Municipal Solid Waste Generation Quantity in Indian Cities

Urban India generates 188,500 tonnes per day (68.8 million tonnes per year) of municipal solid waste (MSW) at a per capita waste generation rate of 500 grams/person/day. The total waste generation figure is achieved by extrapolating the total tonnage of wastes documented for 366 cities (70% of India's urban population) in the table below.

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In 2001, there were about 104 cities generating MSW above 150 tonnes per day (TPD) and 295 cities generating above 50 TPD. The most comprehensive study on solid waste generation in Indian cities is "Assessment of the status of municipal solid waste management in metro cities, state capitals, class I cities, and class II towns in India", published in 2005 by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI). This study covered 59 cities. The study documented per capita waste generation values and calculated the total waste generated depending upon the population of respective cities.

Increasing solid waste generation in India cities and lack of disposal sites (Dumpsite at Pimpri Chinchwad)

Although the collection, transportation and scientific disposal of MSW in about 26 cities were covered in Service Level Benchmarking (SLB)" conducted by the Ministry of Urban Development (MOUD), the quantum of wastes generated in other cities has never been addressed. I observed a necessity to document waste generation in more cities and attempted to address that through this table. This table puts the waste generation in urban India at (above) 136,000 TPD at an average per capita generation of 500 grams/day. It presents the approximate waste generation values and per capita waste generation rates in 366 Indian cities for 2011 to be the largest of such compilations yet.

Method

The databases used to prepare this table were 

1. Report published on CPCB's website in association with NEERI

2. Database published by Ministry of New and Renewable Energy as "National Master Plan for Development of Waste-to-Energy in India" were used in this analysis. 

The following inconsistencies in the above mentioned databases were corrected before laborious data processing.

During the decade 2001-2011, municipal authorities in many cities were reorganized and they started representing new city limits. The city limits and hence the populations assumed by CPCB & NEERI report are revised in the present table. The report by MNRE was inconsistent in reporting the solid waste generation values for cities. For example, 46 cities had two different values at different instances in the same report and two cities had three different values. Selecting the per capita values from among these for the particular cities was the major challenge in this report. For example Bhubaneswar was reported to generate 261 TPD and  566 TPD, the second value being twice the first one. The cities were organized depending upon their population into twelve different classes and the per capita values were averaged excluding anomalies. The value which was the nearest to these averages among those having two or more values reported were chosen as the final values. These values were then compared to CPCB & NEERI values, in case of discrepancy, NEERI values were assumed.
The per capita waste generation values for 2011 were calculated by assuming a 1.33% yearly increase since 2001 and the urban population increase was assumed to be 3.4% per year since 2001.

Notes
This table needs to be revised once the Census 2011 data on the population of all these cities and the decadal urban population growth is published.

Expected changes would be a higher generation in Metros and Class 1 cities (due to a higher population increase) and a lower generation in other cities as compared to the values published here. Cities are arranged in descending order of tons of waste generated per day. Greater Kolkata generates 12,060 tons per day (TPD) and is the highest generator with a per capita generation of 660 grams/day. Port Blair, the capital city of Andaman and Nicobar Islands generates 760 grams of waste per person per day, the highest among Indian cities.

The table for waste processing technologies in India needs to be edited according to this data


Tags: India, urban, cities, municipal, solid, waste, MSW, generated, generation, tons, per, day, year, tonnes, TPD, TPY, NEERI, CPCB, 59, 366, 2011, 2005,