News Excerpt:
The Supreme Court’s recent criticism of Solid Waste Management (SWM) in New Delhi highlights a critical issue. The national capital has more than 3,800 tonnes per day (TPD) of solid waste remaining untreated. This waste reaches landfills and threatens public health and the environment.
What is the status of Delhi’s SWM system?
- According to the 2011 Census, New Delhi had a population of about 1.7 crore, which is expected to reach around 2.32 crore by 2024 and 2.85 crore by 2031.
- Considering an average per capita generation of about 0.6 kg/day per person, the city generates approximately 13,000 TPD of waste.
- About 90% of the waste generated in the city is collected by the three municipal corporations:
- The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD),
- Delhi Cantonment Board,
- The New Delhi Municipal Corporation.
- About 50-55% of the waste generated in Indian cities is biodegradable wet waste; 35% is non-biodegradable wet waste; 10% is an inert component.
What about the processing capacity of SWM in Delhi?
- New Delhi has waste-processing facilities at Okhla, Bhalswa, Narela, Bawana, Tehkhand, SMA Industrial Area, Nilothi, and Ghazipur.
- These landfills, consisting of unprocessed wet and dry waste, generate methane gases, and leachates, and cause landfill fires, adversely affecting the surrounding environment.
- The accumulation of unprocessed waste in these landfills has led to a staggering 2.58 crore tonnes of legacy waste piling up over 200 acres of land.
- The MCD initiated biomining to reduce the amount of waste in 2019, this task will take another two to three years to complete.
What are the MCD’s challenges?
- Lack of waste segregation at source: Many households and commercial establishments don’t do this. As a result, unprocessed mixed waste enters landfills.
- Non- Availability of Land: Waste processing plants need large land parcels, of about 30-40 acres each, which is a challenge in Delhi. Delhi will need to partner with its neighboring States to set up a few of these composting plants.
- Public awareness of proper waste management practices is also lacking, contributing to littering and improper disposal habits,
- Lack of regular waste collection services in certain areas also adds to the buildup of waste as well as littering.
- A lack of coordination among various stakeholders leads to inefficient waste management.
What efforts need to be made?
- The quantity of waste is expected to increase in the coming years together with the per capita waste generation.
- The MCD should design a waste-management plan with a total design capacity of 18,000 TPD.
- Biodegradable wet waste should be composted or used to generate biogas.
- The design capacity of the wet-waste-processing system should be set at 9,000 tonnes.
- The capacity of composting facilities is around 500 tonnes per day, which means Delhi will need at least 18 composting or biogas plants to ensure no biodegradable wet waste reaches landfills.
- Non-biodegradable dry waste:
- About 2% will be recyclable, and this can be sent to recycling facilities.
- The remaining 33% won’t yet be recyclable.
- The non-recyclable dry waste fraction is called refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and consists of plastics, paper, and textile waste.
- This material has good calorific value and can be used to generate power in waste-to-energy projects. Although the cost of power generation tends to be slightly on the higher side.
- Decentralization of Waste Processing:
- States like Tamil Nadu and Kerala have set up decentralized Micro-Composting Centres (MCC) of 5 TPD capacity at the ward level. These MCCs manage about 20% of the city’s wet waste.
- Bengaluru has also set up ward-level Dry Waste Collection Centres (DWCC) of 2 TPD capacities each. These DWCCs can help manage about 10% of the dry waste.
Way Forward:
- Delhi’s SWM system should integrate decentralized options for both wet and dry waste, backed by large processing facilities to ensure all the waste generated is scientifically processed.
- The city must also ensure existing processing facilities operate at full capacity, while new facilities are built to ensure no waste goes untreated.
- Urban local bodies should also learn from best practices from other cities in India and abroad on efficient SWM processing.
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Biomining:
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