Earth Day was first proposed a day to honour the Earth and the concept of peace and later as an environmental teach-in for the United States. By the 1990s Earth Day had mobilised around 200 million people in 141 countries and had lifted the status of environmental issues onto the world stage.
This years theme for Earth Day is ‘OUR POWER, OUR PLANET’ – a call to focus on solutions we need to create clean, inexpensive, and unlimited energy for the entire planet through renewable solar, wind and other technologies – with the goal of tripling renewable energy generation over the forthcoming demi-decade.
As part of the slew of activities to commemorate this occasion a Teach-in was organised by the Madras Regimental Centre for the service personnel and their families.
Clean Coonoor with its waste management background mooted the idea of using waste as a source of renewable energy, through processes that convert waste materials into usable energy, typically electricity or heat – involving various technologies like incineration, gasification, pyrolysis, and anaerobic digestion.
Waste to Energy (WtE) can utilise various types of waste, including municipal solid waste (MSW), agricultural residues, industrial waste, and even sewage sludge.
It was also emphasised that in addition to renewable energy and energy recovery – WtE can reduce the amount of waste going to landfills, mitigating the environmental impact of landfilling, such as methane emissions.