86
A. Aich and S. K. Ghosh
made one of the priorities of Agenda 21. Agenda 21 is a 350-page document divided
into 40 chapters that have been grouped into four sections detailing the comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally, and locally and was adopted by
more than 178 governments.
The World Summit on Sustainable Development, or the ONG Earth Summit 2002,
took place in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002. This summit was convened to
discuss initiatives to be taken to accelerate the shift to sustainable consumption and
production, and the reduction of resource degradation, pollution, and waste. The
priority was given to waste minimization, recycle, and reuse followed by the safe
disposal of waste to minimize pollution. There specific attention was given to the
environmentally sound management of solid wastes.
In India, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climatic Change, first published
the rule ‘Municipal Solid Waste Management and Handling Rules–2000’ which
has been amended in 2016 and this has made mandatory the new methods of storage,
collection, transportation, processing, and disposal of MSW. But proper implementation of that rule requires the evaluation of the current process to understand whether
the methods being implemented are complying with the standards and the procedure
laid down in the Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules, 2016 of GOI and to identify
the lacuna in the methods being adopted. This can be assessed by introduction of the
system of waste management auditing. An audit not only brings out the shortcomings
in the system, but also points out the problems to be addressed. Developed countries have established auditing institution(s) and carried out audits on urban waste
management with regard to performance, compliance, risk, monitoring, existence
of waste policy, quality of implementation, etc. Auditing has become an increasingly popular tool to assess the environmental policies, quality of implementation,
compliance with national law and regulation, etc. In India, environmental audit was
introduced for the minimization of generation of wastes and pollution and a gazette
notification was issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests on March 13,
1992 which was amended later vide notification GSR 386 (E) on dated April 22
1993. This rule applies to every person carrying on an industry, operation or process
requiring consent to operate under Section 25 of the water (Prevention and Control
of Pollution) Act, 1974 or under Section 21 of the Air (Prevention and Control of
Pollution) Act, 1981 (14 of 1981), or both, or authorization under the Environmental Protection Act, 1986 (29 of 1986). Auditing on municipal waste management in
India, however, is very limited and found to be inadequate. In this study, a framework
for auditing of municipal solid waste management system has been developed by
critically examining the various steps of SWM practices in India.
2 Objective
To develop a framework for auditing of municipal solid waste management (MSWM)
system which will addresses the key issues of waste management system in India.
A. Aich and S. K. Ghosh
made one of the priorities of Agenda 21. Agenda 21 is a 350-page document divided
into 40 chapters that have been grouped into four sections detailing the comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally, and locally and was adopted by
more than 178 governments.
The World Summit on Sustainable Development, or the ONG Earth Summit 2002,
took place in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002. This summit was convened to
discuss initiatives to be taken to accelerate the shift to sustainable consumption and
production, and the reduction of resource degradation, pollution, and waste. The
priority was given to waste minimization, recycle, and reuse followed by the safe
disposal of waste to minimize pollution. There specific attention was given to the
environmentally sound management of solid wastes.
In India, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climatic Change, first published
the rule ‘Municipal Solid Waste Management and Handling Rules–2000’ which
has been amended in 2016 and this has made mandatory the new methods of storage,
collection, transportation, processing, and disposal of MSW. But proper implementation of that rule requires the evaluation of the current process to understand whether
the methods being implemented are complying with the standards and the procedure
laid down in the Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules, 2016 of GOI and to identify
the lacuna in the methods being adopted. This can be assessed by introduction of the
system of waste management auditing. An audit not only brings out the shortcomings
in the system, but also points out the problems to be addressed. Developed countries have established auditing institution(s) and carried out audits on urban waste
management with regard to performance, compliance, risk, monitoring, existence
of waste policy, quality of implementation, etc. Auditing has become an increasingly popular tool to assess the environmental policies, quality of implementation,
compliance with national law and regulation, etc. In India, environmental audit was
introduced for the minimization of generation of wastes and pollution and a gazette
notification was issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests on March 13,
1992 which was amended later vide notification GSR 386 (E) on dated April 22
1993. This rule applies to every person carrying on an industry, operation or process
requiring consent to operate under Section 25 of the water (Prevention and Control
of Pollution) Act, 1974 or under Section 21 of the Air (Prevention and Control of
Pollution) Act, 1981 (14 of 1981), or both, or authorization under the Environmental Protection Act, 1986 (29 of 1986). Auditing on municipal waste management in
India, however, is very limited and found to be inadequate. In this study, a framework
for auditing of municipal solid waste management system has been developed by
critically examining the various steps of SWM practices in India.
2 Objective
To develop a framework for auditing of municipal solid waste management (MSWM)
system which will addresses the key issues of waste management system in India.