CMDA's 2nd master plan for waste management

Garbage disposal is difficult to manage unless segregated at source. A scene at a vacant plot along Trunk Road, near Porur junction.The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority's (CMDA) second draft master plan for Chennai, while recognising the potential for composting, is silent on the process of waste segregation at source.Though cities around the world are increasingly adopting waste segregation at source, former CMDA planners feel the draft plan does not clearly spell out the need to segregate waste.The master plan does not address the need to reduce waste and citizens' participation in waste management at the local level through segregation, said G. Dattatri, Trustee, SUSTAIN (Citizens' Alliance for Sustainable Living), and former Chief Urban Planner of CMDA.

He said environmental conservation and solid waste management were among the nine areas SUSTAIN had identified for emphasis in the draft plan.Ananda Ranjana Doss, a former member and chief planner of CMDA and director of SUSTAIN, said that only with primary segregation, could wastes be treated differently. The policy should be to encourage segregation of waste at source and identify locations for landfills and treatment plants, he said.Chennai sends 3,000 tonnes of waste from 10 zones and 500 tonnes of debris to the two dumping yards at Perungudi and Kodungaiyur every day. In this context, the draft plan quotes a study by the Environmental Resource Management (ERM), U.K. (1996), which projects that by 2026 the Chennai Metropolitan Area — including the city and the neighbouring municipalities, town panchayats and panchayat unions — will have to deal with 6,590 tonnes of waste, excluding debris.

The draft plan notes that the recommendations of the ERM study have to be implemented. It also observes a lack of data on e-waste and the extent to which it could be recycled and disposed of while calling for a detailed study by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB).According to the ERM study, data on the composition of wastes show that households are the largest generator of solid waste (68 per cent), followed by commercial establishments (14 per cent), restaurants/hotels and kalyana mandapams/schools and others (11 per cent), markets (4 per cent) and hospitals and clinics (3 per cent). The draft plan refers to the analysis of waste conducted last year by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI).

Organic wastes constituted 51.34 per cent, inert matter - 26.01 per cent, paper - 8.38 per cent, rags - 3.11 per cent, plastics - 7.48 per cent, metals - 0.19 per cent, rubber and leather - 0.19 per cent and glass - 0.29 per cent.With the statistics suggesting the need for source segregation, composting and recycling wastes, experts say the master plan should take a critical look at the subject. The draft has spelt out clearly that the composition of the garbage indicated a high potential for composting. The garbage mix has more of compostable wastes and a small amount of recyclables.