Common
effluent treatment
plants aim to collect the
waste of individual units from an
industrial estate and
treat it at a common location.
Pollution from small-scale
industries has grown by leaps and bounds. So, common effluent treatment plants were set up to treat tannery wastes in Tami Nadu, textile wastes in the desert town of Pali and industrial waste near Hyderabad. The pollution from industrial estates is also responsible for the pollution of the Yamuna.
The stick for most common effluent treatment plants has been the promise of closure and the threat of the courts taking action. The carrot has been potential savings in cost as compared to setting up individual effluent treatment facilities. There are tremendous economies of scale in wastewater treatment — it is much cheaper to treat larger amounts of waste.But it not only about money.Andit is not enough to physically set up a plant. There is much more to the economy of common waste management in our industrial estates.
#1 Who is the polluter? This is the most critical question. Without regular and accurate surveys, new industries will not be added to the list of polluters and charged for treatment of effluents.
#2Who will pay for the cost? Many plants have been constructed but are never actually used. These plants fail because industries never actually send the effluents to them for treatment, but dump them somewhere else.
#3 Will industries treat the waste before they send it to the plant? Technologies are available to treat the waste but they are not financially viable. In most cases the plants are designed to receive pre-treated waste. Individual industries have to treat their waste to meet certain specified norms before they send it to the plant. This is critical as the plants have been designed on this basis.
#4 What will happen to the technology if the type of waste changes? Pali is a classic case where technology of a plant failed to keep pace with the changes in the production processes of the industrial estates. The effluents turned to acidic from being alkaline. The treatment plants collapsed.
#5 Who is responsible for cleaning up? The polluting industrialists can claim that they have met the provisions of the pollution laws by paying the plant to take in their waste and to treat it. If the plant does not effectively treat the waste, who will be held liable? What is the legal provision for holding the management liable for the pollution caused by the plant? The government complains that the industries do not want to take responsibility. Buck-passing continues. Nobody takes responsibility for the efficient working of the plant.
How does one make them work? The choice of technology, however important, is not the only challenge ahead. The plants do not have the powers to set the dues or even to recover unpaid dues from the individual users. It is important that these plants do not become ways and means of circumventing pollution laws. A stronger and much more effective role of the monitoring agencies is needed. It is not the business of the government to run these plants. Their business is to see that these plants are run effectively, and that there is no diversion / dumping of the wastes generated.
More abstracts about the Article: For a good churn