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398 || AWSAR Awarded Popular Science Stories - 2019
Is All Well in Metropolitan Cities? Deep Inside It is Fuming!!!!!
Mr. Ajay S. V.*
Email: s.v.ajay.srt@gmail.com
T23 February 2019
he weekend was really not there in my face. With the annual day coming up in another 2 weeks and me being
the President of the Students Association, the days were totally packed. The annual cricket tournament was ongoing, and we (Environmental Technology Division) had a match in the morning. During the second half of the match, I got a call from one of my senior colleagues that continuous reports were coming in news channels about a massive fire accident at the largest municipal solid waste dump yard in Kerala – Brahmapuram. The news made me numb for a second because I was well aware of what could be the after effects of such an accident, and it took me into an
emotional dilemma. For every researcher, it is heartwarming to see an opportunity to validate his research work in a real environment, and the instance is coming to my life also. But ... should I be happy or sad?
About 960 million tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW) is getting generated in India every year, and its management and disposal are one of the greatest environmental problems faced by our nation today. CentralizedMSWtreatmentplantsaremissing in many municipalities across the nation, and with no successful models in place, the citizens are forced to find their own ways of waste disposal such as dumping it in open spaces and burning it. The unenclosed combustion of composite MSW can cause
* Mr. Ajay S. V., PhD Scholar from CSIR- National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, Kerala, is pursuing his research on “Inventorisation of Dioxins and Dioxin like Compounds from the Open Burning of Municipal Solid Wastes in India”. His popular science story entitled “Is All Well in Metropolitan Cities? Deep Inside It Is Fuming!!!!!” has been selected for AWSAR Award.