Waste management is the responsibility of municipal bodies in urban India. But these local bodies have inadequate waste-disposal facilities and poor resources.

The excess dumping of waste at the Dhapa ground has been a cause of concern for the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. The civic body is looking for an alternative dumping ground as Dhapa is gradually becoming inadequate to cater to the vast amount of waste that the city produces every day. This is a problem for almost all major cities in India and is likely to aggravate in the future since by the middle of this century, more than 60% of India’s habitants will reside in urban India. India ranks seventh globally in solid waste generation, with the present rate of SWG being 0.34 kg per capita per day; this is expected to increase to 0.7 kg per day by 2025. If this trend continues, India will generate 165 million tonnes of waste by 2030. Why do we generate so much waste? Do other countries also throw so much waste to their landfills?

Several countries have achieved progress in waste management, even reducing waste generation over the years. Sweden, for example, has drastically reduced the amount of waste dumped into landfills, from around 22% of municipal solid waste in 2001 to 1% in 2010. This means that only 42,000 tonnes of solid waste were ending up in landfills in 2010 in Sweden compared to 8,80,000 tonnes in 2001. The recycling rate of electrical and electronic equipment waste hovers near 75% in Sweden, whereas India recycled only 32.9% of the e-waste generated in 2021-2022. If Sweden can achieve this level of recycling, why are we lagging behind? Recycling is a labour-intensive activity. Given the low cost of labour in India, unlike that of a developed country like Sweden, it is surprising that India has such a low recycling rate.

Presently, India generates more than 62 million tonnes of waste in a year, of which only 43 MT gets collected and 31 MT is discarded in wasteyards because only 12 MT can be treated before disposal. With increasing populations and urbanisation, waste management is now a serious problem in India. Waste management is generally considered the responsibility of local municipal bodies in urban India. But these local bodies have inadequate waste-disposal facilities, poor resources, and shoddy technologies for treatment. In India, the informal sector is primarily involved in waste collection and disposal, unlike some developed countries where it is an organised industry, and this leads to inefficient waste collection and segregation. This not only causes inefficiency in the waste management process but is also harmful to the people who are at risk of exposure to dangerous chemicals and neurotoxicants, including lead and mercury, from e-waste disposal sites. India generates over 5.6 MT of plastic waste a year. There is little infrastructure to accommodate the recycling of the plastic waste generated every day in the country. Public awareness and participation in waste management are also abysmally low. Additionally, policies concerning waste management in India broadly focus on end-of-life waste management and there is little focus on reducing waste and maintaining the value proposition of material and components. The business environment is also not very conducive to developing businesses for goods and services that are dependent on recycled material since the supply chain is not developed yet and there is also a lack of incentives for downcycling.

India has launched Mission Lifestyle for Environment, which encourages individuals to adopt environmentally-friendly, sustainable lifestyles. This calls for nudging individuals to practise simple yet effective environment-friendly actions in their daily lives, gradually influencing industries and markets to supply environment-friendly commodities and generate demand for them. The Union budget of 2024-25 announced that water supply, sewage treatment and solid waste management projects and services for 100 large cities would be promoted through bankable projects in partnership with state governments and multilateral development banks. These projects will also promote the use of treated water for irrigation and for filling up tanks in nearby areas. On the regulation front, there are certain stipulations regarding the waste management of cities, including rules on plastic waste management, e-waste management, construction and demolition waste management, and policies on metals recycling. NITI Aayog, in consultation with the ministry of environment and forest and climate change, identified 11 areas to facilitate transitioning from linear to circular economy and to give an impetus to India’s Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan. The identified areas were Municipal Solid Waste and Liquid Waste, Scrap Metal (ferrous and non-ferrous), Lithium Ion batteries, Tyre and Rubber Recycling, Gypsum Waste, End-of-life Vehicles, Electronic Waste, Toxic and Hazardous Industrial Waste, Used Oil Waste, Agriculture Waste and Solar Panels. Municipal solid and liquid waste management has received a significant push with the launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban in 2014. Significant progress has been made in utilising fly ash and slag generated in the steel industry and other sectors. The ministry of consumer affairs has set up a committee to come up with a Right to Repair framework under which farming equipment, mobile phones and tablets, consumer durables, automobiles and automobile equipment and so on are covered.

There is an urgent need to increase our policy focus on ‘reuse or recycle’, which would gradually reduce the generation of waste commodities. In this circular economy approach, products need to be designed in such a way that waste and pollution are minimised. This involves considering the full lifecycle of a product through strategies like reuse, repair, remanufacturing, and recycling. The goal is to keep materials and products circulating in the economy for as long as possible.

There is a significant need for research and development focussing on reuse and recycling. Waste-to-energy programmes must be encouraged where different methods of incineration, gasification, pyrolysis, anaerobic digestion and others are explored. It is often found that manufacturers retain proprietary control of spare parts, including their design. Warranty cards of several products mention that getting them repaired from an outfit not recognised by the makers would lead to customers losing their warranty benefit. Regulations are needed to make repairing easy and cost-effective. Publication of manuals for complex electronic and electrical goods must be made mandatory to help users or local repair shops make repairs easily.

India needs to focus on the mantra of ‘Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle’ to meet the challenge of urban waste management.

Chetana Chaudhuri is a Fellow and Sanjib Pohit a Professor at the National Council of Applied Economic Research. Views are personal.