Even as the citizens by and large believe in personal cleanliness and keep their living space spick and span, the moment they step out of their hearth they keep a supreme sangfroid to the stench and litter on the streets or in even places of their recreation and relaxation including public parks, cinema halls or malls. One does not strain one’s olfactory and visual senses to get a raw deal of the enveloping filth and ugliness of one’s ambience when most of the places one frequent is invariably inundated with odious odour and ugly spectacles of indescribable morbidity.

Be that as it may, the Governments both at the Centre and in the States are no doubt doing their mite to mitigate the ghastly pictures such defilements spawn in the midst of modern life but they are few and far between. The less said about the contribution of industry for environmental degradation the better as most of the polluting industries follow anti-pollution practices more in breach than in observance with the nonchalant bureaucratic machinery posing no major difficulties to such open defiance of the laws of the land. Even as India aspires to be a developed nation by 2020 and is already touted as an emerging economy of two trillion dollars size, the country cannot punch above its heft if it continues to ignore the lack of social infrastructure and the attendant unhealthiness it inflicts upon the legions of its citizenry.

It is in this context that municipal solid waste (MSW) is conferred the status of a renewable energy source with renewable energy, recyclables and compost constituting the different recovery systems from MSW. What is particularly noteworthy is that it is an energy source available aplenty at the doorstep of every urban centre unlike the fossil fuel which is a single-point source and needs to be transported to the point of consumption. Even as the major source of energy in the municipal waste is current bio-mass with the net addition of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere being minimal as against conventional fossil fuels, the municipal waste is replete with toxic pollutants, if left unattended and untreated. As such, it needs appropriate treatment in the process of recovering the dormant energy in the waste.

A process has been evolved to generate “Refuse Derived Fuel” (RDF) from municipal solid waste for use to generate steam and electricity in an eco-friendly way. The advantage is that RDF is used in a boiler to generate steam and this steam is then used to generate power in cogeneration mode of operation. The prime gain of this technology is the bulk handling of MSW in an eco-friendly manner with no toxic discharges in liquid, gaseous or solid form. There is also a considerable cut down in land requirement as only a fraction of MSW is land filled and the plant is of modular design, enabling capacity addition with ease as the city grows with commensurate hike in garbage size. Explaining the patented technology for conversion of municipal solid waste into clean burning fuel that his company developed way back in 1989 that was subsequently adjudged the best technology developed in the Asia-Pacific region in the UN Conference in Bangkok, the octogenarian Indian engineer Mr.Sivaprasad said a Malaysian firm sought technical tie-up for a waste-to-energy plant. He said the Bangaluru-based Innovision Engineers Pvt Ltd (IEPL) established by him, commissioned the first Malaysian tie-up plant that is rated to handle 700 tonnes waste daily, generate electricity complying with global emission norms and purvey 5 Mw power to the national grid after captive consumption.

Stating that waste is host to a spate of pollutants posing grave health hazards, Mr. Sivaprasad contends that in handling the waste all the pollutants should be eliminated and clean emission ensured and the company has achieved emission standards set up by the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) of the United States. The company has the capability of generating electricity from the polluting garbage without doing any collateral damage to the environment, besides resulting in reduced carbon dioxide emissions. This goes a long way in mitigation of climate change that imperils sustenance of life on the planet earth.

Encouraged by its success in Malaysia and recognized by the US’ EPA, China’s North of Shanghai, Yuequin City government has recently approached the Indian company to set up a waste to energy plant based on its technology. A second project to treat sewage water after using it to transport mud to the plant site has also been lined up, he said adding that the funding for these projects would be from government agencies. Mr. Sivaprasad said a team of six-member senior local government officials with project promoters Mr. Tang Pei Da and Mr. Joseph Yip visited India at the IEPL invitation in November. Final negotiations and signing of agreement to the twin projects totaling more than 100 million US dollars would be wrapped up soon, Mr. Sivaprasad said with pride adding that “this is a case of technology developed in India, exported to Malaysia and rated world class by the United States EPA with China evincing interest to tie up with us”.

The IEPL chief regrets that such an indigenous technology perfected by his company now being sought after by countries like China from where we import power and telecom equipment is not adopted by any of the municipal bodies within India. He suggests that the Union Ministry of Urban Development or the Delhi Government can go forward to set up a mini RDF power project which can go on stream within a year with total public support, using IEPL technology. Alongside, policy should be crafted to make it mandatory for civic bodies to set up resource recovery centres to treat garbage for recovery of recyclable, compostable and energy in the form of heat or electricity. As an engineer from prestigious IIT decades ago, “it pains me to see benefits of this technology going to other countries and is not able to reach our own people”, Mr. Sivaprasad wistfully remarks. Mere chanting of Make in India mantra without assiduously encouraging indigenous technology for heralding wealth from waste or generating energy from litter would not do if the country is to make sustainable moves on the high growth trajectory, policy analysts say. (IPA Service)