Biotechnology for Zero Waste – Emerging Waste Management Techniques (Chaudhery Mustansar Hussain (editor) etc.)

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Nanobiotechnology – A Green Solution

Baishakhi De and Tridib K. Goswami

Indian Institute of Technology, Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, Kharagpur 721302, India

25.1

Introduction

Environmental pollution, whether it’s land, air, or water, is increasing at an alarming

rate and also the global consumption of finite resources. Random disposal of waste

in limited landfills is not only potentially hazardous for the mankind and the planet

but sometimes untreated valuable wastes are also being discarded. “Recycle and

reuse” is the basis of sustainability. Proper waste disposal protects the environment,

society, as well as persons involved in disposal works [1]. The global production

of municipal solid waste (MSW) in 2012 as reported by World Bank accounted to

1.3 billion tonnes and is expected to double by 2025 to 2.2 billion tonnes pa. United

States alone generated 250 million tonnes of MSW in 2012, of which the material

content is estimated to be around 136 million tonnes [1, 2]. Discarding enormous

quantity of waste in a limited landfill causes a great wastage of the intrinsic energy

value and also a loss in valuable material content that could have been recycled.

Before discussing on “zero waste economy” and the associated technologies that are

applicable for its attainment; some important facts on “waste” are highlighted. Waste

has a value and is produced in all classes of the society. If waste send to landfills is

recycled and reused properly, it can serve as a source of other useful raw materials.

Irrespective of social class, period, and time, all human society produce waste; in

other words, waste is an unavoidable outcome of the human society. Waste being

the result of human activities, its generation is always not inevitable nor should the

amount of waste necessarily continue to rise [2]. Waste generation may be from daily

consumption of households, food wastes, goods and materials in households, waste

generated in wide range of industries, e-wastes, nuclear wastes, and so on. Huge

amount of wastes are generated during the major festivals and ceremonies. Although

different waste management strategies are being trumpeted, but societal hierarchy

marks “working with waste” a low status occupation that is to be done by unskilled,

migrants laborers; waste is considered as socially contaminating. However, with the

passage of time, waste is always not “rubbish” but can be recycled and repurposed

thus providing a sustainable basis [2]. Rapid industrializations, accelerating global-

izations, affluence are literally exhausting the nonrenewable natural resources and

Biotechnology for Zero Waste: Emerging Waste Management Techniques, First Edition.

Edited by Chaudhery Mustansar Hussain and Ravi Kumar Kadeppagari.