With India littering its waste without sufficient treatment, it needs to set aside about 88 sq km of precious land — equivalent to the size of area under administration of New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) for landfills by 2050. As per a previous estimate, by 2050 about 50 per cent of India’s population will be living in urban areas, and the volume of waste generation will grow by 5 per cent per year. No wonder, garbage dumping grounds are filling fast. A decade or two later — besides water and electricity crises — our country is going to face a crisis of garbage. India has 18 per cent of the world’s population, but only 1.9 per cent of land area.
The report titled ‘Waste Management in India: Shifting Gears,’ jointly conducted by ASSOCHAM and global consulting firm PwC suggested that as such it is imperative to relook into present systems of waste management in the country.
“Urban waste management is one such burning issue which has emerged out of the said factors and has led cities and towns to crumble under piles of garbage left in the open (to rot) as we fail to manage our waste due to a mismatch in the requirement and availability of services to deal with the same,” the report said.
“Accordingly, the expected waste quantity we are looking at for the year 2021, 2031, and 2050 are 101 million metric tonnes (MMT) per year, 164 MMT, and 436 MMT per year, respectively. India is no exception in its concern about the per capita waste generation rate, though the present per capita generation of waste is only 300-400 gm/capita for medium cities and between 400-600 gm/capita for large cities. However, this is going to increase with the present trend of urbanisation and consumption patterns,” the report said. Alongside, the consumption of plastic is increasing. Per-capita consumption was 4kg in 2006, 8kg in 2010 and 11kg currently.
The report noted that waste generation of Class I cities (with population between 0.1 million and five million) in India has been estimated to be around 80 per cent of country’s total waste generation.
In Mumbai, only 10 per cent of solid waste material is treated in bioreactors. In Delhi, 50 per cent is treated. Of the 1.4 lakh tonnes of solid waste generated in our country per day, only 24 per cent is treated. Compare that to Sweden, where less than 1 per cent of solid waste generated by homes goes to landfills, and the balance 99 per cent is either converted to power or is recycled or composted.
As per the estimates of CPCB, annually around 7.46 mn metric tonnes (MT) of hazardous waste is generated from 43,936 industries in the country, of which land fillable waste is 3.41 mn MT (46%), incinerable 0.69 mn MT (9%) and recyclable hazardous waste is 3.35 mn MT (45%). It is presumed that about 10 to 15% of wastes produced by industries are hazardous and the generation of hazardous wastes is increasing at the rate of 2 to 5 per cent per year.
As per the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) 2014-15 Annual Report on implementation of Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2011, 7,88,999 MT of plastic waste is generated in the country (excluding the States/ UTs of Assam, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, lakshadweep, and Delhi NCR).
According to the report of the subgroup on plastic waste management, 10,000 tonnes of plastic waste is generated per day with an average of 5.6 kg/capita being generated in India which is estimated to grow by 8-10% per year. This clearly shows the potential of the plastic waste or recyclables market.
The report said that last two years witnessed a wave of cleanliness drives and some change in the Indian mindset with respect to waste management. The momentum should be utilised for the benefit of the sector and implementation of the rules and regulations should now be started on a serious note.
According to the report, this will eventually render the land unfit for any other use for as long as a half century before it can be stabilised for other uses.