History of SWM Activities
History of ENVIRON Solid waste management activities:
I. Year-2004-2005:
SURVEY ON SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT:
A preliminary survey was conducted by a group of members of ENVIRON under the leadership of Amarjyoti Kashyap, president, ENVIRON in various zones of Assam in 2004. It was estimated that plastic waste of Assam is about 50,000 Kg/day; 15, 00,000Kg/month or 1, 80,00000Kg/year and in Guwahati alone was 5000Kg/day; 1,50,000Kg/month or 18,00000Kg/year.
As per the preliminary survey of ENVIRON there are about 5000 rag pickers in Guwahati and 50,000 in Assam who earning Rs. 20.00 to Rs. 200.00 per day.
As per the study conducted by a group of members of “ENVIRON”, about 15,000 People are directly engaged in the non biodegradable solid waste recycling business with about 500 nos. “Dump house” or “solid waste collection center” in Guwahati and around 1,00000 people are surviving their livelihood with more than 5,000 nos. “Dump house” in Assam.
There are several plastic recycling units are already there in Assam and Country as a whole. As per the survey conducted by ENVIRON there are 10 nos. of plastic recycling unit in Guwahati, 5 nos. in TInsukia 4 nos.in Silchar and 1 no. in Nogaon.
SURVEY ON HOSPITAL WASTE MANAGEMENT:
Nowadays everybody is concerned about the solid waste, industrial effluent and domestic sewage, which causing serious health hazard as well as pollution to the surroundings. In present situation most serious health hazardous substances are discharged from hospitals, nursing home, pathological laboratories etc.
A survey was conducted by the ENVIRON under the leadership of Amarjyoti Kashyap, president, ENVIRON. As per the survey report hospital/nursing home itself is becoming the major sources of various diseases.
In general, the methods and machineries used for treatment and disposal of hospital waste are as follows:
i). Incineration ii). Microwave iii). Autoclave iv). Hydroclave v). Sanitary land filling vi). Effluent treatment plant(ETP) vii). Needle cutter or destroyers and finally viii). Open dumping which is very harmful.
It is surprising that most of the hospitals and nursing home and pathological laboratories of Assam avoiding rules and regulation of the hospital waste management.
A brief survey was made in Guwahati to get a preliminary idea about the hospital waste and its management.
In Assam, specially in Guwahati there has been unpredictable growth of nursing homes and pathological laboratories in residential areas without any specific measures for waste management. They simply burnt out the solid waste to reduce the volume and effluent is directly drained without any treatment. Even most of the govt. hospitals and some private nursing home and pathological laboratories are following the open dumping practices of solid waste which causing serious threat to human health.
Finally it is observed by the ENVIRON that in Guwahati only a part of the medical units have been taking measures for the waste management, and only a few of them has the proper waste management facilities along with the waste management devices. Where, some are lacking even the most common vital waste management devices like Incinerator.