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The smell of rotting food hits you like a punch to the chest as you enter the broad and almost perfectly maintained Pallavaram-Thuraipakkam road. The source of your nose's distress can be easily located if your teary eyes follow the overspeeding lorries traversing the path to take a sharp left turn.
From a distance, the vast expanse of land is outlined with small hillocks, all varying in size. But when TNM entered this property on a hot July afternoon, it became apparent that this was no natural formation.
Standing there on 228 acres of land in an IT hub of Tamil Nadu's capital, were mountains of garbage, each of them the size of a two-storey building. We had arrived at the Perungudi landfill, where half the city's waste is deposited every single day.
According to the solid waste department of the Chennai Corporation, the city generates close to 3,200 tonnes of garbage on a daily basis. This garbage is collected from bins in 15 zones and split between Chennai's two dumping yards – Kodungaiyur and Perungudi.
A conservancy officer at the site, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says:
The Perungudi landfill was opened in 1988 and the mountains of waste present have been collected for close to three decades. The conservancy officer warns:
According to studies, 68 percent of municipal solid waste generated is residential waste, 16 percent is from commercial waste, 14 percent institutional waste and 2 percent industrial waste. The majority of the garbage in Chennai is in the form of green waste (32.3 percent), and inert materials (34.7 percent) like stone and glass. The rest consists of plastic material and other non-biodegradable substances.
These numbers speak volumes about how segregation could help reduce the quantity of waste going into these dump yards. Close to 4,000 lorry-loads of trash are dumped at both these landfills.
"The bio degradable substances can be converted to manure for farmer, the debris can be reused in construction and plastic can be recycled for roads. There are solutions," says the officer. He alleges:
When TNM visited the Solid Waste Management (SWM) department regarding the city's landfills, authorities put the onus of segregation on residents. "As per SWM rules, people should be segregating the waste but they just don't care," says Rajeshwari. The Municipal Solid Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000, had directions to implement source segregation in a phased manner by engaging with residents’ associations. She adds:
But has the corporation at least kept separate bins for bins for biodegradable and plastic waste? "No, we will," is the answer we receive. And are these landfills not nearing the end of their capacities? "There is enough space," she says abruptly.
In February, the Kodungaiyur landfill witnessed a major fire after debris from trees gathered after the Vardah cyclone caught fire. As many as 17 firefighting vehicles, including Metrowater tankers (each containing 9,000 litres of water), were pressed into service. With the area filled with flammable material, it was a disaster just waiting to happen, and it took firefighters eight hours to contain it.
At the Perungudi landfill, the officer speaking to TNM had supervised the dousing of a fire only an hour back. He says:
"Multiple fires plagued the site till about two years back as the mounds of garbage were even taller. Afraid of a major disaster, they took to levelling the mounds," he explains.
Currently the garbage stands at 15 feet from the ground.
However, that is not the only environmental hazard that these primitive methods of waste management pose.
It is globally known that leachate generation is a major problem for municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills and causes significant threat to surface water and groundwater. Leachate, according to studies, can be defined as a liquid that passes through a landfill and has extracted dissolved and suspended matter from it.
"The Tamil Nadu pollution control board (TNPCB) checks the water quality every month. There is no contamination," he claims. The TNPCB was, however, unavailable for comment.
"What the conservancy official says goes against the laws of physics," says Nityanand, a Chennai-based environmentalist. "The leachate from household waste is as hazardous as industrial waste. The water will have a combination of pathological and chemical contamination. Even exposure to it will lead to health problems," he explains.
In addition to this toxic cocktail of chemicals, bio-medical and sanitary waste are also a cause of worry at this landfill. According to rules, only biodegradable garbage from hospitals and clinics should be sent over to dump yards. But syringes, injection vials, intravenous fluid bags and tubes, masks, blood-stained cotton swabs and beds are indiscriminately dumped at the yard everyday.
"It is called a landfill when measures are taken to reduce exposure to ground and surface water or to the atmosphere. At the most, what we have in Chennai are dumping yards," says Nityanand.
A multi-crore proposal is currently in the works to revamp the existing conservancy process and set up of two waste-to-energy units. Corporation officials told TNM that close to Rs 1,442 crore will be spent on the project will result in the permanent closure of the Kodungaiyur and Perungudi sites.
In their place, two waste-to-energy (WTE) plants will be set up, reportedly with a power production capacity of 26MW and 32MW respectively. The Executive Engineer (SWM) says:
But it will take at least two years for at least the first plant to be functional. The corporation will reportedly leave it to the contractor to decide how the waste gets processed to energy.
And what about the air pollution if incinerators are used to convert the waste to energy? "Some sacrifices have to be made and you have to give up on some things to get others," is the bizarre explanation offered. But back at the dumping yard, the conservancy official asks:
(This story was first published on The News Minute and has been republished with permission.)
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