Open Burning

Open burning of Waste materials is one of the major problems contributing India’s Air Pollution headaches. Open burning might be the first thing that comes to your mind when thinking about your community’s contribution towards the health of the air. While it is still practised in most of India’s towns and cities, open burning has its distinct disadvantages. The combustion process releases large amounts of carbon dioxide, other gases, and solid substances directly into the air for people to breathe. And, of course, disposal of materials is never as good for the environment as using them again in a different form. Natural debris can be chipped or composted into landscaping material. Open burning pollutes the air and can make it difficult for people with respiratory problems to breathe. When the air is stagnant, open burning can pose smoke and odour nuisances - and health risks - to nearby residents, particularly in densely populated areas. Open burning can also pose a safety risk when it is not adequately controlled.

There are no circumstances under which it is legal to burn grass, hay, leaves, stumps or tires. They simply do not burn as "cleanly" as those materials that may legally be burned. All of them produce acrid smoke that causes nuisance conditions and threatens people's health. When tires are burned, they produce noxious gases and petroleum residue, both of which can be harmful to people and the environment. In addition, the burning of brush, cane, and driftwood and forestry debris from commercial or industrial land clearing is prohibited.

In our campus, we have many small shops which regularly burn large amounts of garbage in open air regularly. They generate huge amounts of wastes which include plastic packets, waste paper, cartons, etc. which they tend to burn out in the open, spreading pollution and harming the microclimate. Thus we have tried to curb this practice and have stuck stickers and posters all over the campus and tried to spread awareness among other students to garner support and stop this nuisance. We have also spoken to these shop-owners and have tried to persuade them to stop burning out in the open and help check pollution.

We hope that you can also do the same in your campus and try to bring a change.

E - Waste

Electronic waste or e-waste is one of the rapidly growing problems of the world. E-waste comprises of a multitude of components, some containing toxic substances that can have an adverse impact on human health and the environment if not handled properly. In India, e-waste management assumes greater significance not only due to the generation of its own e-waste but also because of the dumping of e-waste from developed countries. This is coupled with India's lack of appropriate infrastructure and procedures for its disposal and recycling.

The composition of WEEE is very diverse and differs in products across different categories. It contains more than 1000 different substances, which fall under ‘hazardous’ and ‘non-hazardous’ categories. Broadly, it consists of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, plastics, glass, wood and plywood, printed circuit boards, concrete and ceramics, rubber and other items. Iron and steel constitutes about 50% of the WEEE followed by plastics (21%), non-ferrous metals (13%) and other constituents. Non-ferrous metals consist of metals like copper, aluminium and precious metals, e.g. silver, gold, platinum, palladium, etc. The presence of elements like lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, selenium and hexavalent chromium and flame retardants beyond threshold quantities in WEEE classifies them as hazardous waste.

The production of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) is one of the fastest growing global manufacturing activities. Rapid economic growth, coupled with urbanization and a growing demand for consumer goods, has increased both the consumption and the production of EEE. The Indian IT industry has been one of the major drivers of change in the economy in the last decade and has contributed significantly to the digital revolution being experienced by the world. New electronic gadgets and appliances have infiltrated every aspect of our daily lives, providing our society with more comfort, health and security and with easy information acquisition and exchange. E-waste broadly covers waste from all electronic and electrical appliances and comprises of items such as computers, mobile phones, digital music recorders/players, refrigerators, washing machines, televisions and many other household consumer items. The increasing ‘market penetration’ in the developing countries, ‘replacement market’ in the developed countries and ‘high obsolescence rate’ make e-waste one of the fastest waste streams.

Studies so far reveal that the total e-waste generation in India is approximately 1,46,000 tonnes to 3.3 lakh tonnes a year and is expected to touch 4.7 lakh tonnes by 2011. The projected growth for e-waste generation for India is about 34% year on year. Of the total e-waste generated in the country, western India accounts for the largest population at 35%, while the southern, northern and eastern regions account for 30, 21 and 14%, respectively. The top states in order of highest contribution to WEEE include Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi, Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab. The city-wise ranking of the largest WEEE generators is Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Surat and Nagpur. An estimated 30,000 computers become obsolete every year from the IT industry in Bangalore alone. As many as 1000 tonnes of plastics, 300 tonnes of lead, 0.23 tonnes of mercury, 43 tonnes of nickel and 350 tonnes of copper are annually generated in Bangalore. 

EEEs are made of a multitude of components, some containing toxic substances that have an adverse impact on human health and the environment if not handled properly. Often, these hazards arise due to the improper recycling and disposal processes used. It can have serious repercussions for those in proximity to places where e-waste is recycled or burnt. Waste from the white and brown goods is less toxic as compared with grey goods. A computer contains highly toxic chemicals like lead, cadmium, mercury, beryllium, BFR, polyvinyl chloride and phosphor compounds.

Government action on E-Waste include Draft Hazardous Materials (Management, Handling and Trans-boundary movement) Rules, 2007 (dated: September 28, 2007), part of the Environment Protection Act, 1986. India is a signatory to the Basel Convention. Basel Convention is the United Nations Environment Programme on the control of Trans-boundary Movement of Hazardous wastes and their disposal. There is no policy on e-waste, although some parts of computers could be considered as hazardous waste.

The solution for the e-waste crisis lies in ‘prevention at the manufacturing source’ or the ‘precautionary principle.’ This can be done by employing waste minimization techniques and by a sustainable product design. Some recycling procedures require improvements; up-gradation (both in skills and technologies) and some have to be abandoned altogether due to severe risks for health and the environment. Lack of clarity on the issue of e-waste and the inability of current hazardous waste rules to govern and effectively monitor the e-waste recycling are some of the prime reasons for experts and members of civil society demanding a separate set of rules to guide and control these processes. Producers must be responsible for the entire lifecycle of their products. In developed countries, several efforts have been made on this front. Several dozen cities in the states of California and Massachusetts, including San Francisco, also have passed resolutions supporting ‘producer take back’ rules. Wipro InfoTech has launched an e-waste disposal service for end customers. Others offering recycling options include Dell, HP and Apple. The current awareness regarding the existence and dangers of e-waste are extremely low, partly because the e-waste being generated is not as large as in developed countries. Urgent measures are required to address this issue.

India is placed in a very interesting position. The need of the hour is an urgent approach to the e-waste hazard by technical and policy-level interventions, implementation and capacity building and increase in public awareness such that it can convert this challenge into an opportunity to show the world that India is ready to deal with future problems and can set global credible standards concerning environmental and occupational health.

A little further down the road

Continuing with our  efforts to spread awareness, we conducted an awareness week in our campus. We held different awareness days over an entire week, with each day dedicated towards spreading awareness on some issue or the other. We conducted a Food awareness day in which the importance of conserving food and reducing wastage of food was inculcated among the students of our college. We put up posters and stickers in various places so as to gain maximum reach and spread our message. We also conducted a Waste Awareness Day and a Water Conservation Day wherein we spread the message of reducing waste and conserving water.

We also made a huge poster to advance our cause and get people to join in. We put it up in the different hostel blocks and urged the crowd to put up what they thought was the way forward on the poster. The poster drew a lot of participation and people put up slogans to imbibe some stamina into our enterprise. Many witnessed the poster and  were pumped up and ready to show some action.

 

We organised a talk on the Civil Nuclear Programme in India which was delivered by an expert in the field of nuclear energy and a faculty of our college, Prof. B N Karkera. He shed light on the future of nuclear power in India and its pros and cons and the three stage programme concerning nuclear material use. It was a very illuminating talk, attended by a lot of students, which taught us what we needed to know about this delicate energy resource and its further use. The talk was followed by an engaging debate by the NITK Debating Society on the Engineering and Scientific justification of the Civil Nuclear Programme, which was not only thought-provoking but entertaining too.

 We plann to continue on our path and shall be posting more updates soon. Keep visiting.

We kick off

Modest beginnings.
We kick off our effort with an effort at awareness.
The classrooms were targeted, with our volunteers informing the students about our efforts with a small presentation and garnering support. Our volunteers went throughout the college, speaking about the importance of having a green campus and our small contribution. They were able to move a few and recruit them as volunteers for our cause.

 

We also presented a small Environment Quiz, full of mind-boggling and mystifying questions about the environment. The quiz had quite a good turn-out and provided us with a platform to get our message across.

 

You can also participate in the quiz by downloading it from the below link and posting the answers in the comments.
Follow us as we continue on our quest.

Download Quiz from here.
Download the NITK TGCC Presentation from here.

Salut

Buenos Dias amigos.

We are a gang of ardent tree-huggers from National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal. And we love challenges. So we have taken upon us the herculean task to make our campus a little greener.

We are participating in The Green Campus Challenge conducted at Techfest, IIT-Bombay being held on 3^rd to 5^th January, 2013. The competition requires us to perform various tasks in and around our college to spread awareness about the need for sustainability and promote fondness for nature. We intend to garner the resource pool that is youth and empower them so that they can make the smallest of changes in their daily lives and of others.

Our college will be performing numerous tasks ranging from organizing rallies to planning waste management and many others. So if you are nearby, please join us. And we shall be posting all the happenings on this blog. Continue following.

Lets hope that at the end of the day, we are able to make a difference. So don’t litter cause (and I quote Twisted Sister) “We’re not gonna take it”.

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Please visit TGCC site for more details.

Ciao