Hazardous Waste Generation
In this report today, we are going to talk about hazardous waste management. First we will discuss what hazardous waste management is all about and then what are the major reasons behind it. Are there any financial constraints that have led this situation to be this bad and what will be the issues or problems that will arise due to this miss-management (Inglezakis, 2016).In order to be capable of understanding this report one must have some knowledge about hazardous waste management. Hazardous waste management is the handling of waste material in a way that if in case this waste is not handled in a proper manner then it will lead to a disastrous situation (Moustakasb, 2014).
Now here, the main part of the report has been discussed, as we are require to choose a country or a city to its hazardous waste management. So we choose Delhi (India) as the city and country of our report. Delhi is the capital of India and is situated on the northern region of India. It is said about Delhi that in the year 2020 (Sambyal, 2014), the air of Delhi will become so polluted that it will become impossible for the people to live there (Kumar, 2017).
Delhi is one of the most happening cities of India, a city where the prime minister and the president of India resides. A city that is called the city of people having big hearts, a city which is most loved for its street food and is known for its spices and the fashion sense. Such a description of this city must have created a very attractive image in our mind but there is a harsh reality too about this city (He, 2015). On the one side there is this attractive part of this city and then there is the other part which one wants to ignore but certainly can’t ignore because of the fact that this issue is not an ignorable one (Shrivastav, 2017). The issue that we are talking about is the issue of the garbage ground that one can see when you enter the city from Kashmiri Gate. There are two other places where the waste of Delhi is dumped namely Bhalaswa and Okhla (Sreekrishnanb, 2017).
This report is about the hazardous waste management and we are required to select a city of our choice about which we can prepare a report on its hazardous waste management. Well Delhi despite being one of the most high tech cities of India is a city that has very badly failed at managing the waste management and is putting the human lives at risk. Hazardous waste management is the management of handling the waste whether it is in its solid form or in semi solid form then collect such waste and dispose or recycle it in order to save the environment and the human’s from its ill effects. Any waste that is toxic, ignitable or turns into something that is directly or indirectly dangerous for human lives is known as hazardous waste (Halder, 2017). Hazardous Waste Generation
Physical Characteristics of Hazardous Waste in Ghazipur
With the advent of high tech technology, population growth, we the human’s have forget all our responsibilities towards the environment and towards the mankind. We are the enemies of not only ourselves but also of the future generation. With the rapid growth in the industrialization the capabilities of the business firms has increased to such an extent that the organizations now don’t have to think twice as they can easily know what customer wants, what will satisfy his needs and how will he come back to the organization again to satisfy his different needs (Acharyya, 2016). This process of satisfying the customer has lead to the use of different kinds of raw materials, the final product may give us the joy of a little time but the remains or the waste that is left out after preparing the final product is not properly disposed by these organization, in case they dispose such waste, they dispose it in some rivers or in the open grounds. Another reason of this waste generation is ever increasing population; the population of Delhi is not one or two but it is around 25 million (Joshi, 2017). You now one can imagine why Delhi is suffering from such a hazardous waste issues. The landsite of the dumping ground in Ghazipur (Delhi) was commissioned in the year 1984; at that point not even a single person could have thought that this land will become the world’s biggest dumping site with having Garbage Mountains of as high as 50 meters in height (Iqbal, 2015). The main reasons of this waste generation is the growing industrialization and urbanization in Delhi NCR region, another reason is the ever increasing human population in this region and no proper management to manage this dumping ground in proper manner are the major reasons why the garbage has turned into the hazardous waste.
In this section of the report we are going to discuss about the physical characteristics of the waste that is being dumped at the dumping ground of ghazipur. The physical characteristics are those characteristics that tell us about the properties of a particular thing. The physical characteristics of the hazardous waste are as under (Parmar, 2015):
- Ignitability: This is the characteristic, which tells us that the waste is having a property of ignitability i.e. it can catch fire very easily if it is kept open under a certain temperature. The dumping ground at Ghazipur (Delhi) has a lots and lots of garbage that falls under this category. Now, one can imagine how risky is for the people that are living in the surroundings of this region.
- Corrosivity: This characteristic is the one that tells us that the garbage or the waste is having the capability of corroding the steel or an iron. This kind of waste can decompose almost anything.
- Toxicity: The garbage or the waste that is dumped at Ghazipur Delhi is having a characteristic of toxicity. Toxicity means anything which is poisonous. This kind of waste can easily contaminate the water and the ground water which is a very dangerous thing that can certainly lead to a major miss-happening.
The government of Delhi has admitted themselves that they cannot do much in the case of this waste management. As the state of Delhi is falling short of landsite. It cannot be said that the Delhi government is not making any effort but the harsh reality is that if Delhi really wants to have a proper hazardous waste management then it requires to have a site of around 800 hectare of land, that will cost the government around 80000 crores (Omkar, 2016), which is obviously not an easy thing for the government to do alone. The three garbage sites of Delhi receives 9500 per tones of the garbage everyday and to dispose this waste an average amount of cost that the municipality of this bears is 14500 rupees which includes the sum of managing the labor and machinery. It won’t be wrong if we say that the Delhi system has totally failed in case of managing this waste (Deo, 2014).
Challenges in Hazardous Waste Management in Delhi
Now this is the very important part of the report, as we are going to discuss about the future waste quantities prediction. The national green tribunal of India has made a shocking statement about living in Delhi; this statement came to the light in the year 2017. The statement of this tribunal says that it will be impossible to live in Delhi by the year 2020. It is not only because of the growing population but because of the pollution and Delhi’s failure to maintain a proper hazardous waste management (Sharma & Thakur, 2012). According to the recent report prepared by the CSE, which stands for the Centre for Science and Environment, there report said that in Delhi around 8500 tons of the garbage is brought to the landfill sites of Delhi every day, this Centre also stated that these sites are filled to a point which is beyond their capacity and their limits has exceeded long back about 10 years ago. Now, we can imagine very easily the future waste quantity. In a year, 3, 467, 500 tons of waste is being sent to these sites. This is definitely a shocking number and one can easily say that now a miracle can only save Delhi. The future predictions can also be understood by the chart presented below:
The above chart presented above shows the future waste quantities prediction of the Delhi, the number is in million tons.
Delhi is on the verge of meeting a very disastrous hazard, as the sites of the garbage are not properly managed and this miss-management has resulted in poisonous ground water, poisonous air in that area, acid rain and other dangerous things. One travelling almost 5miles away from that area can feel the poison that these garbage sites have spread in the air. Major problems and Issues that can occur due to this failure of the system of managing the waste are as under (Bhatia, 2015):
- Water Pollution:The very evident and clear major problem or an issue that has arisen due to the miss-management of the hazardous waste is the water pollution. The CSE or the Centre for Science and Environment has clearly mentioned in its report that the ground water at the three landfill sites of Delhi is totally contaminated and poisonous and it can lead to a big disaster anytime, if corrective measures are not taken on time. Water and air are the basic things that the human lives can’t survive without, and in Delhi these two are the most toxic things that you will get.
- Air Pollution:Despite being the Capital state of India, Delhi is amongst the most polluted cities of the world. The Supreme Court of India has made a statement saying that the capital is sitting on a garbage bomb that can blast anytime. The three landfill sites are so much filled beyond their capacities that it has not only polluted the ground water of that area and the surroundings but it has polluted the air of the entire Delhi as well. In an RTI (Right to Information Act) it came to light that Delhi government has cut down many trees in order to complete the Delhi metro projects. The number of trees cut down for this construction is in thousands and not even half number of the trees is planted till now.
- Decreasing Health Levels:The people of Delhi are continuously seeing a change in their health levels, now they are more ill than an average person of any other state of India. The people of Delhi has developed respiration problems, a large increase has been seen by the doctors in the number of asthmatic patients in Delhi.
Above are the major problems and issues that are currently being faced by the people and the government of Delhi. It won’t be right to say that the government has not took any steps to cope up with this situation, the government of delhi came up with a very unique solution to reduce the pollution levels in Delhi, one of these solution were the Odd-Even traffic scheme in which on one day only the odd number bearing cars will be allowed on the roads and the other day the even number cars. But sad to say this is not enough to cope up the present situation.
Conclusion
After studying deeply, all the facts and information about the present hazardous waste management of Delhi, a final conclusion has been provided here. In order to handle the situation the Delhi government can join its hand with the central government or it can approach some other advanced countries or cities of the world to help them out to plan a proper management for this critical situation as the current landfills are clearly not the solutions.
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