Waste-Wise Cities

NITI Aayog, in collaboration with Centre for Science and Environment has released a report titled as “Waste-Wise Cities: Best practices in municipal solid waste management”. It is a comprehensive knowledge repository on the management of waste in Indian cities.

Waste Generation in Urban Areas

• The report states that urban regions of India generate 1,30,000 to 1,50,000 metric tonne (MT) of municipal solid waste every day, which totals to about 50 million MT per year. It is projected to increase to 125 million MT a year by 2031.

Per Capita Waste Generation

• The per capita per day solid waste generation estimated using the current (2021) estimated population and daily floating population in the 28 cities is in the range of 0.19–0.99 kg with an average of 0.39 kg.

Changing Composition of Waste

• Along with increasing quantity of waste, the composition of waste is changing from biodegradable waste to non-biodegradable waste. As standard of living and incomes of people rise, the composition of waste has changed from high percentage of biodegradable waste to Plastics, Paper, Metal, Glass, leather, battery, chemicals etc.