EDL gave a presentation on 7th January, 2003 to the Tamil Nadu pollution Control Board (TNPCB) but failed to answer most of the environmental and feasibility questions. Interestingly, EDL failed to show Mercury and other heavy metals in its own study and it does not know how to segregate Mercury etc from the garbage as is required.
Environmentalists across the country are alarmed by the ecologically disastrous consequences of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s announcement on 31st January, 2003 in the state assembly to pursue a 14.85 MW plant to produce power from the city's 600 MT of waste, using gasification/pyrolysis technology at Perungudi. The world’s first and only such unproven plant is located in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia and is still in the experimental and developing stage. “Chief Minister’s attention towards this suicidal waste incineration project needs to be urgently drawn. The technology deserves thorough scrutiny. She should to be briefed about the failure of similar plants elsewhere in the country and the company’s own failed track record,” say solid waste experts. Electricity generation from waste is not a Eureka solution for waste management.
“The project violates two international agreements and our own Municipal Waste Rules (MSW), 2000. This gasification/incineration approach means that there is no incentive to segregate, reduce, reuse and recycle waste, which is mandatory under the Supreme Court guidelines and MSW Rules. Infact the Chennai Corporation is prima facie guilty of flouting MSW norm, says Ravi Agarwal, environmentalist, Srishti, environmental organisation. Gasification is an incineration process that emits dioxins, the most poisonous cancer-causing toxin known in the world. It transfers the hazardous characteristics of waste from solid form to air, water and ash. It also releases new toxins, which were not present in the original waste stream, besides generating heavy metals,” he adds. He is also part of the Basel Action Network, which deals with the trans-boundary movement of hazardous wastes.
“Energy Developments Limited (EDL), the Australian company’s proposal to set up the resource incineration plant in Chennai is driven by profit motive alone. Contrary to what EDL says, the gasification of waste leads to global warming and cannot be allowed, as India is a signatory of Kyoto Protocol,” says Sanjay Parikh, environmental lawyer, Supreme Court.
“The annexure A of the Protocol says that incineration processes cause green house gas emission. Incineration is a resource destroying and unsustainable toxic process. US Environment Protection Agency and European Union Incineration Directive seek to reduce and eliminate its use. Its approval by the Ministry of Environment and Forests is a classic case of misuse of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Protocol,” says India represetative, anti-toxics campaigner, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA).
“India has made an international commitment to minimise the production and use of 12 of the most toxic chemicals in the world, known as the Dirty Dozen, by signing the United Nations Environment Program’s (UNEP), Stockholm Treaty on persistent organic pollutants (POPs), but the current policy of the Union ministry of non-conventional energy sources (MNES) subsidises and promotes dioxin-emitting incineration technologies,” says Bittu Sehgal, Editor, Sanctuary Asia.
“Signing the POPs treaty is at odds with the current policy of the Union ministry of non-conventional energy sources (MNES) to promote dioxin-emitting non renewable waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies,” say energy experts.
“The project has never undergone any environment impact assessment and public hearing process. The mandatory approval from the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) has not even been sought. The Central Pollution Control Board has not even been informed which required under the MSW Rules, 2000,” says Rajesh Rangrajan of Toxics Link.
EDL gave a presentation on 7th January, 2003 to the Tamil Nadu pollution Control Board (TNPCB) but failed to answer most of the environmental and feasibility questions. Interestingly, EDL failed to show Mercury and other heavy metals in its own study and it does not know how to segregate Mercury etc from the garbage as is required. “EDL’s controversial incineration technology emits dioxins, which the company would have us believe would be much lower than the permitted level. It has been clearly shown that dioxin is carcinogenic even in trace quantities. Further, since no Indian laboratory has tested dioxins, how can there be a permissible limit here in India,” asks Agarwal.
EDL’s claim that the plant will eliminate the need for a dumping ground by diverting 80 percent of the waste is false. It says, it will return the remaining 20-25 percent of toxic waste to the corporation. It further says, Perengudi waste has 34.64 percent inert waste. This means that even if EDL’s incinerator plant becomes functional, corporation will have to deal with the remaining 50-55 percent of the waste.
“In practice corporation will still have to deal with 70-75 percent of waste. Ash and suspended particulate matter that emerge from the combustion technologies like these is a huge perpetual problem because although there is volume reduction of waste through this technique, the management of ever growing ash remains,” says Dr D N Rao, Environment Economist, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
“The technology intends to use Chennai residents as guinea pigs. As a consequence of which several toxins that will enter the food chain and poisons the health and environment for generations,” says Bharat Jairaj of Citizen Consumer Action Group. EDL has bulldozed its project through misleading a high-level committee before the commencement of the assembly session after having failed to show itself as ecologically safe. Although none of the objections such as the fate of green house gasses, chlorine compounds and Mercury in the waste raised by the TNPCB has been answered, the chief minister has been misled into making this announcement, adds Parikh.
“The Indian wastes such as those of Perungudi dumpsite have been clearly certified as most suitable for composting rather than for burn technologies in numerous studies. Zero waste strategy and community based waste management is the sanest way to mange waste world over but multinational companies perceive Indian waste as a market for their failed technologies, which perpetuate the problem,” say experts from National Alliance for Zero Waste.