problem of Landfill in India

Does garbage pollution have a negative effect on city's environment?

Garbage in a city can cause a variety of problems. These include
contamination of ground water, surface water, and even the cities
water system, if leaching of chemicals occurs from the disposal site.
A lowering of pH by these chemicals can add to acidity problems in the
water and even the air. Landfills can also cause sealing of the
ground surface, which will lead to flooding.

Disposal areas attract wildlife, such as rats, dogs and birds.
Besides causing a danger of wildlife/ human interactions (birds flying
into planes, or dogs in roaming in packs) these usually bring diseases
with them, such as plague, meningitis, pneumonitis, and
toxoplama-gondii.

Another problem is the accumulation of infectious or toxic waste
items. May people in cities do no destroy dangerous items, they often
just throw objects that should be incinerated. This can create a heap
of items as dangerous as medical waste or toxic and corrosive
chemicals. Often there are infectious diseases associated with
medical waste that can cause or heighten an epidemic.

In short, garbage pollution in a city causes a myriad of problems.
These include but are not limited to contamination of air & water,
increased disease risk, attraction of undesirable wildlife, soil
sealing and flood problems.

INTRODUCTION:
Garbage accumulation in cities has been a problem all over the world
for centuries. Garbage is created both at a government level and at
the level of individual households. Landfills have always been
regarded as sources of disease and offensive odors. Early in their
development cities generally have few disposal regulations and
individual homes disposed of garbage in their own unique ways.
Therefore, means of disposal were based on the culture, background,
occupation and size of each of the different households (Crane, 2000).
Throwing away garbage is always a balance between hygiene and thrift
(Lucas, 2002). Used material may come in handy at a future date, but
in the mean time, storage of it causes certain problems, not the least
of which is sanitation concerns.

Cities must regulate garbage disposal in order to educate the
population and have their cooperation. Most people are willing to
cooperate with disposal regulations as long as they don’t have to live
with the results of garbage accumulation (Anand, 1999). In order for
a city to remain clean of the accumulation of garbage there is a
balance to be had between the participation and cooperation of each
household and the city government. Each urban area is going to have
unique concerns and decisions to be made as to the best way of
disposing of garbage (Dewess and Girlich, 1999).

Clearly Cities are complex ecosystems. They have to balance all of
the uses by all of the citizens and institutions. One of the major
problems is facing a city is the disposal of waste, in this
discussion,, specifically garbage. There is no solution to the
problem unless the infrastructure of a city is designed to address
this problem (Savage and Kong, 1993).

One study looked at the differences between soils of urban and
non-urban area. The soil pattern of urban areas is strongly
influenced by human activities. Specific characteristics of urban
areas soils were lowered ground water table and soil surface sealing .
Soil sealing, is the process of soils becoming less permeable to
water. This causes depletion of ground water as well as creating
flooding problems on the surface (Schleuss, Wu, and Blume, 1998).

Since February 1, 1998, Calcutta is the first city in India to
segregate medical clinical and biomedical wastes at hospitals. This
prevents hazardous, sometimes toxic and infectious wastes from going
into dumps with ordinary garbage. But, this means that other cities
in India are still disposing of such infectious and toxic wastes in
the land fills. It also means that the Calcutta landfill has such
wastes in them which were deposited prior to 1998 (Calcutta Calmanac).

In short, garbage pollution in a city causes a myriad of problems.
These include but are not limited to contamination of air & water,
increased disease risk, attraction of undesirable wildlife, soil
sealing and flood problems.

WATER POLLUTION:
Rain water percolates through garbage. The runoff from the rain will
then become contaminated by the sewage, sediment, chemicals and
diseases that are contained by that garbage. It is therefore
necessary for garbage dumps to either be waterproof or clear of water
born contaminants. Or, a better solution is to have garbage disposal
not present in the water shed of the public drinking supply. This is
more a concern in many developing countries than in countries that are
more economically advanced. Socio-economic factors make it very
difficult to solve these types of urban drainage problems (Silveira,
2002)

Inappropriate disposal of sewage and garbage has led to the
substantially deterioration of ground water. Unfortunately, the
growing population and inadequacy of many municipal water supplies has
led to the exploitation of ground water for public drinking water.
Bacteria is often found in the ground water of urban areas due to the
sewage and garbage dumps (Hussain, et. al, 2001).

Various Leachates from municipal solid wastes in certain urban areas
are also found to be a substantial problem (Hamed, et al.). In many
cases, the leachats are getting into the surface water, ground water
and the public drinking supply.


HEALTH:
There have been a variety of studies done that show health
deterioration in areas where there is not proper access to garbage
disposal (Monteiro, 2000). There are a variety of diseases that are
shown to be at least exacerbated, if not caused by the presence of
open garbage, or inadequate garbage landfills. FRENKEL, et al,
(1995), found a serious problem with Toxoplasm-gondii. Pneumonitis,
induced by avian antigens was found by Carrillo-Rodriguez, et al,
(2000), to be primarily associated with garbage dumps. Amoebic
diseases have been found concentrated in the soil and in the air in
greater proximity to urban garbage dumps (RIVERA, et al., 1994). And,
the disturbing phenomenon of “Biofilms” have been shown to form from
urban water sources. It is a film that forms inside such places as
dental instruments. It is from the concentration of free-living
amoebae that is in the water supply, some of which are potential human
pathogens (Barbeau and Buhler, 2001).


EFFECTS ON URBAN WILDLIFE:
It has been shown by many researchers that garbage dumps often attract
both wild and feral animals. Urban dumps create an environment that
will cause the accumulation of unhealthy concentrations of wildlife.
Often, it creates situation where garbage eating species will out
compete the native species, that eat native vegetation. Thus, the new
garbage eating species replace the native species. (Clergeau P et
al., 1998, Blair, 1996).

Clearly, as stated before, these high concentrations of certain
animals bring and spread diseases to the people in the areas.
Meningitis, pnumosistis, the black plaque, are all diseases that are
carried by the types of animals that are attracted to garbage dumps.
Also, are problems with bacteria and nutrient contamination from high
population concentration. That doesn’t even address the nuisance
factor. High concentrations of birds and rodent populations leave
high concentrations of feces and other residue. They also cause
problems by their presences in numbers. Feral dogs, which are
attracted to dumps often form into packs, which can be very dangerous.

Dumps are also not healthy for the wildlife themselves that visit
them. Many types of garbage is eaten or explored by urban wildlife
will cause entrapment or painful deaths.


REGULATION:
Many cities around the world are attempting to regulate garbage
disposal in a variety of ways. Some f the ways of reducing garbage is
by recycling and reusing as much as is feasible. Many urban areas are
attempting to encourage that. Another way is to make it easy to
properly dispose of garbage. Or to make it very expensive, or
difficult to improperly dispose of it. Many areas are prohibiting non
recyclables in certain products. Others are making it illegal to
dispose of certain dangerous items without the proper authorization.
Calcutta, India is an example of a city that is strongly creating and
enforcing legislation to control garbage disposal. (Calcutta Calmanc).

SOLUTIONS:
Rather than control garbage disposal through negative legislation,
there are many people attempting to come up with positive solutions to
this problem. Cohen, promotes a plan, in New York City, which is
sponsored cooperatively by the city and the state, to build
high-temperature incinerators that generate electricity. This way,
the garbage no longer is a disposal problem, it is instead an energy
source (Putting Garbage to Good Use).

CONCLUSION:
Garbage pollution is a serious problem in urban areas. Disposal has
been a concern of urban governments since the first city. It can
cause a myriad of problems for the citizens and wildlife in the urban
area. These range from creating an unpleasant atmosphere to creating
a center for disease infection, to altering the environmental quality
of the water, soil and native populations.