By Indira Aryal

Kathmandu, Jan. 2: Open burning of waste is a dangerous but an avoidable practice, experts said.
But burning waste has been popular among the denizens, especially in winter when the temperature plummets sharply in the Kathmandu Valley.
Across the world, various methods and technologies have been adopted to convert waste into energy but in Nepal none of the concern authorities are found working on it, said environmentalist Bhupendra Das.
“We must identify which technique suits best to minimise the practice of burning the waste in the valley,” he added.
According to Associate Professor at TU Teaching Hospital Dr. Niraj Bum, air pollution in the Kathmandu Valley is 25 times higher than WHO standards and air pollution caused by the waste burning is 100 times higher.
Dr. Bum said that the air produced from burning plastics and other wastes could cause asthma, COPD, heart disease, pneumonia and bronchitis. He also said that public awareness was essential to stop such practice.
Making policies alone cannot make the people aware of the bad consequences of such practice, he added.
Some 1.1 billion of tonnes of waste, more than 40 per cent of the world’s garbage, is burnt in open piles, contributing more emission than is shown in regional and global inventories, Dr. Bum said.
Carbon dioxide is the major gas emitted by trash burning, he added.
About 10 per cent of mercury emission comes from open burning of waste as well as 40 per cent of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Such pollution can cause lung and neurological disease and has been linked with heart diseases and some cancers.
Burning the waste produces air emissions, including carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), and nitrogen oxides (NOx). Smaller amounts of more poisonous chemicals are commonly detected in the smoke: benzene, styrene, and heavy metals such as lead, mercury, and arsenic. These gases cause environment pollution and fuels global warming, experts said.
Burning waste is also the Kathmandu Metropolitan City’s (KMC) failure to manage the solid waste, Das said.
We have very poor management techniques to minimise the waste. More than 80 per cent of the waste is dumped at the landfill sites and out of it 3 per cent are burnt, Das added.
The country produces 2,000 tonnes of solid waste a day, and the Kathmandu Valley alone generates 500 tonnes of it.
If the waste is managed from the valley alone, it can generate up to 6MW of electricity, the experts said.
Das said that to stop the practice of burning such waste, re-using methods should be applied. The act related to the solid waste management should be implemented effectively, he added.
Saraswoti Pokharel of KMC said that they were working to separate the disposable and non-disposable waste in Kathmandu. She informed that those found burning waste in the city areas were punished according to the Solid Waste Management Act.
According to WHO, air pollution kills an estimated seven million people worldwide every year. WHO data show that nine out of 10 people breathe air containing high levels of pollutants.
From smog hanging over the cities to smoke inside the home, air pollution poses a major threat to health and climate, WHO said. The combined effects of ambient (outdoor) and household air pollution cause about seven million premature deaths every year, largely as a result of increased mortality from stroke, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer and acute respiratory infections.
More than 80 per cent of the people living in the urban areas that monitor air pollution are exposed to air quality levels that exceed WHO guideline limits, with low- and middle-income countries suffering from the highest exposures, both indoors and outdoors.
According to Human Rights Watch, 10 doctors who had engaged in a research in Beirut, Lebanon, said that the open burning of waste was causing respiratory illnesses.