Case Study on Industrial wastes : Impact on society Neha Jaiswal,4th yr, Industrial Engineering S. R. K. N.
E. C,Nagpur ABSTRACT: Waste are substances or objects which are intended to be disposed or are required to be disposed off by the provision of national laws. Industrial waste is a type of waste produced by industrial activities, such as that of factories , mills and machines. Toxic waste, chemical waste, Industrial solid waste and Municipal solid waste are designations of industrial waste . These causes the waste landfills to be acknowledged as generators of adverse effects and a hazard for both environment and public health.
Companies need to be responsible with their industrial waste management and specifically their hazardous waste. The practices used currently in the collection, transport and storage of urban waste facilitate the multiplication and dissemination of the pathogenic agents and their accompanying breed i. e. insects, rats, crows, stray dogs.
The toughest challenge arises from the joint storage of hazardous materials (including toxic sludge, oil products, dyeing residues, metallurgical slag) and solid urban waste.This situation is likely to generate inflammable, explosive or corrosive mixtures and combinations; on the other hand, the presence of easily degradable household may facilitate the decomposition of complex hazardous components, and thus diminish environmental pollution. Another negative aspect is the fact that several recyclable and useful materials are stored in the same place as materials that cannot be recycled; consequently, these materials blend together and become chemically and biologically contaminated, which renders their retrieval rather difficult. INTRODUCTION:Environmental pollution is the major problem associated with rapid industrialisation, urbanisation and rise in living standards of people. Industrialisation has caused serious problems relating to environmental pollution. Therefore, wastes seem to be a by-product of growth.
On the other hand, with increasing demand for raw materials for industrial production, the non-renewable resources are dwindling day-by-day. Therefore, efforts are to be made for controlling pollution arising out of the disposal of wastes by conversion of these unwanted wastes into utilisable raw materials for various beneficial uses.The problems relating to disposal of industrial solid waste are associated with lack of infrastructural facilities and negligence of industries to take proper safeguards. The large and medium industries located in identified industrial areas still have some arrangements to dispose solid waste. The usual scenario is that the small scale industries dispose waste directly and hence making it difficult for local bodies to collect this waste. In some cities industrial,commercial and residential areas are mixed and thus all wastes are intermingled.
Therefore State Pollution Control Board(SPCB) and local bodies join hands for proper disposal of industrial solid waste. Industries generating solid waste have to manage such waste by themselves and for this they have to get authorised from respective SPCB’s. This co-ordination among local bodies ,industries and SPCB’s may lead to better management of Industrial Solid Waste (ISW). In order to provide guidance to the local authorities some relevant information are provided under this Case Study for a better understanding and awareness . ABOUT THE INDUSTRYThe industry has various units such as springs. All these plants work independently without interfering in any specific unit.
The case study mainly focuses the spring unit where the major waste generated was iron scrap and a semi-solid waste which served as inputs for some other purpose. The raw materials used are spring steel,grinding lubricants,quenching oil and water. The iron scrap accumulated is then stored and sold in the market whereas the semi-solid waste is further processed and used by other industries. Flow process of the manufacturing unit: Waste 1 Waste 2 Waste 3 PRESENT SCENARIO::INTEGRATED IRON & STEEL PLANT: The Furnace scales in industry are at present dumped in the surrounding areas of the steel plants making hillocks directly on the land. Although, the scales has potential for conversion into granulated slag, which is a useful raw material in cement manufacturing, it is yet to be practised in a big way. Even the use of slag as road subgrade or land-filling is also very limited.
WASTE SLUDGE & RESIDUES: Treatment of industrial effluents results in generation of waste residues which, if not properly disposed, may cause ground and surface water pollution.CURRENT PRACTICE OF INDUSTRIAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT Collection and Transport of Wastes: Manual handling of industrial waste is the usual practice in developing countries having very few mechanical aids for waste management. Wastes are shovelled by hand into storage containers and loaded manually into lorries. The people undertaking handling do so mainly by hand, picking out useful items, usually not even wearing gloves.
Although there may not be a health risk in handling clean waste paper, people handling waste without protective clothing are at risk when waste is mixed with chemical.Storage & Transportation: The storage of industrial solid waste is often one of the most neglected areas of operation of the firm. Very little attention is paid to proper storage and heaps of mixed waste piled against a wall or on open ground are a common sight in many factories. Concrete bays or disused drums are also often used for storage.
Whereas the sludges originating from holding tanks or interceptors do not present storage problems as no separate sludge storage is required, because the sludge is retained in the tank until sufficient quantities are collected.Waste is rarely covered, protected from pretreated in any manner. Waste is regarded as an unwanted product by firms and very often no senior person is assigned for its control. Transportation of waste is generally not by purpose-built vehicles such as skip-carrying lorries, but by open trucks. The wastes are not covered during transportation.
It is typical for the unit not to have any standing arrangements with one contractor, but to allow collection by whomever is the contractor quoting lowest rates.It is rare for special arrangements to be made for hazardous wastes; they are usually collected together with the other wastes. Contractors who carry hazardous waste do not need to be licensed, and consequently, there is little control over either the types of firms engaged in carrying hazardous waste or the vehicles used. Drivers are not given a list of precautions to be taken; there is no manifest or labeling system of wastes during transport. Fly-tipping is often prevalent and wastes are often taken to disposal sites inappropriate for the type of waste concerned.
DISPOSAL OF INDUSTRIAL WASTE:Industrial waste, whilst presenting the same disposal problems as domestic waste, also contains hazardous waste, thereby exacerbating the difficulties of disposal. Fortunately, the types of industrial wastes generated in a municipal area of a developing country are such that there are not usually large quantities of particularly hazardous wastes for disposal. In the past there has been little control over the disposal of industrial wastes; indeed, it has only been during the last decade that even developed countries have brought in legislation to curb the uncontrolled and environmentally unacceptable practices that were widespread.Without such legislation disposal is almost always by uncontrolled landfill at sites which often pose a threat of water pollution due to leachates. HEALTH CONSEQUENCES OF POOR INDUSTRIAL WASTE DISPOSAL The waste is considered toxic, if the concentration of the like iron or mixture of oil ,water and lubricants exceeds a specified value.
Although the levels of some ingredients may occasionally exceed the permissible level, the waste as such is considered to be toxic only if the average value of ingredients exceeds the toxicity level.Various criteria and tests are devised to determine the toxicity of a given substance. It is necessary to know the properties of the waste so as to assess whether its uncontrolled release to the environment would lead to toxic effects on humans or other living organism in ecosystem. This evaluation is carried out using criteria such as toxicity, phytotoxicity, genetic activity and bio-concentration. The potential toxic effects also depend on quantity of the toxic constituents.
Substances are classified as hazardous or otherwise depending on the dose, exposure, and duration of exposure.For a chemical to affect human health it must come in contact with or enter the human body. Wastes from non hazardous industries can at times produce health problems, not only among the workers and handlers of waste, but also among general population. WASTE SEGREGATION: Many wastes are mixtures of hazardous and non-hazardous wastes. Much of their contents may even be water. By segregating key toxic constituents, isolating liquid fraction, keeping hazardous streams away from non-hazardous wastes,generator can save substantial amounts of money on disposal or find new opportunities for recycling and reuse of wastes.
COLLECTION , STORAGE & TRANSPORT: The unsatisfactory state of storage of hazardous wastes can be remedied to a large degree by such low-cost measures as restricting access, fencing off the storage area to minimise any wind-blown nuisance, providing separate covered storage for putrifiable of hazardous wastes, and ensuring regular and frequent collection and dumping them not directly on ground but on a cement base so that the chemical constituents may not drain off and damage the soil. ALERNATIVES PRESENT:: DISPOSAL METHODS:For thousands of years, man has disposed the waste products in a variety of ways, the disposal method might reflect convenience, expedience, expense, or best available technology. There were no major ecological or health hazards associated with these practices until the last century. Explosive increase in the amount of waste produced and the indiscriminate dumping of hazardous industrial waste in the last few decades has created health and ecological crisis in many areas of the world. In many instances, the wastes dumped by one generation haunts the later generation in the form of ground water and subsoil water contamination.The recent discovery of volatile organic chemicals from landfills and industrial disposal ponds is disturbing because many of these chemicals are known or suspected carcinogens and are not removed easily by natural geochemical processes.
The risk of the contamination of groundwater supplies due to leachates from landfills depends on several factors; toxicity and volume of the contaminant generated at each site, the nature of the geologic medium underlying the site, and the hydrologic conditions dominant in the area.In the past, the least expensive and most widely used waste management option for both municipal and industrial waste has been the sanitary landfill, where wastes are compacted and covered with earth. Leachate is a liquid that is formed as infiltrating water migrates through the waste material extracting water-soluble compounds and particulate matter. The mass of leachate is directly related to precipitation, assuming the waste lies above the water table.Much of the annual precipitation, including snowmelt is removed bysurface run off and evaporation; it is only the remainder that is available to form leachate.
Since the landfill covers to a large extent and controls leachate generation, it is exceedingly important that the cover be properly designed, maintained and monitored in order to minimise leachate production. Fortunately, many substances are removed from the leachate as it filters through the unsaturated zones, but leachate may pollute groundwater and even streams.These leachates, can contain large amount of inorganic and organic contaminants. Therefore the industry gets rid of the waste as soon as possible as the waste is stored on the unit’s expenditure and it consumes land which can b used for production purposes. SUGGESTIONS: Personnel handling hazardous wastes should wear appropriate protective clothing.
Mechanical methods for handling waste should be adopted wherever possible, and proper education should be provided to the untrained and semi-trained labours The solutions to these problems lie in appropriate site engineering such as : i) Diversion of all water courses which flow across the site, (ii) Proper diversion of water by means of drainage (iii) Containment of leachate arising from precipitation by the construction of an Impermeable barrier where necessary, such as a clay embankment Works of this nature will obviously add to the cost of a sanitary landfill project. However, when capital expenditure is spread over the life of the project, the cost/ton of waste disposed might be less than for any alternative method of disposal.CONCLUSION: Companies who have no choice but to continue creating hazardous industrial waste due to the nature of their business need to ensure that they properly dispose of that material and are upfront an honest about the contents of their vehicles, their facilities and management of the waste. Industrial waste producers need to pay for the disposal of their materials and in particular, need to take caution in the way they dispose of hazardous materials.The more that citizens and government push for reform, the more companies will realize that they are accountable for their industrial waste. Many local governments provide counseling, consulting and recommendations to organizations on what they can do to better manage their waste and plan for a more environmentally friendly production processes.
----------------------- UNLOADING RAW MATERIALS GRINDING GAS CUTTING COILING QUENCHING TEMPERING GRINDING END GRINDING SHORT PINNING & COATING
