day capacity. The plant also has ISO 9000 & ISO 14000 certification.

Arvind Mills @ the main site at Naroda also possess chemical, biological treatment facilities to treat 10000 m3/day of effluents to meet the pollution control board norms.

Ankur Mills (division) has Effluent treatment plant of 1600-m3/day capacity with chemical & biological treatment facility to achieve the pollution board norms.

Arvind Mills (Garment exports division) is setting up a new garment unit at Mysore road, Bangalore, along with Effluent treatment plant of 1450 m3 /day capacity. This plant also possesses chemical, biological & tertiary treatment facilities to achieve the State Pollution Control Board norms. The uniqueness of this plant is – all it’s process water requirements will be attained through recycled sewage water of Bangalore City.

Solid Waste Management
All the units believe in waste minimization measures. All the ETP plants are provided with adequate sludge Dewatering facilities. Units at Santej, Naroda, Arvind International & the upcoming Bangalore unit are provided with Decanter Centrifuges for sludge de-watering. De-watered sludge is dried in solar evaporation pans for further volume reduction. Waste oil generated in all the units is recycled. Polythene liners, Discarded containers are disposed off to the respective buyers.
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Asahi India Ltd
Vermi Composting
A canteen-waste management plan was carried out by installing a vermi-composting plant in 2002. As of now, compost of approx. 250 kg of kitchen/canteen/garden waste is made daily. This serves the dual purpose of garbage disposal and organic manure making. Now the entire manure for the gardens and the lawns at the Rewari plant comes from vermi composting and there is zero use of chemical fertilizers inside the plant premises. There has also been a drop in excessive wastage at the canteen.

Vermi Composting At Taloja Plant
Vermi-composting was introduced at float glass plant at Taloja in 2003 to recycle the organic waste from the factory canteen. This project is running well and we are recycling the complete waste from the factory canteen. This is effectively serving the dual purpose of garbage disposal and organic manure making.

Waste paper recycling
On the occasion of World Environment Day in June 2003, environment films were screened at the AIS corporate office. Thereafter, a programme was designed to conserve paper. The staff was encouraged to utilize one- side used paper for internal printouts and to use recycled waste paper. This programme has helped AIS reduce its overall consumption of paper and recycle over 2 tons of office waste paper.
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Ashok Leyland : Effluent Treatment
Treating waste to produce usable by-products and safe disposal of unused waste are the twin goals of effluent treatment plants, set up in all the Units of Ashok Leyland including Ennore where 1.28 million liters of water is redeemed from sewage everyday. Illustrating the efficacy of an effluent treatment plant is the one at Hosur I. One of the most modern of its kind in the area, it has several state-of-the-art features like Mechanical Bar Screen, a Detritor for grit removal, Flow Meter, two Aerator Tanks with surface aerators, a Secondary Clarifier, a rare chlorination facility and sludge drying beds.
The plant can do primary, secondary and tertiary treatment operations. About 55,000 liters of effluents flow into the plant every day. Five kilograms of solid hazardous waste is stored as per Pollution Control Board standards and the rest of the water portion is treated and used for organic farming. Manure extracted from the sludge replaces artificial chemical fertilizers saving Rs.165000 per annum. On an average, 250,000 liters of recycled water is pumped into the garden saving Rs.1.5 million per annum.
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Balrampur Chini Mills Ltd.
In a world that is getting increasingly concerned about whether manufacturers working with natural resources are exploiting the environment, it would be worth appreciating that the sugar industry goes one responsible step further: it directly contributes to making the world a cleaner place to live in. This is happening through two principal applications - the production of a clean automotive fuel additive and clean power

ETHANOL, GREEN FUEL
One of the most attractive applications of molasses (sugar byproduct) is in the manufacture of ethanol, an environment friendly fuel. Being an oxygenate, ethanol contains 35 per cent oxygen, helps combust fuel more completely and reduces vehicular tailpipe emissions.
Over the last year, the government of India encouraged the blend of ethanol with automotive fuel to the extent of 5 per cent in nine states and four union territories; this is likely to be extended to the entire country following which the blend is expected to be raised to 10 per cent in line with the trend in other countries.
This progressive use of ethanol will not only reduce the vehicular pollution load in the environment but also accelerate the company's migration to Euro IV norms.

THE BALRAMPUR RESPONSE

The company commissioned a 40 klpd ethanol plant at its Balrampur unit in 2002-03 followed by a 60 klpd ethanol plant at Babhnan in January 2004. The company's entire production of ethanol is secured by way of stable longterm contracts with oil majors like IOL, HPCL, BPCL and IBP

BAGASSE, RENEWABLE POWER SOURCE

The use of bagasse (byproduct) in the co-generation of power represents three attractive propositions: cost saving, income generation and the prudent substitution of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources.
Over the last few years, with the onset of power sector reforms the trend towards co-generation has accelerated. This is line with the global preference for renewable energy forms. For instance, the European Union and other developed countries have specified that a percentage of incremental power should come from renewable sources to protect the environment from greenhouse gases, a feature that is reflected in India's Electricity Act 2003. The Kyoto Protocol represents an extension of this spirit into practice. It was adopted under the UNO framework of conventional climatic changes designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat global warming. It would be relevant to indicate that power co-generated from bagasse represents a renewable energy source and meets all the parameters of the Kyoto Protocol.

THE BALRAMPUR RESPONSE

Balrampur's two co-generation plants - at Balrampur and Haidergarh - possess a combined capacity 39.8 MW. These plants have not only serviced the company's complete power requirement at these two units, helping it save the differential cost that it would have had to pay for commercial purchase; they have also generated a steady income of Rs 47.37 cr in 2003-04. In doing so, they have addressed also the parameters of the Kyoto Protocol.
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Bayer Incinerator
Bayer CropScience Limited has a state-of-art Incinerator at its works at Thane, Maharashtra. The company is highly committed to continual improvement in Health, Safety and Environmental Protection and leads the Responsible Care movement of the Chemical Industry.

Bayer CropScience Limited is certified for ISO 14001 by DNV since December 1999. As an ongoing effort, Bayer has been successful in reducing generation of hazardous waste and therefore has a spare capacity for incineration. Bayer is authorized by Maharashtra Pollution Control Board to incinerate the hazardous waste from other registered waste generators. In the common endeavor to abate the industrial pollution, Bayer would like to offer the spare capacity to the generators of hazardous waste to help incinerate responsibly, economically and in accordance with the environment regulations.

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BILT : Environment : Sustainability

Over the years, we have refined our processes to not just enhance the quality of our paper, but also leveraged responsible practices to protect the quality of the environment.

Some of the initiatives that the Company has actively embarked upon, as part of a sustained environment programme include:

An Institutionalised 3R (reduce, recycle and reuse) Program
In line with International benchmarks. This is delivered by an optimal use of raw material resources, and a responsible waste management program. We continue to test this integrated environment management systems through rigorous internal audits. We also continue to benchmark various practices across our facilities in line with the demanding requirements of international certifications.

BILT is driving this initiative through one of the largest investments of its kind in India, These investments are being made in process technologies, ligning reduction initiatives, augmentation of effluent treatment, superior gas evacuation processes and various in-the-pipe and end-of-pipe processes and technologies.

Our subsidiary – BILT Tech Tree Ltd. is engaged in a concerted program with marginal farmers to develop a sustainable raw-material base on wastelands. It is a win-win partnership that goes beyond statutory requirements and which protects collective interests through assured buy-back arrangements, while accelerating the conversation of degraded marginal lands into a rich, productive forestry resource for the country. This collaborative farm forestry scheme is now an industry model for the following reasons:

• It is channelising high quality planting stock at subsidized cost and offering free of cost technical guidance to farmers
• It is generating an increasing supply of precious raw material, augmenting recurring income for over 13,000 farmers,
• Reversing soil erosion in around 16,000 hectares of greened area across six states and helping to reconcile commercial and environment interests

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Emami : Environment protection

As a responsible corporate citizen, Emami recognizes its duty towards the protection of the environment
At Emami, the responsible management of water and effluents have been institutionalised in an effluent treatment plant. As a result, the effluents are adequately neutralised and responsibly disposed in line with statutory and community requirements. The noise arising out of the company's operations is maintained below the permitted decibel limit and the company has never had any statutory problems with any pollution control authority. Thanks to the aggressive use of information technology, Emami has gradually moved towards lower consumption of paper.

Glaxo

Full-fledged effluent treatment plants are provided at all four Glaxo India sites, for instance at Ankeshwar, meeting all the statutory requirements. Chemical wastes are either disposed off by burning at site or neutralising and disposing off through Glaxo's Effluent Treatment plant.. The Thane factory has planted over 2700 trees of various species. The Nashik factory has planted over 8000 trees of various species. The Worli factory has around 177 big trees and 613 pot plants.

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HPCL

Our Commitment to Environment
As a corporate citizen, HPCL is committed to environment protection and constantly endeavours to ensure that increasing scale of operation does not lead to environment degradation. The "Environment Policy" adopted by the Corporation commits it to conduct all its operations in such a way as to be compatible with the environment. Both the refineries of HPCL have systems and procedures, which ensure compliance with MINAS standards and other statutory stipulations of CPCB and State PCBs. Extensive green coverage has been provided in our Refineries and continuous efforts are being made on this front in areas surrounding the Refineries.

Effluent Treatment Plants take care of process waste water, floor wash water and tank farm drains. API separators and skim pond handle cooling water discharge. SO2 emission is controlled by sulphur recovery units. FCC Unit has a CO Boiler to burn CO generated so that no CO is emitted to the atmosphere. The major environmental projects like DHDS have been completed and commissioned producing HSD with less than 0.25 % sulphur. The Refineries have Continuous Ambient Air Monitoring Stations inside the Refineries which measures ambient air quality in and around the Refineries' premises in coordination with State Pollution Control Board meeting the regulations of Ministry of Environment and Forests.

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Kirloskar Brothers Ltd. :

KBL installed a waste treatment plant in 1975 for the treatment of industrial and domestic effluent water. The treated water is circulated in the premises and used for watering lawns. Moreover, waste foundry sand has been successfully recycled and used in the preparation of the Golf Course at Kirloskarvadi. In the manufacturing process carried out in Kirloskar Brothers Limited, Kirloskarvadi, there is a possibility of the environment being disturbed due to the following activities.

· The domestic effluents flowing from the colony.
· The Industrial effluents flowing from the manufacturing process like coolant oil, cynide salt liquid, waste-water emerging from the painting booth.
· Pollution of air due to melting of metal flying dust in foundries and the corrocoat application unit, heating off material in the heat treatment process.

To meet the environment threats the company takes following measures

1. Installation of the industrial and domestic effluent treatment plant (Activated sludge process).
(a) Tank capacity: - 750 cubic meters / day.
2. Installation of the Industrial effluent treatment plant (Cynide Slats)
(a) Tank capacity: - 9000 liters
(b) Methods of treatment: - Alkaline chlorination method for cynide destruction.
3. Hazardous waste management: - After neutralizing solid salts by alkaline chlorination method, the salts are dried and dumped in our scrap yard, in the under-ground pits, 6/8 feet deep and covered with mud.

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Madras Aluminium Company Limited : Waste into Wealth

Summary of Case Study
This case study is about the RED MUD, a solid waste getting generated during the refining process of Bauxite to manufacture Alumina. It is a high volume waste, to be handled and stored/stacked by the primary manufacturers of Aluminium metal.

RED MUD
a. Generation
The manufacture of Aluminium involves two important stages

i. Refining Bauxite to Aluminium oxide (Alumina) by the Bayer process
ii. Reducing Alumina to Aluminium by Hall-Heroult process in Electrolytic Cells..

The basic raw material for the manufacture of Aluminum is Bauxite ore which contains Al2O3. The Red Mud generated during the refining process of Bauxite, is dewatered and transported to the Stock Yard.

b. Quantity
From approximately 3.7 MT of Bauxite, 1.0 MT of Alumina is produced. Each MT of Aluminium needs 2 MT of Alumina

Thus for 1 MT of Aluminium, 7.4 MT of Bauxite is required. The Red Mud generation will be approximately 3.0 MT per MT of Aluminium

The approximate generation of Red Mud per month is 11,000 MT to 12,000 MT

c. Quality

SiO2 TiO2

i. Wet Disposal System
Pumping the Red Mud slurry to shallow man- made lagoons, for the particles to settle down and get dried. Red Mud is left in the lagoons.

ii. Dry Disposal System
Laying down a layer of mud at the bottom of an artificially created impoundment, allowing it to settle and drain, laying down another layer on the top of it, and so on until the impoundment is full.

All the disposal processes are expensive and disposal of the large quantities of red mud also poses increasing problems of land cost, storage and pollution. The various steps taken by MALCO to preserve the ore and increase the mine's life included the beneficiation of low grade Bauxite to factory Grade Bauxite. Decision was taken to dispense with the supply of low grade Bauxite to Cement Industries.

In order to extend possible support to Cement Industries, simultaneously a study of quality of Red Mud was taken up. It revealed that the key parameters like Al2O3 , Fe2O3 and SiO2 were within the limits prescribed by the Cement industries for Bauxite

As the quality of Red Mud is very similar to Bauxite used by Cement Industries, it is concluded that Red Mud can be used in place of Bauxite to make up the deficiencies ( in terms of Al2O3, Fe2O3 and SiO2 ,) in the limestone.

Trials carried out at Cement Industries with Red Mud as a substitute for Bauxite were found successful.

After successful trials, Red Mud has become a good substitute for Bauxite to make up the deficiencies in the limestone.

The supply of Red Mud for use as one of the inputs in 2002-03 was 1727 MT, i.e., 1.5 % of generation.

The quantity of Red Mud use in Cement manufacturing has been improved to reach 47189 MT in 2003-04 amounting to 36 % of Red Mud generation

The supply during 2004-05 was 65234 MT amounting to 46 % of Red Mud generation.

Current disposal stands at 84 % of generation.

The Madras Aluminium Company Limited manufactures Aluminium Ingots, Wire Rods, Rolled products, power ... And the above information is sourced from TERI Corporate Environmental Awards 2004-05