ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

Municipal Solid Waste Management was initiated by urban local bodies, to protect the environment and the society from adverse impacts of increasing waste quantity.  Although this has able to eliminate some impacts that could happen in absence of any planning, but inefficiency of this whole waste management planning has created new environmental impacts. 

1. Unauthorized dumping: Unauthorized dumping is the disposal of waste at private or public places around the city, which is not permitted as per law (Corbyn Lisa, 2008).  It is happening in both inside as well as at outskirts of the city. The dumps within city boundaries generally have short life compared to those on the outskirts, which persist longer.  In this study, we have tried to capture large dumps situated in the outskirts of the city.  It generally occurs near public and private open land, fallow agricultural land and at the foot of small quarry area.  Initially when wastes are dumped in these unauthorized dump sites, oxygen is present in the void space which maintain a condition for aerobic decomposition of fermentables.  These fermentables degrade in presence of oxygen and generate carbon dioxide in the environment.  As these dumpsites persist longer, so continuous disposal of waste at the same place leads to anaerobic degradation.  Anaerobic degradation of fermentables liberates methane in the environment (Purkit and Chakrabarty, 2011). 

2. Blockage of drainage channels: Poor and unplanned solid waste management and insensitive attitude among the upstream residents results in waste being dumped into the open drainage channels.  Such dumped solid waste cannot be transported through these narrow streams and results in sewer blockages (Kolsky and Butler, 2000, Ramachandra and Mujumdar, 2009).  Solid wastes that enter the drain comprise mainly of fermentables, cloth, plastic and paper.  Fermentable organic wastes of the dumped waste (e.g. food and garden wastes) as well as paper are rapidly degraded under such wet conditions leaving behind a predominantly non-biodegradable complex of wastes that occasionally flows in the sewers or remains stuck at vulnerable points along the watercourse.  These non-biodegradable wastes flow along with sewage in these drainage channels and gradually accumulate at shallow regions in the path where the flow rates are very low or the wastes encounter physical obstruction due to a shallow nature – especially when the only sewage is flowing in these streams.  The extent of such mass accumulating at specific points along the flow gradually increases with increasing quantities of solid waste being discharged into the streams.  High intensity rains lead to a large runoff, raising the water levels in the drains rise and releases all the obstructed waste components especially accumulated plastics and cloth that do not undergo rapid degradation.  The sudden influx of water as runoff carrying with it a large volume of non-degradable materials (cloths and plastics) results in choking narrow sections of the sewers /flow channel with concomitant rise is water levels in the neighborhood leading to local flood and loss of property and human life.