At present urban Indians generate 100, 000 tonnes of wastes per day. Mantra to govern waste is to reduce and manage this waste in a sustainable manner. But Bhopal Municipal Corporation has chosen an unsustainable and hazardous technology route to manage its waste. It has entered into an agreement, which facilitates toxic technology transfer in Bhopal. The proposed Waste To Energy (WTE) plant in Bhanupur dumping ground is based on gasification technology for the disposal of 500 metric tonnes (MT) of waste per day. Its an instance of one more potential toxic blast akin to promotion of Union Carbide plant disaster in Bhopal. It is claimed that the plant will cost over Rs 130 crore and will generate 10.80 megawatt of electricity.
Gasification is an incineration process which emits the most poisonous cancer causing toxin known in the world. (Health Effects of Dioxins) In a scenario where India neither has standards nor the technical facilities to monitor and analyse these dioxin emissions, the Municipal Corporation of Bhopal (MCB) has signed an agreement with Bhopal Environmental Projects Private Limited (BEPPL) to generate poisonous electricity from waste. They intend to dispose off waste and recover electricity through the company’s "pressure cooker" technology which it terms as Solid Waste Recycling Facility (SWERF). BEPPL’s claim that it has "almost" 15 similar projects being run successfully is incorrect. misleading and is far from truth. If they have “successfully performing” projects, why have they failed to furnish details of the same.
According to the Municipal Corporation Bhopal (MCB), there will be a generation of 785 lakh unit of electricity which will be sold through M.P Electricity Board at the rate of Rs 3.10 per unit. The plant has been given 10 acre of land on lease for 20 years in Bhanpura. The entire project will cost Rs 130 crore. In order to get this project implemented Union Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy (MNES) will provide Rs 162 lakh to the MCB. M.P Urja Vikas Nigam (MPUVN) will act as a facilitator for that it will get almost Rs 54 from MNES. The waste will be provided by MCB. The lease agreement is being finalised, says S K Mishra, Commissioner, MCB.
Claims regarding 10.80 MW of electricity generation is untrue as is evidenced by Managing Director, BEPPL, Sunand Sharma's own admission in a letter written to the then Municipal Commissioner Bhopal with a copy to MP Urja Vikas Nigam (dated July 13, 1998)-where he has claimed that "we will produce 8.5 MW of electricity from 500 MT of MSW”. It is yet to be understood which claim out of the two, Sharma has made should be trusted.
Its claim that the plant will eliminate the need for dumping ground is also false. Where will it dispose off the ash? MPUVN in its release has earlier stated that the plant will use plastics, paper and other materials after separating glasses and other inert materials. Encouraging unsegregated waste, which contains plastics and chlorinated material, is unlawful. "We are simply promoting the plant," says Iqbal Ahmed, Principal Secretary, Urban Administration and Development, unmindful of the high cost involved in terms of health and environment of Bhopal.
It’s surprising why Timarpur waste to energy (WTE) failure in Delhi has not taught any lessons to Union Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources (MNES) and Municipal Corporation of Bhopal. The plant in Timarpur ran for only seven days and now lies defunct after a huge loss of money, a court case and a maintenance cost of this failed plant. In the Timarpur case (Dr B.L Wadhera Vs Union of India and others), recently Delhi High Court has asked Comptroller and Auditor General to probe the deal. While it is well-known fact that there is not even one viable demonstration project anywhere in the country, initiatives are being taken for commercial venture. Timarpur is a monument of MNES foolhardiness and unwise technological decisions. Ignoring the recommendations of Supreme Court, MNES is promoting pyrolysis/gasification and incineration processes to deal with waste and promote WTE. Despite this MNES is busy facilitating toxic technology transfer in India in general and cities like Bhopal in particular. Not only that European Union Incineration directive prohibits such processes. Solid experts world over say, material recovery is the most appropriate and ecological method to deal with low calorific value waste. Also because of 23-30 percent sand and inert material present in the Indian urban waste which is difficult to separate. WTE encourages waste generation and maximisation, informs Dr N K Bansal, Centre for Energy Studies, IIT Delhi.
The company Bhopal Environmental Projects Private Limited (BEPPL) has been formed only for the agreement, in reality its an Australian company, named Energy Developments Limited (EDL) which is related to US based US Synfuel Corporation. The SWERF technology is of EDL’s subsidiary Brightstar Environmental. 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. Therefore, its not surprising when Dr G. K. Vyas, Health Officer, MCB says, the agreement signed by BMC and BEPPL is confidential and is thus inaccessible even to media persons and researchers. And also when asked and informed about the dangers of this technology, Mishra, the municipal Commissioner says, "you are indulging in espionage or what", ensuring a veil of secrecy around the details of the project.
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 metric 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. Even US Environment Protection Agency says the same. 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 company's only plant did not meet EU emission limits in its plant when it was running.
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.
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 or BEPPL will have us believe, adds Dr Bansal. "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 Bhanpur 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. Trusting Bhopal's waste to such an untried technology with 500 mt per day, is fraught with dangers. It is even more disturbing that the company is being awarded, when it has failed to deliver in its own plant of even 400 mt per day. 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. EDL's objective to have 15 of its projects constructed and running by June next year is unrealistic due to technical immaturity says George Marias, Burdett Buckerdige Young analyst.
Bhopal is providing free land and waste to this untried technology which will also 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 Bhopal 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 MCB 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 any execution of such a project takes place. The fact that EDL's own plant is not even operating as of now continuing with the flawed agreement is beyond any rationality. Further contrary to Schedule IV of the Municipal Solid Waste Rules, 2000, the signatories of the agreement have not sought any approval from the Madhya Pradesh 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. In fact the chairman of the committee, P U Asnani has in his report titled Modernisation of Solid Waste Management Practices in Bhopal does not recommend incineration projects. According to his report brought out in May 1999, “MCB should not experiment with any such expensive technology until after adequate experimentation and one or two successful pilot projects. That too only after they have been and government of India’s MNES, Ministry of Environment and Forests and Ministry of Urban Development or any agency identified by government of India gives advice and certified it proven for adoption”.
The corporations 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.
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. 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 composting and vermi-composting would be suitable because of apt ambient conditions, low capital and maintenance cost, says S V Mapuskar, Advisor, Sanitaion and Bioenergy, Maharashtra Smarak Nidhi, Pune, suggesting a cost effective technologies for waste management.
Health effects of Dioxins
Dioxin is no more a western problem, two recent studies based on samples of India have detected high levels of dioxins in breast milk, human tissues etc. Short-term exposure of human to high levels of dioxins may result in skin lesions, such as chloracne and patchy darkening of the skin, and altered liver function. Long-term exposure is linked to impairment of the immune system, the developing nervous system, the endocrine system and reproductive functions. Chronic exposure of animals to dioxins has resulted in several types of cancer, according to World Health Orgainisation. (for futher details visit websites:
http://www.who.int/inf-fs/en/fact225.html, http://www.ejnet.org/dioxin/, www.greenpeace.org.au/toxics/archive/ dioxin/POPS_health.html, www.epa.gov/ncea/dioxin.htm ) Dioxin is formed as an unintentional by-product of many industrial processes involving chlorine such as waste incineration, chemical and pesticide manufacturing and pulp and paper bleaching. Dioxin was the primary toxic component of Agent Orange, was found at Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY and was the basis for evacuations at Times Beach, MO and Seveso Italy. Dioxin is formed by burning chlorine-based chemical compounds with hydrocarbons. The major source of dioxin in the environment (95%) comes from incinerators burning chlorinated wastes. Dioxin pollution is also affiliated with paper mills which use chlorine bleaching in their process and with the production of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) plastics. Sperm count in men worldwide has dropped to 50% of what it was 50 years ago.
The incidence of testicular cancer has tripled in the last 50 years, and prostate cancer has doubled.
Endometriosis - the painful growth outside the uterus of cells that normally line the uterus - -which was formerly a rare condition, now afflicts 5 million American women.
In 1960, a woman's chance of developing breast cancer during her lifetime was one in 20. Today the chances are one in eight.
For details contact: Gopal Krishna,
E-mail:
meetgopal27@rediffmail.com Website:www.toxicslink.org
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