City boy sends ideas from Edinburgh to manage waste

Perturbed by the fast degeneration of his home-city, a Delhi boy doing research in University of Edinburgh has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to touch sanitation and waste concerns raised in his 'Man ki Baat' radio programme. He has also engaged the national Capital's civic agencies in this regard.

Shivam Mishra, 20, who follows earth science matters, after carrying out a detailed research project for the Edinburgh University, has suggested that the 2,600 community bins (dhalaos) at colony levels to be converted into mini-waste to energy units to solve the Capital and nation’s waste management problems.

 “We have to work on abandoning the mega landfill approach, with decentralised waste to energy plants at colony level. For example, Delhi has some 2,500 “Dhalao ghars’ (secondary collection centre) from where the trucks take the waste to the landfills. All these ‘Dhalao ghars’ can be turned into waste reprocessing centres with separate solution for waste management,” he said in his letter.

Global technologies
Enlisting the global technologies available for waste to energy plants, Shivam wrote in his letter that these units were needed not just to generate energy but to save the water, air and land in the cities.

“We need a policy to mandate all discoms to procure at least 0.25 per cent of their energy through waste to energy plants to make our cities waste free,” he wrote in his letter to Modi and the municipal corporations which manage about 9,500 metric tonnes of garbage daily.

Mishra, son of  senior Delhi government bureaucrat O P Mishra who is serving as additional secretary (Home and Law), has also given suggestions on polluted Yamuna.|

Havoc with floodplains
“We are playing havoc with our flood plains. We talk of pollution in rivers, but I am worried that with fast melting glaciers and damaged flood plains, we may not have any Yamuna at all. And might contaminate our flood plains, one of the greatest assets of India,” Shivam said in his message to the decision makers.

While studying in Shri Ram School in Delhi, Mishra in 2011 used an RTI application to save a forested area in Rajokri Village from destruction. Later, 200 saplings were planted by the forest department and converted into Rajokri Protected Forest.
Mishra, who is pursuing BSc Honours Geology in University of Edinburgh, plans to launch a website to mark the India turning 70 years on August 15.

“The website www.70yearsofindia.com will be launched formally from Edinburgh as a final year student has decided to launch a website to mark India’s turning 70 years on 15 August 2016.

The website aims to highlight the issues of population growth, water resource management, turning India into a super economic power and policy paralysis.
Shivam also wants to trigger debate on the issue of why there is a sharp increase of aggression in Indians.

DH News Service