Vermigold International, her company, is a Rs 25 lakh a year business that has graduated to large projects.She has launched a project jointly with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCM) where MCM has leased her 2,400 sq.m of land for free, and has promised to provide 35 tonnes of vegetable and flower waste daily from the Dadar market. The unit cost Rs 10 lakh, and MCM gave an interest-free mobilisation advance of Rs 5 lakh (to be repaid in 10 instalments over 28 months, with an 18-month moratorium). The other Rs 5 lakh came from Saptarshi.

The unit has a monthly capacity of 100 tonnes; compost will be retailed at Rs 15 a kg. Saptarshi will pay MCM Rs 25,000 a month or 10 per cent of profits, whichever is higher.

Her organic business venture Daily Dump offers different types of composters that convert the waste generated in one’s  kitchen into compost. If the customers do not require the compost, it can be sold back to Daily Dump.

What began as a small venture with family members and potters, three years ago, Daily dump is set to treble its turnover to Rs 36,00,000 (Rs 3.6 million) this year. Today, the company has about 4,500 dedicated customers in Bangalore who use the profitable composters.

The response has been encouraging and the company has steadily grown over the past 3 years. In the first year, Daily Dump made a turnover of Rs 200,000, which increased to 12,00,000 (Rs 1.2 million) last year.

Poonam says home waste generated in one’s kitchen is 50-70 per cent organic, but urban India has still not found an effective way to dispose this waste, which can actually be churned back into the system by converting it into useful organic manure.

“Keeping this waste off the streets will be the biggest challenge that civic authorities across every city will face. If we can convert this into compost, it can reduce the mess on the streets by 60 per cent, that’s a big impact,” Poonam points out.

The Daily Dump design is available to anyone who is interested, the designs are protected by a creative commons license and the cloning approach allows anyone to use these designs. “I plan to support every person who is brave enough to clone this in every possible manner,” says Poonam.

Poonam Kasturi shares her experiences of  ‘a great ride, tough but very fulfilling’ of converting household waste into wealth and how her products can make a far reaching impact in a country like India.

At a small coastal Industrial zone Kalundborg near Copenhagan an exemplary material exchange is being practiced. The exchange involves a 1500M.W. Power plant,(Asuaes Power Station),a 3.2 million metric tones capacity oil refinery,(Stat Oil),a 14 million square meters of Gypsum Board manufacturing unit,(Gyproc),an Intermational Biotechnology company with a sales in excess of $2 Billion and the city of Kalundborg which supplies residential heat and hot water to the residents.
The Power plant supplies waste steam to the refinery and in turn gets refinery gas which substitutes some of the coal. Excess steam is also supplied to the Biotechnology Company, (Novo Nosdisk) and the city of Kalundborg for heating. This replaces almost 3500 individual furnaces which otherwise are a source of high air pollution. Desulphurization at the Power plant also produces Gypsum which meets1/3rd of the need of Gypsum in the Board manufacturing unit. Sludge from the Biotechnology Company is used as fertilizer on nearby farms and surplus yeast from its Insulin plant is sold to farmers as pig food.

From:
Damle Anand- Use of Fly Ash in Burnt Clay manufacturing, Cleaner Technology, Impacts/12/2003-2004, MOEF-CPCB, Govt. of India, 2003 pages11-21

The plant will be located in the company’s Riverbend Landfill west of McMinnville and is expected to be operational in mid-2010.

As waste decomposes naturally, the new energy plant will collect the resultant methane gas and use it to power engines to generate electricity. The power will then be sold to McMinnville Power & Light.

Waste Management said the volume of electricity it generates could increase if the Yamhill County Board of Commissioners approves an expansion of the landfill.

Houston-based Waste Management Inc., the world’s largest solid waste company with annual revenue of $13.4 billion, developed the landfill-to-energy technology more than 20 years ago and now operates 111 landfill energy facilities in North America.

It has plans to develop another 160 by 2012, including one under way at its Columbia Ridge Landfill in Arlington, Ore., which will go online later this year.

The company in May formed a joint venture with Bend-based InEnTec LLC called S4 Energy Solutions LLC that will market, operate and develop InEnTec’s technology turns waste-created gas into multiple fuel types.

One of WaterAid’s projects in India has found a novel approach to tackle this dilemma and generate income. Their solution lies with worms.

The community living in the Kalmanthai slum in Tiruchirapalli has worked hard to rehabilitate and build communal sanitation blocks for men, women and children.

They have also established water supply projects and credit schemes which they manage themselves.

The slum is adjacent to a wholesale banana market where truckloads of fruit, leaves and stems arrive every day. Discarded produce litters the area. With no proper disposal systems the community groups realised they would have to manage this and the other waste in the slum to ensure they had a clean environment to live in. WaterAid’s partner, Gramalaya, suggested the community ran a pilot vermiculture project.

Vermiculture uses worms in a controlled environment to do what they are best at- converting organic waste into nutrient-rich compost in nature’s way of recycling.

Members of the community groups underwent training and initiated a small-scale trial project investing Rs.2,200 (£29) they had raised from the sanitation blocks. They bought 4,000 red worms, Eisenia foetida, commonly known as the red wiggler or manure worm, which are best suited to composting.

Encouraged by the initial results the community then set up a larger scheme. An area of land by the communal toilet blocks was set aside with a small shed and composting arrangements for the worms.

Now in every 45 day cycle, for an investment of Rs.500, nearly one tonne of compost is produced. The compost is packed in bags and sold for Rs.5 per kilogramme, making nearly Rs.3000 per cycle.

The success has spread to other slum communities and individual households, which are now also carrying out vermiculture projects. The original project now even breeds and sells worms to those wishing to follow its example. But vermiculture isn’t only a solution in urban areas; another of WaterAid’s partners in India, REEDS, is now implementing a large-scale vermiculture project with rural farming communities in Andra Pradesh.

This scheme shows a highly successful and profitable way of waste disposal that provides communities with employment and funds to carry out their own future development work. As the members of the community proudly claim the scheme is ‘generating wealth from waste’.

The U.P. Pollution Control Board has identified 469 tannery industries in the state out of which 404 tanneries are treated in Kanpur.

1. Details of effluent treatment system in 404 tanneries installed at Kanpur is as follows:
2. Based on vegetable tanning system                                                          -           198
   1. I.            Primary effluent treatment system installed           -           102
   2. II.            Based on drying system                                                  -            24
   3. III.            Closed due to their own reasons                                -           48
   4. IV.            Closed by the orders of the Honorable Courts/Board            -           24
   5. Based on Chrome Tanning System                                               -           206
      1. I.            Having Chrome Recovery Unit/Member of Common     -           166

Chrome Recovery Unit/Primary

Effluent System installed.

1. II.            Closed due to their own reasons                                                   -           13
2. III.            Closed by the orders of the Honorable Courts/Board       -           27

A Common Chrome recovery unit has been established at Jajmau, Kanpur for small tannery industries by the Municipal Corporation financed by The Ministry of Environment & Forests, Government of India. Total 76 tanning industries are members of Common Chrome Recovery Plant and 90 chrome tanning units have installed their own chrome recovery units within their premises. Currently the total capacity of the common plant is not being utilized because of lack of drum dryer. As per the information form the Municipal Commissioner, finance is being sought from the Government of India for installing the Drum Dryer.

9 MLD industrial wastes is being generated from the tannery industries at Jajmau, which is put into the common conveyance system after primary treatment (installed in the premises of the individual industries) this combines with 27 MLD municipal waste water and is treated in a Combined Effluent Treatment Plant. The treated effluents have generally been observed to be beyond the prescribed norms. This is mainly because of week operation and maintenance management and the need for upgradation.

1. In addition to Kanpur, a total of 65 Tanneries are located in other districts as follows:

a.   Kanpur Dehat                                  -                       02

b.   Meerut                                               -                       04

c.   Muzaffer Nagar                               -                       01

d.   Mathura                                            -                       02

e.   Agra                                                    -                       03

f.    Gautambudh Nagar                      -                      04

g.   Ghaziabad                                        -                       03

h.   Barabanki                                         -                       05

i.    Unnao                                                -                       41

Out of these 26 industries are closed. The balance 39 tanneries have their own Pollution Control Systems or are joined to the 02 combined plants at Banthar Unnao and Unnao UPSIDC Site II.

Common Waste Management Industries

The Banthar Industrial Pollution Control Company

This Leather Technology Park set up on 286.16 acres at Banthar, Unnao, U.P. India on NH 25, 20 km from Kanpur and 9 kms from Unnao is an initiative of the government of U.P. to provide an integrated leather processing complex which includes a common effluent treatment plant and a common hazardous waste disposal facility. Based on an earlier model also working at Unnao, the constituent units of the region have come together and formed a separate company, registered under the companies act and with an objective to set up and operate the CETP and waste disposal facility. The Banthar Industrial Pollution Control Company looks after the installation, operation and maintenance of the 4.5 mld capacity CETP set up in an area of 12 acres and the common hazardous waste management facility set up in an area of 18 acres within the complex. Each constituent unit is expected to install an individual Chrome Recovery Unit and primary effluent treatment plant to ensure that primary standards prescribed by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India are complied with. The CETP was commissioned in October 2004 with a project cost of Rs. 6.00 with a promoters contribution of Rs 2.99 crores and a matching grant of Rs. 2.99 crores from CIB/ASIDE. The treated effluents from the CETP are discharged (through the UPSIDC drainage) finally into the City Jail drain which ultimately meets the river Ganga after a distance of 30 kms. The CETP is based on the Activated sludge process with a two stage aeration system and a polishing tertiary system.

Forty two tanning and allied industries constitute the member units. Presently (2008) 12 units were operating with a discharge of 1886 KLD effluent to the CETP

The unit operations consist of a Barscreen, grit chamber, equalization tank, flash mixer (lime alum), clarifloccnlator, 1^st stage Aeration tank, with a low speed 25 HP fixed surface aerators, 2^nd stage aeration tank with 10 low speed 15 HP fixed surface aerators, 1^st stage peripherally driven biological clarifier with central shell, 2^nd stage peripherally driven biological clarifier with central shell and a tertiary clarifier with dosing arrangements along with sludge drying beds. The treated effluents from the CETP have been able to achieve a pH of 7.5 (5.5 -9.0), suspended solids 98 mg/l (100 mg/l), BOD of 22.00 mg/l (30 mg/l), COD of 88 mg/l (250.00 mg/l) and a total chromium of 1.8 (2.0 mg/l). (The prescribed standards are mentioned in parenthesis.) Consents under section 25/26 of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974 have been granted to the CETP from 2005 through 2008. The cost of treatment works out to be Rs. 9.25/KL based on water consumed by the constituent tannery.

Joint effort have also been made for safe disposal of hazardous sludge generated not only from tanneries situated at Banthar but also from other industrial areas in Unnao. The secured landfill site has also been developed at Banthar, properly lined and with leachate collection and disposal facility. This is expected to cater to 3 to 5 years of sludge generation from all leather and allied industries at Unnao site I, II and III and Banthar. Industries have now formed a separate registered company by the name of “Industrial Infrastructure services (India) Ltd “. The project proposals submitted by this company for the development of a TSDF on 33 acres of land at CETP Banthar at a cost of Rs. 17 crores and cleared by the government of India shall benefit about 130 industries at Unnao. The TSDF has been commissioned w.e.f. October 2008.

The Unnao Tanneries Pollution Control Company:

Commissioned in 1995, this combined effluent treatment plant managed by the Unnao Tanneries Pollution Control Company treats 2.15 MLD effluents from 21 member industries (Tanning and Allied). The company was constituted as a sequel to the World Bank assisted ‘Industrial Pollution Control Project’ which envisaged the setting up of CETPs with 20% promoter’s contribution,25% subsidy from state government (Through the Department of Environment Budget), 25% Subsidy from Central Government and 30% soft loan from World Bank through I.D.B.I.. The CETP works are situated at A-7, Site-2, UPSIDC Industrial Area, Unnai, U.P., India and for the last about 14 years have served as a model for successful cooperative management of waste.

The effluent generated by member units is first subject to primary treatment in the generating industry. This necessarily consists of a Bar Green, Equalization Tank, Chemical dosing tank, settling tank, and sludge drying beds, The primary effluents are then transferred through underground conveyance system to the CETP for treatment. The Chrome tanning units separately treat and recover the basic chrome sulphate from spent chrome Liquor. This is reused in the tanning process.

At the CETP the primary treated effluents are treated by a two stage aerobic activated sludge process and treated effluent with a pH of 7.3 to 7.5, Suspended Solids of 60 to 90 mg/l , BOD of 20 to 29 mg/l, COD of 200 to 240 mg/l and very low quantities of chromium III (0.32 to BDC) discharged into the Loni drain which generally dries out on land but which meet the river Ganga at a distance of about 146 kms during the rainy season. The CETP consist of a Bar Screen Chamber, 2 Nos equalization/Holding Tanks with 12 hours detention, 1 No. clarifloccnlation tank, a primary aeration tank with a hydrometric retention  time of 24 hours, 4 aerators of 24 HP capacity each and an operating cycle of 4 days. This is followed by the 1^st stage secondary clarifier with a detention time of 3 hours. The second stage aeration tank also has 4 aerators of 20 HP, a detention time of 24 hours and operating cycle of 17 to 20 days and is followed by a 2.5 hours detention time 2^nd stage secondary clarifiers. The ETP sludges are dried in 28 sludge drying beds.

Experimenting for safety,  samples of treated hospital waste and garden soil were injected with HIV-positive and Hepatitis B-positive blood and some salmonella cultures. The results revealed no trace of virus from the treated samples.

Over the years, 400 kg of manure has been taken from the from the clinic to the 22-acre farm where they grow over 15,000 fruit trees, mostly chickoo and mango.  Chemical fertilisers and insecticides would have cost around Rs 20,000 a year. Considerable savings indeed, and from a most unlikely source.

1.         Spent wash to be utilized for compost making with press mud/Agriculture residue/Municipal wastes.

2.         Spent wash to be concentrated and dried/incinerated.

3.         Effluent to be used for irrigation only after Biomethanation, two stage secondary treatment and dilution with process water.

4.         Effluents (BOD<2500 mg/L) to be discharged in a controlled manner into the sea only after Biomethanation and secondary treatment so that D.O. does not fall below 4 mg/L in the mixing zone.

5.         To be used in fertiirrigation as one time controlled application on land after detailed study.

6.         Achieve zero effluents discharge in inland surface waters by December 2005.

It was also decided that new stand alone distilleries and expansions of existing distilleries will not be given environmental clearance unless they achieve zero effluent discharge in surface/ground water.

The AIDA has compiled data from 233 Distilleries across the country in 2006. Based on this data,101 distilleries had achieved 100% utilization of spent wash,17 gave incomplete information, 34 achieved 50 to 75% utilization and 22 distilleries were closed. (aidaindia.org/its08 and cpcb.nic.in).

The science he uses is very simple. The top and bottom of a drum are cut off, then 12 holes of 8-10 cm diameter are cut into the body at varying heights. It is then filled with sugarcane bagasse to a height of 5 cm. Kitchen waste is dumped into the drum every day, till the pile reaches the first hole. At this point, a sapling or seed is placed in the hole.The process is continued till the drum is full. The plants grow out of the holes. It involves minimal labour and time, and needs watering only twice a week.

“City farming works wonders for the budget. I save Rs 18,000 a year on vegetables,” he says. Over 100 Mumbai families have emulated his example.

The provision for Environmental Audit (Statement) as prescribed under the Environmental Protection Act for 1986 has great promise but has not been able to deliver. It was designed to be a tool through which corporates analyze their environmental performance in time and take suitable measures for improvement in resource consumption and waste management. Being linked to regulations, it made industry apprehensive, apprehensive of the fact that non compliance could be used to their legal disadvantage by the regulator. This introduced some amount of misreporting in order to make the report acceptable to regulatory agencies rather than helping the industry to introspect and improve. Voluntary approaches therefore, delinked to regulation therefore are assumed to play a more important role. Public disclosures of performance indicators provide powerful financial, social and reputational incentives for reducing negative externalities. It can also induce improvements from bad performers (which may otherwise require costly litigation) and introduce a system where corporate internalize reputation effects and perform better. The PROPER PROKASIH, Indonesia’s public disclosure program has been very successful in awarding good performers and calling public attention to polluters who are not in compliance with the regulations. (Regulation in the Information age-Indonesian Public Information Program in www. performeks.com/media/downloads/information_regulation.pdf) Philippines, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil have also undertaken identical programmes.

Here at home the Centre for Science and Environment has attempted a green rating of the Paper, Automobile and Chloralkali sector (The Greenest Paper Mill in India, July, 18, 1999, cseindia.org; Who is India’s Worst Paper Maker, Down to Earth, October 15, 2004 and Environmental Rating of Indian Caustic Chlorine Sector, Chandra Bhushan and Sunita Narain, C.S.E.) and ranked the major players on environmental performance . Another study done by the same organization for the cement industry pointed out that where economic logic met environmental objectives, the industry did well like in energy use and utilization of wastes but where investments did not yield short terms results the industry failed to meet expectations like in mine management, emission control and regulating livelihoods. Societally the industry was found to be dismal. (Cement: Not As Bad As We Thought, Down to Earth, December 31, 2005). Most of these studies point out that the major factors wrong with these industries is an inefficient use of resources and a poor technology base. (The Greenest Paper Mill in India, July 18, 1999, cseindia.org/node/441)

A pilot programme for environmental performance rating and public disclosure for industries was also initiated as part of a World Bank Programme and implemented collectively through the C.I.I., World Bank and the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board. Both the authors to the present study were part of the study initiated in May 2001 which was coordinated from the World Bank by Mr. Carter Brandon, Dr. Smita Misra, Dr. Sushmita Dasgupta. (Also covered in Dr. Yashpal Singh, Environmental Performance Rating of Distilleries.www.oecd.org/data oecd) The programme covered 33 industries of different sizes and sectors at Ghaziabad and Noida. Industries were classified as Black and Red (implying lack of compliance) and Blue, Green and Gold (different levels of achieving compliance). Out of the 33 participating industries 6 were rated as Gold and Green, 16 rated Blue and 11 rated Black. This was a location specific compliance rating programme including small and medium enterprise also. It was not designed to be an environmental performance rating.

The Charter on Corporate Responsibility for Environmental Protection,2003 introduced through the efforts of the MoEF, the Pollution Control Boards and Industry Associations has seen a major break through in voluntary environmental performance.

In spite of the immense advantages that voluntary disclosure systems have, environmental performance rating exercises have been attempted but at a few places in India.

A pilot programme was commissioned by the U.P. Pollution Control Board in 2000 to evaluate and rate the environmental performance of the units in the Alcohol Industry. (Y. Singh, 2004, Environmental Performance Rating of Distilleries.www.oecd.org/data oecd) The study involved identification of the environmental indicators associated with the various activities in Alcohol production, understanding their environmental impacts and rating the environmental performance for intra industry comparisons by working out appropriate weightage systems for these indicators. The highlight of the study was the analysis of resource utilization efficiency of the units and its impact on environmental performance as well as profitability. The results of the study along with the names of the top 5 and bottom five performers were presented in an ‘open house’ where representatives from most of the participating distilleries were present. The report had concluded that in the case of Uttar Pradesh, the environmental performance of distilleries in western and Central Uttar Pradesh is better. Semi urban distilleries have a better performance as compared to rural based ones. Remarkably the study also revealed that improved environmental performance leads to better profitability. The industry was however observed to   exhibit insensitiveness to the use of raw materials, water, fuel, and power which results in enormous cost escalations. It was estimated that the sector could save more than Rs 100 crores per year it only the bad performers could come to the level of the best performers. The recommendations of the study were circulated and discussed in another open house. The participating distilleries had assured that they would take necessary action and improve their environmental performance.

Dr. Pradeep Kumar the prime mover behind this programme had hoped that the study would lead to better control of industrial Pollution besides improving the efficiency of units. The report was also presented by Dr. Yashpal Singh before representatives from all over the world at an International Conference on Economic Instruments held at Paris in 2004.The World Bank recognized this report as an important study and published a poster acknowledging the utility of the study. The poster also recommended that the exercise should be repeated so as to assess benefits.

It is in this context that the Distillery sector has been revisited to evaluate the impacts of the previous study. It also intends to tell the industry where it can still improve in order to earn better profits and reputation. While the earlier study looked into the performance indicators for the years 1998-99 to 2000-2001, this study covered the year 2004-05 to 2006-07.

The present report presents a comparative study of both the assessments. The Distillery sector with an installed capacity to convert over 3 million tonnes of molasses annually in U.P. is one of the major industrial sectors with a constantly growing contribution to the state exchequer by way of excise duty (Rs. 2912.90 Crores in 2004-2005, Rs. 3114.3 Crores in 2005-2006 and Rs 3518.3 Crores in 2006-2007). It also provides employment to more than 10,000 persons in the state. The industry has grown considerably over years. While there were 37 operational distilleries in U.P. (35 molasses based and 2 broken grains and malt based) out of a total of 43 distilleries in 2000-2001, 59 distilleries have been reported for 2006-2007 (56 Molasses based and 3 grain based). All these distilleries were requested to participate in the study. Out of these, 36 distilleries   participated. 24 distilleries have participated in both the 2000-2001 and 2006-2007 evaluations.

Conclusions

The study for the period 2000-2001 had indicated the following:

1.         Distilleries in central and western U.P. are marginally better performers.

2.         The semi urban distilleries were observed to perform better than the urban and rural based units.

3.         57% distilleries are located in the Ganga catchment followed by Ghagra and Yamuna. 86% of the distilleries discharge their effluents into the rivers (Ghagra-5, Gomti-1, Ganga-18 and Yamuna-6)

4.         An improved environmental performance leads to better profitability.

5.         The sector is not sensitive to the efficient use of raw materials, water, fuel and power. Optimization in raw material consumption and judicious use of water and energy shall reduce the production cost and increase profitability. This will make the product more competitive in the Global market and help the industry to maximize the capacity utilization.

6.         If the bad performers evaluate the best performers, the sector is likely to save Rs. 105.81 Crores by optimizing resource utilization (Molasses Rs. 26.95 Crores, Water Rs. 12.04 Crores, Biogas Rs. 22.50 Crores, Total Energy Rs. 45.32 Crores)

The following recommendations were made and presented before an open house session with Industry representatives and the Pollution Control Board.

1.         Eighteen out of the 33 units studied have a very poor environmental performance.

2.         All plants should have facilities to monitor the amount of biogas generated. They must also ensure to utilize the gas in boilers to meet the energy requirements. Where the biogas generation is poor, industries should retrofit the inefficient plants.

3.         Those units which have not installed the second aerobic stage should do it at the earliest.

4.         There is immense scope for reducing water consumption. This should be implemented.

5.         Metering systems should be installed to monitor consumption of biogas, water and electricity.

6.         Wherever feasible effluents should be utilized in production of bio-manure or in the case of grain based distilleries as cattle feed. Use of treated effluents for irrigation should be encouraged.

7.         Energy audit and trainings should be utilized

8.         Best available technologies should be utilized.

9.         Distilleries should be encouraged to implement ISO 14001.

Against these findings and recommendations these has been a considerable improvement in environmental performance in 2006-2007. 24 distilleries were common to both the phases of the study, 22 of these have improved by way of total environmental performance, 12 in terms of capacity utilization, 18 in terms of molasses consumption, 17 in terms of average recovery of alcohol, 18 in terms of water consumption, 10 (out 0f 22) in terms of total energy consumption, 14 (out of 22) in terms of total renewable energy consumption, 17 (out of 22) in terms of spent wash generation, 13 (out of 19) in terms of biogas generation, 18 (out of 22) in terms of dilution ratio.(Tables 2 to 10.

The repeat study has also reiterated the findings of the earlier study that an improved environmental performance leads to better profitability. There has been a considerable improvement in per capita use of resources although there is still scope for improvement. Two industries have adopted technologies based on concentration of spent wash and burning the same in better to generate steam and power for the process. These units show improved performance on all the energy indicators and have no effluent issues. Some new units installed in 2006-2007 or later are based on this technology.

Download the full document here : Distillery_Rating_UP