Legacy Waste | 26 Mar 2020
Why in News
Recently, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed a committee to assess the amount of damage caused to the environment due to the dump sites (legacy waste) in Delhi.
- The committee comprises representatives from the Central Pollution Control Board, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and IIT Delhi.
Key Points
- Legacy wastes are the wastes that have been collected and kept for years at some barren land or a place dedicated for Landfill (an area to dump solid waste).
- This waste can be roughly grouped into four categories:
- Contained and/or stored waste(contained or stored waste are wastes in tanks, canisters, and stainless steel bins).
- Buried waste.
- Contaminated soil and groundwater
- Contaminated building materials and structures.
- Biomining method has been proposed by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) for the effective disposal of legacy wastes.
- Environmental Impact of Legacy Waste
- Legacy wastes not only occupy large space, but also become a breeding ground for pathogens, flies, malodours and generation of leachate, which may lead to water contamination.
- They also contribute to generation of greenhouse gases and pose risk of uncontrollable fire.
Biomining
- Biomining is the process of using microorganisms (microbes) to extract metals of economic interest from rock ores or mine waste.
- Biomining techniques may also be used to clean up sites that have been polluted with metals.
- It is usually used for old dumped waste that remains in a partly or fully decomposed state with no segregation in existence between wet and dry waste.
- In the cost effective method of biomining, treatment is done by dividing the garbage heap at the site into suitable blocks to let the air percolate in the heap.
- As a result, the leachate which is the water in the heap with suspended solid particles is drained off and microbes are sprayed in the heap to initiate biological decompositions.
- The waste is turned over several times in order to devoid the waste to leachate as much as possible.
- This biological decomposition of the waste decreases the volume of the waste by 40%.