VARIATION IN INCINERABILITY OF MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE IN INDIAN CITIES

Abstract

Municipal solid waste (MSW) management has become a challenging task in India for local government
authorities and concerned private agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) due to the quantum and
heterogeneity of the waste generated. With waste generation increasing at alarming rates and segregation at source
remaining an unattainable task, there is an imminent demand for an integrated waste management strategy. Biological
treatment techniques like composting have perhaps become unfeasible as the primary treatment route owing to the long
treatment durations spanning from at least 2-3 weeks to as high as 4-6 months. With daily generation rates as high as
9000 TPD in metros like Delhi, there is an evident need for a faster treatment technique while ensuring energy and
material recovery. As a result, waste incineration has perhaps, emerged as an undisputable element of integrated waste
management system owing to shorter treatment durations and low space requirement, as opposed to conventional
practices like composting and landfilling. However, being a technology with high monetary requirements, it becomes
mandatory to ensure its feasibility to prevent operational failures. While detailed composition and characterization
studies can facilitate this decision making to an extent, experimentation becomes tedious and erroneous. To expedite the
decision making process, a composite indicator, the i- Index has been formulated by the authors which can quantify the
incinerability of the MSW, and thus the feasibility of waste incineration process for waste disposal. The index
incorporates the potential environmental impact, energy recovery and fiscal aspect of waste incineration process in the
decision making. The current study is focused on the application of the i- Index for estimating the incinerability of MSW
generated in Ahmedabad, Patna, Bengaluru and Lucknow, cities whose MSW generation rates have increased by nearly
42.5%, 82.7%, 26% and 20% from 2011 to 4000, 1277, 5000 and 1500 TPD, as per latest reports from local government
authorities. With urbanization and economic growth increasing the MSW generation furthermore, the quantification of
incinerability of MSW from the study areas can help devise appropriate treatment and disposal strategy to handle the
mounting MSW. The study shall also help derive an incinerability based ranking of MSW generated in the study areas.