Kolkata 14th July 2003. More than 235 groups and communities from 62 countries today took action against waste incineration and stood for developing a zero waste society to observe the 2nd Global Day of Action against Incineration at the call of the Global Alliance for Incineration Alternative GAIA). The affected people serve notice to their governments that time is running out on the controversial technology despite vigorous attempts by the incineration industry to repackage their burners as renewable energy or modern thermal systems for waste disposal.

As a part of the global movement against incineration today DISHA organised the symposium “TOWARDS A ZERO WASTE SOCIETY” at 3.00PM at Bangla Academy, Kolkata in collaboration with the West Bengal Municipal Association to highlight the issues involved in a sustainable and eco-friendly solution to the problem of waste management. Municipal bodies, organisations, peoples’ representatives, academicians and professionals took part in the meeting. The speakers highlighted the need and the practical aspects of a scientific and eco-friendly waste management system.

Mr. Amiyo Nandi, President, West Bengal Municipal association chaired the seminar and emphasised the need for developing good practices like source segregation, recycling and composting, discarding unscientific land-filling and polluting waste incineration.

Mr. Sasanka Dev, Secretary DISHA, explained that incineration of waste as a method of disposal stems from failure to recognise and utilise waste as wealth. Instead of recovering, reusing and recycling the immense value deposited in waste, he stressed, incineration destroys it and gives a short term and temporal solution at the cost of long term and permanent problems.

Mr. Prosenjit Roychowdhury, Kolkata Metropolitan Development Corporation stressed that a sustainable waste management system utilises the principles of 3Rs, i.e. reduce, reuse and recycle.

Dr. Santanu Jha, Chairperson, Kalyani Municipality and Mr. Debgopal Chakrabarty, Chairperson, Bhadreswar Municipality pointed out that source separation of biodegradables (compostables) and recyclables linked with appropriate composting and recycling facilities is the way to a sustainable solution of the waste problem.
Dr. Aloke Ghosh, Nodal Officer, Health Care Waste Management, Govt. of WB highlighted the typical problems of health care waste, the massive effort taken by the department to introduce the management system in a good number of hospitals throughout the state. He emphasised the need for material recovery and income generation from the hospital waste to sustain system.

Mr. Naba Dutta, Secretary, Nagarik Mancha, highlighted the issues related to industrial waste and toxic pollutants.

Mr. Pranab Roy, Eastern India Organics narrated his experience on the largest composting plant running by the waste dump site at the eastern fringe of Kolkata.

Mr. Diptarup Kahali, Scientist, All India Institute for Public Health and Hygiene described the feasibility of composting from municipal garbage.

GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives) is an expanding international alliance of individuals, non-governmental organization, community-based organizations, academics and others working to end the incineration of all forms of waste and to promote sustainable waste prevention and discard management practices. GAIA is committed both to ending incineration and to promoting alternative safe, economical and
just discard management systems. Organisations and communities at different parts of the world observed GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION today at the call of GAIA.

"With growing desperation to ensure the survival of their dying industry, incinerator pushers are scrambling to repackage and reinvent their technologies using various forms of greenwashing including referring to
incinerators as clean, renewable energy sources or claiming to have 'new' variations like pyrolysis or gasification for the same old and discredited process," said Ann Leonard, Co-Coordinator of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), which unites over 375 groups and communities fighting to end wasting and burning, from 77 countries.

GAIA today released the report "Waste Incineration: A Dying Technology," which explains why incinerators are an unsustainable and obsolete method for dealing with waste. The GAIA report concludes that incineration is a dying technology. As a waste treatment technology, it is unreliable and produces a secondary waste stream more dangerous than the original. As an energy production method, it is inefficient and wasteful of resources. As an economic development tool, it is a catastrophe, which drains money out of
local communities and creates scarce and often dangerous jobs.

"Today's actions are clear manifestations of the growing global resistance against incinerators and other dirty forms of waste disposal. With the possible exception of nuclear power, perhaps no other technology has stirred up such inflamed defiance from citizens and communities the world over. For this and other good reasons, governments around the world should pay heed and start implementing safe and sustainable alternatives to incineration," said Von Hernandez of Greenpeace, Phillipines.

Public opposition has killed many proposed and existing incinerators worldwide. For instance, a massive grassroots movement has defeated more than 300 municipal waste incinerator proposals in the United States in the last 15 years. In Japan, the most incinerator intensive country, public pressure has resulted in over 500 incinerators being shut down in recent years. Jurisdictions in 15 countries have passed partial bans on
incineration and one country, the Philippines, has banned all incineration.

Today's actions also coincide with the first day of the Seventh Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC 7) meeting of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). The Convention which has yet to be ratified by the Govt. of India aims to eliminate the most persistent toxic substances known to science, including the cancer-causing dioxins and furans.

The Convention identifies all waste incinerators, including cement kilns burning hazardous wastes, as major sources of dioxins and furans and polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs and recommends the use of substitute
techniques to avoid the generation of these unintentionally produced pollutants. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) reports that incinerators account for 69% of dioxin emissions worldwide.

This year's action surpasses the number of participating groups from last year's Global Day of Action that drew 126 groups from 54 countries.

NOTE:

The GAIA Report "Waste Incineration: A Dying Technology" is available for free download at www.no-burn.org The Report discusses the problems with waste incineration and explains viable alternatives to this outdated method for dealing with waste. The report further talks about the expanding repudiation of incineration across the globe, including incinerator bans and moratoria imposed in several places. Neil Tangri, formerly of Essential Action USA wrote the report for GAIA.

Sasanka Dev, Secretary, DISHA
20/4 SilLane,Kolkata700015, Phone& FAX 23283989, E-mail: fordisha@cal2.vsnl.net.in