India's Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has issued guidelines to ensure that millions of tonnes of hazardous, municipal, industrial and agro-waste is properly recycled and used in cement plants as fuel.
The proposed guidelines will not only ensure that the waste is recycled but also help in tackling pollution, claims the CPCB.
"The production of cement in India is about 300Mta, for which estimated coal and raw material (limestone, iron ore, clay, bauxite) requirement are 50Mta and 450Mta, respectively.
"The country, therefore, has vast potential to utilise large quantum of wastes such as non-recyclable hazardous and other wastes, segregated combustible fractions from MSW or Municipal Solid Wastes (MSW) based Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF), non-hazardous industrial wastes, plastics wastes, tyre wastes, non-usable bio-mass etc. as an alternative fuel and raw material (AFR) in cement kilns," the draft noted.
The ‘Draft Guidelines for Pre-processing and Co-processing of Hazardous and Other Wastes in Cement Plants’ as per Hazardous and Other Waste (Management & Transboundary movement Rules) 2016' were made public by CPCB last week and all stakeholders, including the general public has been asked to give their comments and suggestions by 10 February.
The proposed guidelines are in line with the recently-notified hazardous waste rules 2016 which consider the prevention, reuse, recycling, recovery, utilisation, including pre-processing and co-processing prior to considering the option of disposal through incineration or secured landfilling.
As per official estimates, about 7.4Mta of hazardous wastes are generated in India, which include around 3.98Mta that can be used for energy recovery.
Similarly, "About 65Mta of municipal solid waste is generated in the country which contains about 15-20 per cent of non-recyclable Segregated Combustible Fraction (SCF) which can be utilised for energy recovery," the draft rules noted.
Moreover, about 200Mt of non-hazardous industrial wastes such as fly ash, dried sewage sludge, plastic and other packaging materials, date expired and off-specification FMCGs materials and food and kindred products, used pneumatic tyres, are generated in the country. These waste also have the potential to be used as a source for energy recovery.
In addition, a large quantity of agro-wastes that do not have the potential to be used as cattle feed can also be used for such plants, claims the draft document.
