{"id":34907,"date":"2018-10-31T14:22:27","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T08:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=34907"},"modified":"2018-10-31T14:22:27","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T08:52:27","slug":"from-waste-to-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/from-waste-to-health\/","title":{"rendered":"From waste to health:\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/columns\/swachh-bharat-mission-solid-waste-management-from-waste-to-health-4862741\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From waste to health<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Context<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Compost from biodegradable municipal solid waste will simultaneously clean up our cities and improve agricultural productivity and soil quality of our farms.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>The challenge of municipal solid waste management<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">processing and treating the different streams of solid waste, <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">safe disposal of the residuals in scientific landfills<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> instead of focusing on waste management for health, we have got sidetracked into \u201cwaste for energy\u201d.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Benefits of compost and city compost<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">City compost from biodegradable waste provides an alternative to farmyard manure (like cowdung) <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">its rich microbial content that helps plants to take up soil nutrients.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It provides an opportunity to simultaneously clean up our cities and help improve agricultural productivity and quality of the soil.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The water holding capacity of the soil which uses compost helps with drought-proofing, and the requirement of less water per crop. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because of good water retention, farmers do not need second or third sowing if rains fail. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By making soil porous, use of compost also makes roots stronger and resistant to pests and decay.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Farmers using compost therefore need less quantity of \u00a0pesticides. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">City compost had advantage of being weed-free unlike farmyard manure <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">City compost is also rich in organic carbon, and our soils are short in this. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">City compost can also be blended with rock phosphate to produce phosphate-rich organic manure<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The addition of compost or organic manure reduces nitrogen wastage, as its humus absorbs the nitrogen and acts like a slow release sponge.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fortification of soil with organic carbon is an essential element of integrated plant nutrient management as it increases the productivity of other fertilisers. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Efforts from the side of administration for promoting organic manure<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the Supreme Court had directed fertiliser companies in 2006 to co-market compost with chemical fertilisers.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Solid Waste Management Rules 2016 make the co-marketing of compost mandatory.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To provide incentive for co-marketing to the fertiliser companies, in February 2016, the Government of India\u2019s Department of Fertilisers notified a policy to promote the use of city compost by offering Market Development Assistance (MDA) of Rs 1,500 per tonne on the purchase and distribution of city compost through the rural outlets of these companies.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2017, the MDA scheme was extended to compost manufacturers on bagged compost.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Some problems<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The MDA scheme has not worked well because of its administrative complexity.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The high volume but low value nature of compost also makes it not so attractive for fertiliser marketing companies to promote its use. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While compost manufacturers must meet the quality specifications laid down by the Fertiliser Control Order (FCO), it is equally important for fertiliser companies to make vigorous efforts to market city compost.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Conclusion<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Urban \u00a0India generates approximately 70 million tonnes of municipal solid waste in a year, and assuming 15 per cent yield of compost, this would provide 10 million tonnes of city compost annually. Quite apart from cleaning up the cities of biodegradable waste, this would be a major and sustainable contribution to improving the health of our soil without further damage by excessive chemical inputs.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From waste to health:\u00a0 Context Compost from biodegradable municipal solid waste will simultaneously clean up our cities and improve agricultural productivity and soil quality of our farms. The challenge of municipal solid waste management processing and treating the different streams of solid waste, safe disposal of the residuals in scientific landfills instead of focusing on&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/from-waste-to-health\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">From waste to health:\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704816835},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}