What is Waste..?
Waste can be defined as a material for which the generator has no further use in terms of production, transformation or consumption and wish to dispose as per national laws. Anything that is thrown away such as paper, plastic, unwanted food, broken glass, discarded clothes etc can said to be waste for the generator; however they can serve as the precious raw material for many others including recycle units (plastic, polythene, glass and metals), manure productions farms (organic waste), road construction units (construction & demolition debris) and industries (heating purpose).
Waste Disposal in Chandigarh:
Over 10 lac population of the city beautiful, Chandigarh is generating a huge some of municipal waste i.e. about 340 tons/day1. However, the well planned waste management structure of the city collects about 97% of the total waste every day, out of which nearly 219 tons/day is processed by the Jaypee Waste Processing Plant and converted in to RDF (refuse derived fuel), while nearly 40 tons/day is been sent to the dumping site (Daddu Majra, Sector 38, Chandigarh)1. Remaining waste materials like plastic, polythene wrappers, metallic containers, cans, and glass bottles etc. were collected separately by the local scrap dealers and were sold to specific bodies for further recycle and reuse.
Biomedical waste generated from the city was partially handled by the incineration plant setup at PGIMER after disinfection, and remaining waste sent to the hazardous waste dumping site (Secure Landfill, Nimbua, SAS Nagar, Mohali) for final disposal as per Hazardous Wastes (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2008 published by the Government of India in the Ministry of Environment and Forest vide number S.O.1676 (E), dated 28th September, 2007 in the Gazette of India.
Types of Waste and their generation in Chandigarh: