WASTE MANAGEMENT & MINIMIZATION – AN APPROACH FOR A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
LAKSHMI RAGHUPATHY1 and C.K RAGUPATHY 2
1Ministry of Environment & Forests, (Government of India), India
2Lingaya’s Institute of Management & Technology, Nacholi, Faridabad, India
(free)
Management of waste in an environmentally sound manner is a global issue. The developed nations have prescribed stringent norms and regulations to combat with the problem, while the developing nations are far behind in bringing about a system for waste management. An economically viable solution is required to tackle the problem. The possibility of minimizing the waste generation at source and recycling and reuse of waste needs to be explored with an approach to provide solution to the problem of waste.
Urbanization and exponential industrial growth have lead to increased migration of the population to the big cities. Huge quantities of solid wastes are generated in the cities today. With the increased use of disposables transformation to a throwaway society, the quantity of waste generated is much magnified. Solid waste management is one of the major issues that needs to be addressed to every citizen. Legislations and regulations only provide control and prescribe the do’s and don’ts but the willingness to do is required.
This paper is intended to provide an insight into the waste management problems, delineate the mechanism to work out feasible solutions for effective waste management through segregation of waste and its recycling and reprocessing. Some initiatives have already been taken but it needs a moderator to translate the ideas into reality, communicate with the concerned agencies and work out the techno-economic feasibility. A two-pronged approach is proposed for the same, the Community Action and the Corporate Action. The community participation would provide voluntary assistance in the form of community movements, while the corporate would provide sustainable solutions to the waste problems, with visible results. Waste management is by itself an industry, be it treatment disposal of the waste or recycling and reprocessing. Though the techniques are well known but site specific models need to be developed taking into consideration the ground conditions. One such model is described in the paper.
KEY WORDS Community action, Composting, environmentally sound management, Incineration, Landfill, Regulations, Recycling, Sustainable waste management, Waste segregation.
