Environmental Chemistry and its Course Contents (1/4)

1.1-Solid Waste Management

A)-Solid Waste:

Unfortunately there is no proper management system for solid waste in Pakistan. People directly throw waste without proper treatment. This inadequate system ends into a large number of dumping grounds, open pits, and sewage canals. For better livings, people starts moving to urban areas, this is another cause of pollution. This migration overburdens the urban infrastructure and public services.

B)-Growth in Solid Waste Generation:

It is estimated that 53,666 tons is the waste generation in Pakistan. This increase in the amount occurs due to the influx in social activities. Different cities of Pakistan show different growth rates according to their population. This graph shows the growth rate of solid waste in different cities of Pakistan.

No Cities Generation of waste Rate Waste in tons per day Waste per year

1 Islamabad 0.578 3.67 867.8 300,688

2 Karachi 0.65 2.99 577.3 776,8443

3 Faisalabad 0.98 4.78 840.5 267,086

4 Narowal 0.342 3.001 950.3 553,975

5 Sialkot 0.830 2.76 803.3 677,356

6 Multan 0.446 3.974 36.4 13,097

7 Hyderabad 0.86 2.01 679.0 6,747

8 Rawalpindi 0.378 2.64 16 76,376

Total 10,296.4 3,877,224

C)-Solid Waste Management strategies:

In Pakistan the solid waste consists of plastic, rubber material, metal straps, extracts of paper, textile waste, domestic and various other kinds of waste. The solid waste compositions in major cities of Pakistan are as follow;

Composition %

Food waste 9.4% to 20%

Organic waste 26.6% to48.9%

Fibers 10.3% to 15.4%

Recyclables 13.5% to 28.44%

Recently, there is no proper management system to carry the waste and manage its production. But the scientist develops certain new techniques to overcome this problem. Scavengers play an important role in managing the waste by separating the recycle material. Open burning of waste is totally restricted as it directly adds pollutants to the environment. Same way open dig holes are replaced by sanitary landfills. Government organizations allow the municipal committees to spend much of their budget in the management system to clean the environment and reduce pollution. For this regards they develop certain policies also.

D)-Legal Aspects of Management:

In developing new plans and strategies to manage waste, “Planning and Development” department plays an important role. Under the theme of “Save Environment” the federal ministry of environment is organizing new policies and programs for the protection of environment and work on solid management system. These organizations also forced the departments to implement such instructions on industrial, domestic and social level.

In Pakistan we noticed that the Municipal organizations are the responsible one but the solid waste problem is beyond their capacity to handle waste. Different teams are organized to cope with this problem and find adequate ways to manage and collect waste from different areas of Pakistan.

E)-Policies:

The federal ministry of environment provides a proper framework for the protection of environment. It assists the local organizations and authorities to implement such schemes, for the proper disposal of waste and set standards regarding disposal. In the same way the Pakistani Government enforced the Pakistan Environment Protection Act, for legal implementation of the organized policies. Its function is to assist the local organizations, agencies and authorities to develop a proper scheme for the disposal of waste far away from commercial areas.

Currently, we are dealing with some legal rules and policies that are provided by Pakistan Environment Protection Act are as follow;

• The Cantonment Act 1924 that are provided under section 132 is currently deals with the disposal system of waste.

• Draft Hazardous Substances Rules of 1999

• Local Government issued a legal ordinance which contained provisional act.

• Pakistan Environmental Protection Act restricts the direct disposal of waste that violates the National Environment Quality.

F)-Requirement of basic rules and Guidelines:

Some rules and regulations are decided to implement under the authorities. These are as follow;

• Some important rules regarding recycling process

• Rules that manage solid waste

• Eco-friendly techniques to overcome the major problems of environment

• Implementation of basic guidelines for sanitary landfill models

• Adoption of innovative recycling techniques

• Implementations of rules for the collection and management of waste

• Promotion of public awareness