Where is 61% Goa's Industrial waste going?

Where is 61% Goa's Industrial waste going?

PANAJI: Just 39% of Goa’s industrial hazardous waste is disposed at Taloja, Maharashtra, with no one certain of how the rest of the 12,098 metric tonnes is disposed.

In the absence of an industrial waste treatment, storage and disposal plant in the state, industry claims that the remaining waste is held by the industry in their units.

This is, however, countered by environmentalists who say that undisposed hazardous waste is dumped at night. Environmentalists said that such waste can cause public health problems as well as long-term health effects and environmental pollution.

Villagers have also opposed the proposed treatment, storage and disposal facility at Dharbandora.

Goa generates about 12,098 metric tonnes per annum (MTA) of industrial hazardous waste. Only 39% of this—which is incineratable waste—is transported to Taloja in Maharashtra. No one is sure where the rest of the waste—15% recyclable and about 46% landfillable—is disposed off in the absence of an industrial waste treatment, storage and disposal plant in the state.

“Only the incineratable hazardous industrial waste is transported to Taloja. The rest of the waste is stored by industries within their premises,” says Joseph D’Souza, founder president, Industrial Waste Management Association of Goa.

Not everyone in the field, however, agrees. “Many industries dump the waste as there is no landfill site,” admitted an industry insider.
This is confirmed by police sources who told TOI, “They (industries) dump their waste in the night. Since no one has lodged a complaint yet, we can’t take any action.”

“What is happening in Goa is illegal,” says environmentalist Claude Alvares. A member of the Supreme Court monitoring committee on hazardous waste, he explains that the apex court in its 2003 ruling ordered that hazardous waste “be disposed off in an engineered landfill site by 2004”.

“But in Goa nothing has changed. The SC order clearly states that if there is no landfill site for industrial hazardous waste then it is the responsibility of the (Goa) state pollution control board to close down such units till the site is ready. Nothing of the sort has happened in Goa,” says Alvares.

Goa State Pollution Control Board officials however, insist, “The industries keep (hazardous waste) covered within their premises. Moreover, Nicomet industries which alone produces about 70% of the total hazardous waste generated in the state, has now constructed its own landfill site which can be used for up to 3 years. By that time the plant at Dharbandora will be ready.”

On April 16, 2008, the state government notified land admeasuring 1,10,390 sq m in survey no 193/3 of Dharbandora, Sanguem taluka for a common hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal facility for industries. However, local opposition (see adjoining story) has left the matter in limbo.

Incidentally, the environmental impact assessment for the proposed Dharbandora site had shown that an estimate of about 248 hazardous waste generating units in Goa are registered under the hazardous waste act and together generate 12,098 MTA of hazardous waste.

Of this, 5,605 MTA is landfillable waste, 4,708 MTA is incineratable waste and about 1,785 MTA is recyclable waste which can be transferred for safe storage and disposal, the report prepared for the Goa Industrial Development Corporation by Ramky Infra Consulting Pvt Ltd, revealed.

In Goa, hazardous waste comprises of used oil, waste oil and residues containing oil, residues from zinc ash and skimming, arsenic-bearing sludge, phosphate sludge, waste and residues in production and use of paints, residue and waste from formulation of pharmaceutical products, spent carbon, flue gas cleaning residue, sludge from wet scrubbers and ash from incineration of hazardous waste. Such waste causes immediate, short-term public health problems as well as long-term health issues and environmental pollution.

May 5,2009, The Times of India, Goa edition