Garbage collected from various locations in the city is finally transported to it’s final and ultimate destination that is, landfill. There are three types of landfills namely Open Dump, Controlled Dump and Sanitary or Secured Landfill. As mentioned in the earlier articles, an open dump is any open space belonging to and lying within the jurisdiction of urban local body. It is basically an open space or plot reserved for dumping of garbage. It is usually poorly sited without any predetermined capacity to hold garbage. It does not require any special site preparation or arrangement as such. It is open and accessible to all, including rag pickers. There is no provision of any record keeping as such. There is no mechanism for sorting or for segregation of waste that is brought here. When you visit such open dump and try to ‘look’ inside it, you would find the following different types of so-called ‘waste’ items.
Plastic Waste: Includes articles right from plastic carry bags to toys, trays, vessels, cups and other utensils, straws, multilayered plastic pouches, sachets so on and so forth. Along with these, you would see broken plastic furniture, bottles, and similar other articles. You can also see waste rubber tires and tubes which have become worn out and hence are discarded in the garbage.
Cardboards, Tetra pack waste: Right from the toothpaste packaging to many different types of cardboard packaging, right from small tetra packs containing Fruti, coffee and similar types of beverages to larger tetra pack containers are usually thrown in the dustbins after their contents are consumed. Apart from this, waste newspapers, tissue papers and many different types of paper are also discarded These eventually end up in the dumping grounds.
Biodegradable Waste: This includes waste generated in the kitchens. Fruit peels, scraps and shreds of different types of vegetables, left over food and similar items form this category of waste. The final destination for this waste is, of course, the dumping ground. Some other types of biodegradable waste include carcasses of the dead animals like rats and dogs or cats etc.
Electrical and electronic waste: Dead, worn out and end-of the life equipment like bulbs, tube lights, mobile phones, batteries and many other similar appliances are discarded and end up in the dumping ground.
Debris: This includes dirt, pieces of bricks and stones, cement, sand boulders etc. which are generated during building demolition and construction, excavation for construction activities like roads, bridges, flyovers and so on. All such waste is also brought to the dumping ground.
These are some major types of waste material that piles up at the dumping ground. Now, while reading about these different types of waste getting piled up at the dumping ground, you can easily understand what a mess we are creating by dumping all this waste together at one place!
Such ‘heterogenous’ nature of waste is responsible for several environmental hazards and pose grave danger to the human health. More about these hazards in the next article. Till then, have a good, ‘waste free’ weekend!
(The author is an environment specialist. Views personal.)
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