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Waste Management: A Dream of Million Hearts in India
Ms. Debasree Purkayastha*
Email: debdutta.bio@gmail.com
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It was in 2013 when a small town girl got an opportunity to pursue her master’s degree in environmental engineering,a
specialization from thecivil engineering department at NIT Agartala. Subjects like water and wastewater engineering, air pollution, solid waste management formed part of the course. It was from the very first class of solid waste management taught by Dr Sumanta Chakrabarti, which attracted her the most and fuelled her passion to resolve the waste management issue, especially waste treatment and safe closure of dumping yard and made her strongly determined to work in the area of waste management. Upon further reading, concern for safe waste management disposal acted as fuel to the fire. On many weekends, between 2013-2015, she visited
dumping yards often, observed and thought of ways to rationally solve the issue. Soon, she realized that the waste disposal practices and waste treatment were weak in the state.
In her final year, initially, she took up the topic of “Safe closure of Hapania dumping yard”. Hapania dumping yard was Agartala Municipality’s old dumping yard and had been closed for quite sometime. Understanding the need to close it safely her supervisor Dr. Sumanta Chakrabarti suggested to her to conduct research on that topic. Initially, she studied about the ground-water level, socio- economic conditions, topology and other important aspects in and around the dumping site and carried out a risk assessment study. In the study, they found that the dumping yard had moderate hazard potential and needed
* Ms. Debasree Purkayastha, PhD Scholar from Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, is pursuing her research on “Waste Segregation and Treatment using Black Soldier Fly Treatment Technology”. Her popular science story entitled “Waste Management: A Dream of Million Hearts in India” has been selected for AWSAR Award.