Population and Municipal Solid Waste Generation in India

Contents

1. Population
2. Population Growth
3. Impact of Population Growth on Municipal Solid Waste Generation

1. Population

India is the second most populous nation on the planet. The Census of 2011 estimates a population of 1.21 billion which is 17.66% of the world population. It is as much as the combined population of USA, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Japan. The population of Uttar Pradesh, one among 28 Indian states is greater than that of Brazil, the fifth most populous nation in the world. India’s urban population was 285 million in 2001 and increased to 377 million in 2011. Indian urban population is greater than the total population of USA (308.7 million), the third most populous nation.
Appendix 1 (in the report here) lists 366 cities which represent 70% of India’s urban population and generate 130,000 tons per day (TPD) or 47.2 million tons per year (TPY) at a per capita waste generation rate of 500 grams/day. This implies the total MSW generated by urban India could be as much as 188,500 TPD or 68.8 million TPY. This number matches the projection (65 million TPY in 2010) by Sunil Kumar, et al. (17). Therefore, this report assumes that the quantum of waste generated by urban India to be 68.8 million TPY. The general consensus on amount of waste generated by urban India is 50 million TPY, which is very low in comparison to the current findings.

Figure 8. Total Population and Urban Population Growth in India

The six metro cities, Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru together generate 48,000 TPD (17.5 million TPY) of MSW. Currently, India has 53 cities with populations greater than one million, generating 86,245 TPD (31.5 million TPY), which is about 46 % of the total MSW generated in urban India. The remaining 313 cities studied generate 15.7 million TPY (43,000 TPD), 23% of the total urban MSW, only half of that generated by the 53 cities with million plus population.

2. Population Growth

Indian population increased by more than 181 million during 2001 – 2011, a 17.64% increase in population, since 2001. Even though this was the sharpest decline in population growth rate registered post-Independence the absolute addition during 2001-2011 is almost as much as the population of Brazil, the fifth most populous country in the world.
It is clear that the scale of populations dealt with in case of India and China are entirely different from any other country in the world. Indian urban population increased by 31.8 % during 2001 – 2011, which implies an annual growth rate of 2.8% during this period.

Figure 9. The urbanization trend in India

3. Impact of Population Growth on Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Generation

Population growth and rapid urbanization means bigger and denser cities and increased MSW generation in each city. The data compiled for this report indicates that 366 cities in India were generating 31.6 million tons of waste in 2001 and are currently generating 47.3 million tons, a 50% increase in one decade. It is estimated that these 366 cities will generate 161 million tons of MSW in 2041, a five-fold increase in four decades. At this rate the total urban MSW generated in 2041 would be 230 million TPY (630,000 TPD).

MSW Rules 2000 mandate “landfills should always be located away from habitation clusters and other places of social, economic or environmental importance”, which implies lands outside the city. Therefore, increase in MSW will have significant impacts in terms of land required for disposing the waste as it gets more difficult to site landfills (7). Farther the landfill gets from the point of waste generation (city), greater will be the waste transportation cost. The solution to reducing these costs and alternatives to landfilling are discussed in detail in further sections.

A 1998 study by TERI (The Energy Resources Institute, earlier Tata Energy Research Institute) titled ‘Solid Waste Management in India: options and opportunities’ calculated the amount of land that was occupied by waste disposed post independence, until 1997. The study compared the land occupied in multiples of the size of a football field and arrived at 71,000 football fields of solid waste, stacked 9 meters high. Based on a business as usual (BAU) scenario of 91% landfilling, the study estimates that the waste generated by 2001 would have occupied 240 sq.km or an area half the size of Mumbai; waste generated by 2011 would have occupied 380 sq.km or about 220,000 football fields or 90% of Chennai, the fourth biggest Indian city area-wise; waste generated by 2021 would need 590 sq.km which is greater than the area of Hyderabad (583 sq.km), the largest Indian city, area-wise (18) (19). The Position Paper on The Solid Waste Management Sector in India, published by Ministry of Finance in 2009, estimates a requirement of more than 1400 sq.km of land for solid waste disposal by the end of 2047 if MSW is not properly handled and is equal to the area of Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai together.