More than 3,000 garbage dumps in India need to be restored or permanently closed. Scientifically unsustainable waste disposal causes irreversible damage to the environment: It produces leachates, emits greenhouse gases, and contaminates groundwater, and so on.
Leachate is any liquid that, when passing through waste, releases soluble or suspended contaminants. It is dangerous in nature. The environmental, environmental, and economic impacts often make landfills a risk to be controlled.
As specified in the report of the Planning Commission:
If the current generation of 62 million tons of solid municipal waste (MSW) continues to be disposed of without treatment, we will need 340,000 cubic meters of daily landfill (1,240 hectares per year). Given the expected production of 165 million tons of waste by 2031, the global demand for 20 years of garbage disposal (given 10 meters of waste) could reach 66,000 hectares of precious land, which our country cannot easily afford.
There is an urgent need, therefore, to reclaim existing landfills to ensure the availability of land (so-called increased waste disposal) and to recycle the disused resources incorporated into old landfills.
Significantly, there are two possible ways to manage asset waste.
- Scientific writing, widely used in scientifically constructed landfills
- A landfill/biomining mine, which is a technology-enabled and economically managed resource for recycling and other components that generate revenue from waste disposal by landfill.
Performing biomining of dumpsites is often aided by a process called bioremediation. It is the microbe-mediated degradation of organic waste that is done by adding a natural inoculum to the landfill.
Therefore, the first step in restoring a landfill is to analyze the technical limitations such as the characteristics and structure of the waste heritage to assess the feasibility of rehabilitating landfill sites.
The composition of the heritage waste from the four garbage dumps in India indicates that there are four key components of fine waste: fine soil/materials such as sand, polymeric waste and flammable materials, stones (over 20 millimeters in size), and mixed materials. It is important to understand that the formation of older waste or heritage waste is not the same as new municipal waste.
Heritage waste management should be integrated with an integrated waste management facility with sufficient capacity to collect, dispose of and dispose of solid municipal waste generated on a daily basis as well as heritage waste trapped in landfills.
The cash-generating units can help produce a roundabout economy in India’s sustainable business model for years to come.
However, it can be a challenge for all stakeholders to embrace these strategies in real-life situations due to a number of economic and legal conditions. There is a lot of uncertainty and unexpected situations that can arise and affect so-called ‘green businesses’. There is a clear and urgent need for collaboration between academia, industries, and policymakers in order to develop a sustainable business model for legacy waste management based on the principles of the circular economy.
To know more, please check DCC.