India's answer to the mounting landfill problem: Bio-mining and Bio-remediation

The smelly garbage mountains in our cities—with hawks hovering over them and stray dogs, cows and rats wandering at will—are the greatest reminders of our irresponsible attitude.

Years of neglect and indiscriminate dumping of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), generated from households and bulk waste generators like apartment complexes and hotels, formed these massive mountains. Many countries practise open dumping as a final disposal method for MSW, which not only causes surface water pollution, but the leachate (dark liquid) discharge from the dumpsite also pollutes the groundwater irreversibly. A dumpsite containing 0.1 million tonnes of waste reportedly has a potential to generate 2,770 tonnes of methane every year, which is equivalent to 69,250 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. Methane is estimated to have a global warming potential that is 84 times greater than carbon dioxide. To make this worse, methane in the landfills is particularly dangerous-often auto-ignites, causing fires in dumpsites and generating smoke and emissions, thereby causing severe air pollution.

What is bio-mining?