Comprehensive Report on Hazardous Waste Management in Delhi, India

This report provides an overview of hazardous waste management issues in Delhi, India, focusing on the challenges posed by increasing industrialization, population growth, and inadequate waste disposal systems. It highlights the physical characteristics of the waste, including ignitability, corrosivity, and toxicity, and discusses the failure of the current waste management system. The report also predicts future waste quantities and explores major problems such as water and air pollution, decreasing health levels, and the overall environmental impact. It references the National Green Tribunal's concerns and the Centre for Science and Environment's findings, emphasizing the urgent need for effective waste management solutions to mitigate the disastrous consequences facing Delhi.

2018
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[hazardous waste management]

Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Physical Characteristics...............................................................................................................................3
 Ignitability........................................................................................................................................3
 Corrosivity........................................................................................................................................3
 Toxicity............................................................................................................................................3
Hazardous Waste Management System......................................................................................................4
Prediction of Future Waste Quantities........................................................................................................4
Major Problems and Issues.........................................................................................................................4
 Water Pollution...............................................................................................................................4
 Air Pollution.....................................................................................................................................5
 Decreasing Health Levels.................................................................................................................5
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................5
Bibliography................................................................................................................................................6
Introduction
In this report today, we are going to talk about hazardous waste management. First we will
discuss what hazardous waste management is all about and then what are the major reasons
behind it. Are there any financial constraints that have led this situation to be this bad and what
will be the issues or problems that will arise due to this miss-management (Inglezakis, 2016).In
order to be capable of understanding this report one must have some knowledge about hazardous
waste management. Hazardous waste management is the handling of waste material in a way that
if in case this waste is not handled in a proper manner then it will lead to a disastrous situation
(Moustakasb, 2014).
Now here, the main part of the report has been discussed, as we are require to choose a country
or a city to its hazardous waste management. So we choose Delhi (India) as the city and country
of our report. Delhi is the capital of India and is situated on the northern region of India. It is said
about Delhi that in the year 2020 (Sambyal, 2014), the air of Delhi will become so polluted that it
will become impossible for the people to live there (Kumar, 2017).

Delhi is one of the most happening cities of India, a city where the prime minister and the
president of India resides. A city that is called the city of people having big hearts, a city which
is most loved for its street food and is known for its spices and the fashion sense. Such a
description of this city must have created a very attractive image in our mind but there is a harsh
reality too about this city (He, 2015). On the one side there is this attractive part of this city and
then there is the other part which one wants to ignore but certainly can’t ignore because of the
fact that this issue is not an ignorable one (Shrivastav, 2017). The issue that we are talking about is
the issue of the garbage ground that one can see when you enter the city from Kashmiri Gate.
There are two other places where the waste of Delhi is dumped namely Bhalaswa and Okhla
(Sreekrishnanb, 2017).
This report is about the hazardous waste management and we are required to select a city of our
choice about which we can prepare a report on its hazardous waste management. Well Delhi
despite being one of the most high tech cities of India is a city that has very badly failed at
managing the waste management and is putting the human lives at risk. Hazardous waste
management is the management of handling the waste whether it is in its solid form or in semi
solid form then collect such waste and dispose or recycle it in order to save the environment and
the human’s from its ill effects. Any waste that is toxic, ignitable or turns into something that is
directly or indirectly dangerous for human lives is known as hazardous waste (Halder, 2017).
Hazardous Waste Generation
With the advent of high tech technology, population growth, we the human’s have forget all our
responsibilities towards the environment and towards the mankind. We are the enemies of not
only ourselves but also of the future generation. With the rapid growth in the industrialization the
capabilities of the business firms has increased to such an extent that the organizations now don’t
have to think twice as they can easily know what customer wants, what will satisfy his needs and
how will he come back to the organization again to satisfy his different needs (Acharyya, 2016).
This process of satisfying the customer has lead to the use of different kinds of raw materials, the
final product may give us the joy of a little time but the remains or the waste that is left out after
preparing the final product is not properly disposed by these organization, in case they dispose
such waste, they dispose it in some rivers or in the open grounds. Another reason of this waste
generation is ever increasing population; the population of Delhi is not one or two but it is
around 25 million (Joshi, 2017). You now one can imagine why Delhi is suffering from such a
hazardous waste issues. The landsite of the dumping ground in Ghazipur (Delhi) was
commissioned in the year 1984; at that point not even a single person could have thought that
this land will become the world’s biggest dumping site with having Garbage Mountains of as
high as 50 meters in height (Iqbal, 2015). The main reasons of this waste generation is the
growing industrialization and urbanization in Delhi NCR region, another reason is the ever
increasing human population in this region and no proper management to manage this dumping
ground in proper manner are the major reasons why the garbage has turned into the hazardous
waste.

Physical Characteristics
In this section of the report we are going to discuss about the physical characteristics of the waste
that is being dumped at the dumping ground of ghazipur. The physical characteristics are those
characteristics that tell us about the properties of a particular thing. The physical characteristics
of the hazardous waste are as under (Parmar, 2015):
 Ignitability: This is the characteristic, which tells us that the waste is having a property
of ignitability i.e. it can catch fire very easily if it is kept open under a certain
temperature. The dumping ground at Ghazipur (Delhi) has a lots and lots of garbage that
falls under this category. Now, one can imagine how risky is for the people that are living
in the surroundings of this region.
 Corrosivity: This characteristic is the one that tells us that the garbage or the waste is
having the capability of corroding the steel or an iron. This kind of waste can decompose
almost anything.
 Toxicity: The garbage or the waste that is dumped at Ghazipur Delhi is having a
characteristic of toxicity. Toxicity means anything which is poisonous. This kind of waste
can easily contaminate the water and the ground water which is a very dangerous thing
that can certainly lead to a major miss-happening.
Hazardous Waste Management System
The government of Delhi has admitted themselves that they cannot do much in the case of this
waste management. As the state of Delhi is falling short of landsite. It cannot be said that the
Delhi government is not making any effort but the harsh reality is that if Delhi really wants to
have a proper hazardous waste management then it requires to have a site of around 800 hectare
of land, that will cost the government around 80000 crores (Omkar, 2016), which is obviously not
an easy thing for the government to do alone. The three garbage sites of Delhi receives 9500 per
tones of the garbage everyday and to dispose this waste an average amount of cost that the
municipality of this bears is 14500 rupees which includes the sum of managing the labor and
machinery. It won’t be wrong if we say that the Delhi system has totally failed in case of
managing this waste (Deo, 2014).
Prediction of Future Waste Quantities
Now this is the very important part of the report, as we are going to discuss about the future
waste quantities prediction. The national green tribunal of India has made a shocking statement
about living in Delhi; this statement came to the light in the year 2017. The statement of this
tribunal says that it will be impossible to live in Delhi by the year 2020. It is not only because of
the growing population but because of the pollution and Delhi’s failure to maintain a proper
hazardous waste management (Sharma & Thakur, 2012). According to the recent report prepared by
the CSE, which stands for the Centre for Science and Environment, there report said that in Delhi

around 8500 tons of the garbage is brought to the landfill sites of Delhi every day, this Centre
also stated that these sites are filled to a point which is beyond their capacity and their limits has
exceeded long back about 10 years ago. Now, we can imagine very easily the future waste
quantity. In a year, 3, 467, 500 tons of waste is being sent to these sites. This is definitely a
shocking number and one can easily say that now a miracle can only save Delhi. The future
predictions can also be understood by the chart presented below:
2018 2022 2026 2030
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Series 1
Series 1
The above chart presented above shows the future waste quantities prediction of the Delhi, the
number is in million tons.
Major Problems and Issues
Delhi is on the verge of meeting a very disastrous hazard, as the sites of the garbage are not
properly managed and this miss-management has resulted in poisonous ground water, poisonous
air in that area, acid rain and other dangerous things. One travelling almost 5miles away from
that area can feel the poison that these garbage sites have spread in the air. Major problems and
Issues that can occur due to this failure of the system of managing the waste are as under (Bhatia,
2015):
 Water Pollution: The very evident and clear major problem or an issue that has arisen
due to the miss-management of the hazardous waste is the water pollution. The CSE or
the Centre for Science and Environment has clearly mentioned in its report that the
ground water at the three landfill sites of Delhi is totally contaminated and poisonous and
it can lead to a big disaster anytime, if corrective measures are not taken on time. Water

and air are the basic things that the human lives can’t survive without, and in Delhi these
two are the most toxic things that you will get.
 Air Pollution: Despite being the Capital state of India, Delhi is amongst the most
polluted cities of the world. The Supreme Court of India has made a statement saying that
the capital is sitting on a garbage bomb that can blast anytime. The three landfill sites are
so much filled beyond their capacities that it has not only polluted the ground water of
that area and the surroundings but it has polluted the air of the entire Delhi as well. In an
RTI (Right to Information Act) it came to light that Delhi government has cut down
many trees in order to complete the Delhi metro projects. The number of trees cut down
for this construction is in thousands and not even half number of the trees is planted till
now.
 Decreasing Health Levels: The people of Delhi are continuously seeing a change in
their health levels, now they are more ill than an average person of any other state of
India. The people of Delhi has developed respiration problems, a large increase has been
seen by the doctors in the number of asthmatic patients in Delhi.
Above are the major problems and issues that are currently being faced by the people and the
government of Delhi. It won’t be right to say that the government has not took any steps to cope
up with this situation, the government of delhi came up with a very unique solution to reduce the
pollution levels in Delhi, one of these solution were the Odd-Even traffic scheme in which on
one day only the odd number bearing cars will be allowed on the roads and the other day the
even number cars. But sad to say this is not enough to cope up the present situation.
Conclusion
After studying deeply, all the facts and information about the present hazardous waste
management of Delhi, a final conclusion has been provided here. In order to handle the situation
the Delhi government can join its hand with the central government or it can approach some
other advanced countries or cities of the world to help them out to plan a proper management for
this critical situation as the current landfills are clearly not the solutions.

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