Rethinking Waste–A guest lecture by Krishna Mohan KS, hundreds of NCC cadets attend ,take pledge to manage waste properly.

Let’s Rethink Waste

11th June,2022

The NCC 10 Andhra Girls Battalion, Guntur organized a Guest Lecture on , “Waste Recycling & Waste Management” during their 2^nd Annual Training Camp at  KL University campus on 11^th June 2022.

Mr.Krishna Mohan KS the Chief Guest of the evening delivering an interactive session titled “Let’s Rethink Waste” with the nearly 600 Senior Wing and Junior Wing Cadets. The lecture was supported by a powerful power-point presentation, video clips from movies and documentaries and recent statistical data on various types of waste being generated and the need to manage it.

The hour-long presentation with the enthusiastic participation of the Cadets, Commanding Officer – Lt. Col.RP Singh, Ms.Pavani the Camp Coordinator of KLU and other staff of the NCC, concluded with a Pledge – “I will be a responsible citizen and shall do my best to manage waste properly”.

The resource person, Mr.Krishna Mohan KS is a CAD and Waste Management consultant for process and manufacturing industries. He is an admin of “Consumer Advocacy Group” and the founder of FASUR (Forum for Asserting Service Users Rights).

Here are the details of what Mr. Krishna Mohan shared with the participants: 

Any Unwanted or Unusable Materials or simply said, any substance which is discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use is considered to be waste. The origin of waste is generally from Mining, Agriculture, Forestry, Industry, Household, Commercial, Construction & Demolition and Wastewater from various streams. The Current per capita Solid Waste Generation is 450 grams per day and per capita Wastewater Generation is 121 Litres per Day in India. The Sources of Domestic Wastewater per day per person are Black water (Toilets) – 20 liters, Greywater – Bathing- 40-60 liters, Kitchen- 5-10 liters, Washing  20-30 liters, Animals- Greywater 10-15 liters.

The Municipal Solid Waste generated in India in 2021 is 110 million tons and expected to reach 200 million tons by 2041. While Maharastra generates the highest MSW of around 25000 Tons per day, Sikkim generates the least around 80 Tons per day.  The Wastewater generation per day in India is around 14000 million litres in the domestic sector and around 23000 million litres from the industries. Maharastra contributes the highest with 45% share while Karnataka contributes the least with 1.3% of the total wastewater generation.

The Biomedical Waste comprises Human & Anatomical Waste, Animal Waste, Microbiology and Biotech Waste, Waste Sharps, Medical & Cyto-Toxic Drugs, Soiled Waste, Solid Waste, Chemical Waste and Incinerated Ash. India generates around 620 million Tons of BMW per day.  Karnataka contributes the highest around 80 Tons per day and Jharkhand the least with around 60 TPD.  During the Covid-19 Pandemic, India generated 56,000 Tons of BMW in one year.  India is generating around 1 million Tons of e-Waste (electrical and electronic waste) out of which only 10% is being collected for recycling while the rest is landing in the unorganized sector.

While MSW, BMW, C&D Waste, Liquid Waste and e-Waste are the forms of waste being generated, the Solar Waste and the Wind Turbine waste are going to add to this menace. The lifespan of the Solar Photovoltaic Panels and the Wind Turbine Blades is generally around 20-25 years. Thus, most of the installations done since a couple decades, across the world would be scrapped soon. The total amount of end-of-life solar panels is expected to be 700 million tons by 2030 and the end-of-life wind turbine blades which are made of fiber would be around 225 million tons by 2034.

Therefore, effective solid waste management, effluent treatment plants for industries, sewage treatment plants and recycling plants for various types of wastes have to be planned, designed and implemented immediately to avert disasters and save our future generations. It is also the responsibility of all of us to follow the 10Rs of Recycling for a sustainable future – Reduce, Recover, Refill, Refuse, Repair, Repurpose, Rethink, Regift, Reuse, Restore.

Some Terrible Facts :

• Urban India generates nearly 1.5 Lakh Tons of Municipal Solid Waste per day of which, only 68% is collected for disposal
• Annual MSW generation in India is around 6.2 Crore Tons of which only 20% is treated and 80% goes for Unscientific Dumping
• Waste Pickers alone account for 0.1% of India’s urban workforce
• Sewage generation in India 72368 million litres per day of which only 28% is treated and the rest is dumped into Irrigation Canals/ Rivers / Open Lands
• One tanker full of faecal sludge dumped without treatment is equivalent to 5000 persons open defecation.
• Sadly, some states in our country do not even have a Sewage Treatment Plant