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Overview
During the past 30 years the industrial sector in India has quadrupled in size simultaneously, the major waste generators in India including the petrochemical, pharmaceutical, pesticide, paint, dye, petroleum, fertiliser, asbestos, caustic soda, inorganic chemicals and general engineering industries. |
The bulk of industrial pollution in India is caused by the small and medium scale industrial (SMIs) sector. A small scale unit is defined as any industry whose plant and machinery are valued more then 25 lakhs rupees but does not exceed 5 crore (Government is planning to increase this to 5 crores). Though the quantity of industrial waste generated by individual SMIs may not be large, it aggregates to be a large percentage of the total since almost 3 million SMIs are widely scattered throughout the country. SMIs account for over 40% of the total industrial output in the country and generate over 44% of hazardous wastes alone as compared to 13% generated by the large scale industry (Gulati 1997; B.M. Prasad,). Also SMIs normally do not budget for resources to meet regulatory standards. The rate of growth of SMIs has also exceeded that of the industrial sector as a whole. |
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| Government policies have been biased toward small industries as employment generators, even though small industries are highly polluting. The SSI policy has no thought on the environmental planning. Promotion of small enterprise is widely seen as a desirable way to achieve sustainable development; for that result, however, their pollution problems, among others, must be overcome. To deal with the effluent in these SSIs the concept of Common Effluent Treatment Plan (CETP) was introduced with a hope that not only it would help the industries in pollution abatement but also as a step towards the clean environment. |
| Accordingly the Ministry of Environment and Forests instructed various State Pollution Control Boards, to examine the possibilities of establishing CETPs in various industrial estates in the respective states. Even central assistance upto 25% of the total cost of the CETP is being provided as a grant to the common effluent treatment plant on the condition that the State Governments would give a matching contribution. The remaining cost have to be met by equity contribution by the industries and the loans from financial institutions. |
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The concept of CETP which was hyped as a solution to manage water pollution has failed because of the heterogeneous nature of the effluent from different industries. It has only compounded the toxic content to larger volumes. And also with the changing nature of effluent many toxic substances like organochlorines, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and heavy metals have found their way into the waste stream. The various standards formulated for inlet and outlet effluent has no mention of these toxic chemicals and other volatile fugitives. The management of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and inorganic residues in fluid form goes beyond the capacity of primary and secondary treatment in CETPs. Reverse Osmosis, Granulated Activated Carbon, Ultra-filtration, ion exchange and other tertiary treatment methods which could be effective in this case are not used by CETPs mainly for economic reasons. This concept also faced many operational and institutional problems as many participating industries started withdrawing from the scheme. |
| With the growing pace of industrialization these CETPs are unable to cater to the need of the industrial clusters, which has resulted in bypassing the treatment and directly discharging the untreated effluent in water bodies. The sludge which get settled in aeration tanks having concentrated amounts of heavy metals and organochlorines, is disposed openly as in the case of both Vapi and Kanpur CETPs. |
| World Bank is still promoting CETPs under "Pollution Prevention Programme" as a viable solution to control industrial pollution. Also in most of the water pollution cases the courts have given the ruling to abate the problem using this concept (M.C. Mehta vs Union of India 1987, Kanpur tanneries).This myopic vision about managing effluents with an end-of pipe technology has been ineffectual even in controlling the basic parameters of the effluents. |
| There is a need to approach this problem of waste generation at each stage of product life cycle, starting from the types of chemicals used, technology, final product, waste minimization and its proper disposal. The waste management hierarchy would seem to work best in individual waste-generator cases. Logically, after receptor-related treatment is ensured, waste minimisation efforts are taken up with the objective of progressively reducing the need for individual treatment. In India the paradox of starting backwards is legally enforced in that, no industry of the ‘Red’ or ‘Orange’ category can commence operations unless and until the end-of-pipe hardware is in place. Till this year, end-of-pipe pollution control hardware costs could be depreciated 100percent in the first year and import of ETP related equipment still get through with low duties. |
The same subsidy is not available for waste minimisation or preventive measures related hardware and software. These incentives coupled with command and control enforcement of standards, shifts the whole focus away from waste minimisation towards operation of treatment and disposal systems.
On the other hand “Clean Production” concept goes beyond “Pollution Prevention”, which traditionally advocates reducing toxic material at their source in manufacturing process. Here each stage of the manufacturing process is not viewed separately but holistically and calls for multi-pronged approach in dealing with the problem rather than just focusing on the extreme tail end. Clean production ultimately means the use of renewable energy and materials, the minimal use of resources, the design of sustainable products, the production of food in sustainable way, and the generation of waste that is benign and returnable into the production process. |
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| Clean production concept comprises of four main elements. |
| The precautionary principle: Under this principle, the burden is to proponent of an activity to prove there is no safer way to proceed, rather than on victims or potential victims of the victims to prove it will be harmful. |
| The Preventive Principle: Prevention requires examining the entire product life cycle, from raw material extraction to ultimate disposal. |
| The Democratic Principle: Clean production involves all those affected by industrial activities, including workers, consumers, and communities. Access to information and involvement in decision making, coupled with power and resources. |
| The Holistic Principle: There is a need to take a integrated approach to environmental resource use and consumption. We should be careful not to create a new problem while addressing old ones or shift the problems from one sector to another. |
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