As anyone who lives in Mumbai or Delhi knows, there is a great rivalry between the two cities on many fronts. In the last couple of weeks, the financial capital of the country was on par with the political capital of the country in an area Mumbaikars could have done without: pollution. Between January 29 and February 3, the city's Air Quality Index (AQI) moved between 304 and 341, which is termed "very poor". As a result, every day, a pall hung over the city and the smog was almost palpa-ble. Until now, Mumbai has escaped the notori-ety of Delhi's pollution levels, not because of any planning or efficien-cy of its municipal cor-poration, but because of its geography: the stiff sea-breeze which wafts across the city day and night with varying intensity, acts as a sweeper, taking pollut-ing elements in its arms and blowing them away. Delhi Is land-locked and has no such luck (it does get strong winds in the summer, which makes matters worse by cover-ing the city with sand and dust). However, this time Mumbai was not so fortunate: there was a large fire at the Deonar dumping ground (an inelegant phrase, but quite appropriate for the place), and the fire just wouldn't go out. Smoke rose up into the sky and spread slowly all over the place. We either stayed indoors, or coughs our lungs out. It was an accident waiting to happen. The wonder is that it took so very long before it exploded in our face.
"Exploded", of course, only in a manner of speaking, because the fire starts slowly —some reports say with a single lit match, and took its own time to build up. Again that is luck: the waste dumped at Deonar is not segregated — so you have dry and wet waste sitting in close proximity to building debris, which would explain why the confla-gration was slow to build up, and when it did, was more smoke than fire. The bare statistics of Deonar will stagger you — the waste dumped there every day is nei-ther segregated nor processed, which is why "dump" is the right word for it. Mumbai is said to generate 9,500 to 11,000 metric tonnes (mt) of waste daily, of which about 4,000 mt goes to the dumping ground at Mulund, 1,000 mt goes to Kanjurmarg, while the rest (5,000 mt or so) reaches Deonar. The Deonar ground area is 120 hectares, which seems large, but isn't if you pile on 5,000 mt rub-bish on it day in, day out. One estimation (although I have no idea how anyone can calcu-late these things) is that if the unprocessed garbage Is stacked up. it will be as tall as a 20-storey building. For a stinking city, it will be a most appropriate monu-ment. Deonar has been around. In fact, it is Mumbai's oldest land-fill, having been used for this purpose since 1927. It won't be long before we will be celebrating (If that's the right word), its centenary. Activists who have been fighting to have it shut, claim that it reached satura-tion point in 1995. What do officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) say? A national newspaper reported one, who shall deservedly remain anonymous, "We can't do much until garbage from the city decreases." Obviously, BMC policies are based on forlorn hopes. If anyone is interested in dirty figures. the per capita generation of waste comes to 450 grams a day. At less than half a kilo (and don't for-get, this average includes construction debris, vegetable waste from markets, etc) that figure doesn't seem excessive at all. A flu-ther break down of the total figure tells us that 54 per cent of the total waste is wet waste, 15 per cent dry waste (wood, cloth, etc), 12 per cent sand, stone etc, 10 per cent paper and met-als, and 9 per cent plastic.
Look at those figures closely, and the picture doesn't look that dismal. Wet waste is biodegrad-able, as is dry waste con-sisting of wood and cloth. That adds up to 69 per cent, which means that two-thirds of the total waste Is biodegrad-able. Paper and metals as well as plastic are materials which rag pickers sort out, put together and help recy-cle. That not only earns quite a sizeable number of people their living, but also takes care of 19 per cent of the total waste.That tells us that though the problem is massive, it is not insur-mountable. The first thing to do is to attack it at source, which means at the generators of waste, which is turn means me and you. The anonymous BMC official quoted earlier also went on to add wistfully, "If only people separated their garbage!" Forlorn hopes, wistftil wishes... Are these foundations of policy? Instead, why can't the BMC issue a fiat saying: "From March 1, 2016, unsegre-gated garbage will NOT be collected"? Until now, we hear homilies about the advantages of separat-ing waste, but good advice has never been helpful in implementa-tion. Only stern orders do the trick. The next step — which is actually a step that should have been taken at least 30 years ago — is to treat the waste. In April 2015, the BMC announced plans to install small-scale waste ...
"Exploded", of course, only in a manner of speaking, because the fire starts slowly —some reports say with a single lit match, and took its own time to build up. Again that is luck: the waste dumped at Deonar is not segregated — so you have dry and wet waste sitting in close proximity to building debris, which would explain why the confla-gration was slow to build up, and when it did, was more smoke than fire. The bare statistics of Deonar will stagger you — the waste dumped there every day is nei-ther segregated nor processed, which is why "dump" is the right word for it. Mumbai is said to generate 9,500 to 11,000 metric tonnes (mt) of waste daily, of which about 4,000 mt goes to the dumping ground at Mulund, 1,000 mt goes to Kanjurmarg, while the rest (5,000 mt or so) reaches Deonar. The Deonar ground area is 120 hectares, which seems large, but isn't if you pile on 5,000 mt rub-bish on it day in, day out. One estimation (although I have no idea how anyone can calcu-late these things) is that if the unprocessed garbage Is stacked up. it will be as tall as a 20-storey building. For a stinking city, it will be a most appropriate monu-ment. Deonar has been around. In fact, it is Mumbai's oldest land-fill, having been used for this purpose since 1927. It won't be long before we will be celebrating (If that's the right word), its centenary. Activists who have been fighting to have it shut, claim that it reached satura-tion point in 1995. What do officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) say? A national newspaper reported one, who shall deservedly remain anonymous, "We can't do much until garbage from the city decreases." Obviously, BMC policies are based on forlorn hopes. If anyone is interested in dirty figures. the per capita generation of waste comes to 450 grams a day. At less than half a kilo (and don't for-get, this average includes construction debris, vegetable waste from markets, etc) that figure doesn't seem excessive at all. A flu-ther break down of the total figure tells us that 54 per cent of the total waste is wet waste, 15 per cent dry waste (wood, cloth, etc), 12 per cent sand, stone etc, 10 per cent paper and met-als, and 9 per cent plastic.
Look at those figures closely, and the picture doesn't look that dismal. Wet waste is biodegrad-able, as is dry waste con-sisting of wood and cloth. That adds up to 69 per cent, which means that two-thirds of the total waste Is biodegrad-able. Paper and metals as well as plastic are materials which rag pickers sort out, put together and help recy-cle. That not only earns quite a sizeable number of people their living, but also takes care of 19 per cent of the total waste.That tells us that though the problem is massive, it is not insur-mountable. The first thing to do is to attack it at source, which means at the generators of waste, which is turn means me and you. The anonymous BMC official quoted earlier also went on to add wistfully, "If only people separated their garbage!" Forlorn hopes, wistftil wishes... Are these foundations of policy? Instead, why can't the BMC issue a fiat saying: "From March 1, 2016, unsegre-gated garbage will NOT be collected"? Until now, we hear homilies about the advantages of separat-ing waste, but good advice has never been helpful in implementa-tion. Only stern orders do the trick. The next step — which is actually a step that should have been taken at least 30 years ago — is to treat the waste. In April 2015, the BMC announced plans to install small-scale waste ...
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