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Filed on:24/4/2002
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meetgopal27@rediffmail.com Toxic Technology Dumping on the Anvil
Mantra to govern waste is to reduce waste. At present urban Indians generate 100, 000 tonnes of wastes per day. Whenever the colossal problem of Indian garbage is debated, the issue which is discussed is what to choose: the route to sustainable material recovery or unsustainable energy recovery. At the recently held International Conference on the techno-commercial aspects of decentralised approach on Waste to Energy, experts debated the viability of electricity generation and alternate organic methods to manage waste. Solid experts said, material recovery is the most appropriate and ecological method to deal with our low calorific value waste.
The conference was organised at Gold Palace, Kukas, Jaipur. N P Singh, advisor, Union Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources (MNES) said, Timarpur experiment in Delhi on waste to energy has taught them lessons but could not explain how will 23-30 percent sand and inert material in the Indian waste can be separated. While he sought to promote WTE, he failed to show even one viable demonstartion project anywhere in the country. Ignoring the recommendations of Supreme Court, Dr A K Dhussa, director, MNES spoke of promoting pyrolysis/gasification and incineration processes to deal with waste and promote WTE. Not only that European Union Incineration directive prohibits such processes. WTE encourages waste generation asserted, Dr N K Bansal, Centre for Energy Studies, IIT Delhi.
In such a scenario government authorities are busy in facilitating toxic technology transfer in India in general and metropolitan cities in particular. The proposed Waste To Energy (WTE) plant in Ghazipur, East Delhi in the proximity of Highway No. 24 near a poultry farm is based on gasification technology for the disposal of 1000 tonnes of waste per day. It is one such instance of such transfers. It is claimed that the plant will cost over Rs 240 crore and will generate 21.60 megawatt of electricity.
The Australian company, Energy Developments Limited (EDL) has entered into an agreement with Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to dispose off waste and recover electricity through this "pressure cooker" technology. The onus of distributing this three times costly electricity will lie with Delhi Vidyut Board according to the agreement. Or government will have to subsidise it against a national policy consensus being built up to do away with electricity even from agriculture.
The company will use its Solid Waste Energy Recycling Facility (SWERF). This is a technology of its subsidiary Brightstar International. The subsidiary was formed after buying 88 percent of SWERF shares from US based Brighstar Synfuel Corporation in 1995. There are unconfirmed reports of this company being related to Enron.
The world’s first and only SWERF is located in Australia, at Wollongong, New South Wales. The SWERF plant had been operating on a trial basis since early February 2001. At full capacity, it is claimed that it can process a maximum up to 150,000 tonnes of household waste annually or a mere 400 m tonnes per day, which will produce enough electricity for approximately 24,000 households.
The plant is currently shut down due to what they call a technical glitch in their nameplate capacity testing. As a consequence their stock fell 35 cents to 5. 99 dollars its shares have fallen because of yet another delay in its SWERF project, reported Australian Financial Review and Fairfax release on 29 January 2002 and continues to fall until reports last received.
Contrary to what Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources (MNES) have us believe, gasification of waste from fossil fuels is not a renewable form of energy, as the recyclable products are not recycled, but gasified instead. It is untrue that gasification is not incineration, when all directives clearly say it is. Under the Waste Incineration Directive by the European Union as well as classifaction of the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, gasification is merely another form of incineration. The company's only plant does not meet EU emission limits in its plant. In fact, both the processes are high temperature thermal processes, with similar emission and impacts, though of varying magnitudes. The release of such chemicals is poisonous to the vegetation and soil environment.
The advocates of the project claim that no segregation of the plastics from the garbage is required. This not only violates the Municipal Solid Wastes (Management Handling) (MSW) Rules 2000, which stipulates segregation, and promotes recycling of "recoverable resources". It also preempts segregation and recycling efforts being made by municipalities and communities around the country. Moreover, municipal wastes contains a number of toxic materials including household insecticides, heavy metals like lead, mercury present in batteries, fluorescent bulbs and tubes, which will be released into the environment during gasification process.
Technologies like gasification are a form of incineration and have all the harmful contaminants of a MSW incinerator, says Dr Bansal. According to the MSW Rules, 2000, it is illegal to incinerate chlorinated plastics (like PVC) and wastes chemically treated with any chlorinated disinfectant. Incineration transfers the hazardous characteristics of waste from the solid form to air, water and ash. It also releases new toxins of new ones which were previously not present in the original waste stream, besides making others like heavy metals mobile and more leachable.
India does not have standards nor the technical facilities to monitor and analyse dioxin emissions. So long as the composition of Indian waste remains what it is with ashes and plastics, Timarpur experiment will remain relevant contrary to what Sunand Sharma, Managing Director, EDL will have us believe, adds Dr Bansal.
Sunand Sharma says, his SWERF technology will preempt use of landfills and thereby leaching” but he himself suggests landfills for the disposal of ashes. "Actually this is yet another instance of ignoring environment and public health effects that imperils the citizens well being. The gasification based Waste to Energy technology is a failed technology," says Ravi Agarwal, a solid waste expert from Shristi, a non governmental organisation based in Delhi. The possibility of the replication of Timarpur blunder in Gazipur and its further extension with six such other planned plants is against ecological wisdom and even sound business sense. The tall claim of its non-polluting nature is not verified by scientific facts.
Ash and suspended particulate matter from the combustion technologies is certainly a problem and in any case it solves the problem of volume of waste reduction only partially, says Dr D N Rao, Environment Economist from Jawharlal Nehru University. They who say that gasification of not incineration simply indulge in jugglery of words, adds Rao.
EDL's objective to have 16 of its projects constructed and running by June next year is unrealistic due to technical immaturity says George Marias, Burdett Buckerdige Young analyst. Trusting Delhi's waste to such an untried technology with 1000 mt per day, is fraught with dangers. It is even more disturbing that the company is being awarded similar capacities in at least two other Indian cities, when its total experience of even 1000 mt per day is not proven. Similar projects are on the anvil in Chennai, Mumbai and more than a dozen other Indian cities.
The current available data from these proposed plants now are insufficient to establish whether gasification would reduce emissions. The tars and volatile gases are not re-circulated as feed for cracking. The release of such chemicals is poisonous to the vegetation and soil environment.
According to the members of the Indian Government's four members Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) which visited the Wollongong plant in March 2000, most information sharing was inadequate by the company. Also the degree of documentation needed to support the development was stated to be unavailable or not forthcoming. In this context “it would not be possible for me to make strong recommendations in favor of the technology,” said Professor H S Mukunda, a member of the FFM.
MCD director Ravi Das's assurance saying, "since we do not have to invest any money in the project, we have no risk and we need to not worry" is misplaced. This cannot be true or can be claimed by a public body like MCD. In any case it will be providing free land and waste to this untried technology and will put public money at risk. The project is likely to fail as even the latest report suggests and it’s a question of the health and environment of the Delhi residents.
It is inadvisable to adopt such a untried and untested technology for a developing country where basic testing facilities do not even exist. An avoidance route of using simple and safe approaches has been widely accepted and promoted by all waste experts in the country, adds Agarwal.
In the case to the proposed MCD contract, there has been no public consultation at any stage. In fact the technology must undergo a thorough evaluation and proper environment impact assessment of the project before the agreements is finally signed. The fact that EDL's own plant was not even constructed when it had applied for the tender for the disposal of waste and energy generation in Delhi is a case in point. Further contrary to Schedule IV of the Municipal Solid Waste Rules, 2000, the signatories of the agreement have not sought any approval from the Delhi Pollution Control Board or Central Pollution Control Board, as is mandatory.
It is surprising that the technology advisory committee set up under the ministry of urban affairs and development, monitoring technologies like incineration, densification, gasification etc. has no knowledge about the installation of this technology. The MNES should desist from promoting such unviable and hazardous technologies. Economically, buy back of the very expensive electricity produced by the plant would tantamount to a subsidy in perpetuity and in any case Enron experiment has shown that costly electricity is socially irrelevant, says Rao.
Having witnessed Timarpur blunder, we should go for viable and sustainable alternatives like Recycling and Composting as suggested by Burman Committee. Biomethanation is also an alternative as is being undertaken by United Nations Developments Programme in place of waste to energy way of waste reduction which promotes precious material recovery. The promotion of such waste to energy technologies amounts to dumping of untested technology into India.
Dr Bansal, professor, who chaired the session on the second day said, waste to energy encourages waste generation instead of waste minimisation. The MNES officials claimed that they have learnt from their Timarpur but they failed to inform the delegates as to how will they segregate ash and inert content of the Indian Waste.
When Dhussa, who gave a presentation about waste to energy operations, was asked about what has MNES done to segregate 30 percent ash and inert material from the Indian waste and the consequent silica formation, the chairman of the session. There was no response. On being asked as to what was the reason of MNES confidence in commercial waste to energy plants despite the fact that their isn’t even a single viable success of even the demonstration projects, Dhussa was speechless.
S V Mapuskar, Advisor, Sanitaion and Bioenergy, Maharashtra Smarak Nidhi, Pune, suggested cost effective technologies for waste management. Financially and environmentally the methodologies involving resource recovery, recycling and reuse would be helpful. In a tropical country like India, biological and biochemical processes like Biomethanation, composting and vermicomposting would be suitable because of apt ambient conditions, low capital and maintenance cost, he added. He sought “onsite” management of unmixed waste and stressed Integrated Waste Management for environmental improvement. Unmindful of the catastrophic costs this technology will incur on public health and environment, MNES is promoting it even in cities like Bhopal and Bombay.
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