In September 2022, The Shakti Plastic Industries published an article titled Plastic Waste Management in Mumbai wherein they stated that the city generated more than 9000 tonnes of plastic per day, of which only 10 to 15% was collected and recycled. The bulk of it is dumped and either burnt or goes into landfill.
Another organisation, the Green Communities Foundation, an NGO working since 2017 in waste management in Mumbai and its surrounding areas, has put the amount of Municipal Solid Waste generated by Mumbai at 11,000 tonnes per day and 9000 tonnes of this is on account of plastic waste.
The BMC’s own statistics for 2022 show that the city generates approx. 6400 tonnes of solid waste daily of which 73% comprises of food or wet waste and the balance 27% of all kinds of dry waste including 3.2% of plastic.
Whichever one of the above statistics is accurate is not the worrying issue; it is when one asks how is this waste being handled that the problems surface.
Several research articles speak about the various challenges that stem from the main issue of waste management in Mumbai – this blog aims to highlight the main arguments on the current processes, identify the gaps that are present and recommend solutions where possible.
The challenge in managing Mumbai’s municipal and plastic waste lies in both the upstream and downstream processes of the Solid waste cycle. This article will review the upstream processes as they operate currently and try to seek answers to the various challenges that have surfaced.
Upstream waste management processes arise from 3 areas primarily – domestic, commercial, and institutional.
The first challenge lies in the quality of these waste types. For example, domestic or household waste if properly segregated at source would require the households to ensure that they first segregate wet from dry waste; dry waste which includes plastic should be washed before it is trashed otherwise it cannot be recycled. Commercial waste which is primarily the trash from commercial establishments also needs segregation just as domestic waste.
The BMC environment report states that waste segregation increased from 65% in 2017-18 to 81% in 2021-22, however these statistics are based on waste that is segregated at the 55 dry waste segregation centres set up across the city. This does not account for the totality of waste segregation at a HH level across the city.
If one takes a deeper look at how waste is collected in Mumbai this will give a better understanding of how waste is segregated at a HH level.
Garbage collectors employed by various housing societies manually collect the waste generated at the household level and dump it in the garbage bin at specified street corners. There are around 5,800 community bins in the city. For a city with a nearly 3 crore population, not counting the various commercial and industrial establishments, is this nearly enough?
At the beginning of 2023, the BMC started collecting dry and wet waste separately across all the 24 wards in Mumbai. However wet waste is collected along 45 routes intended for select societies. Dry waste is still being collected on an ad hoc basis based on community needs. With the BMC claiming that 82% of waste is segregated at source, the question arises what happens to all this segregated waste if the collection runs are limited for both dry and wet waste? Additionally, what happens to the balance 18% of waste that remains unsegregated and hence not collected? As per independent statistics, (Shakti Plastic Industries), only 10 to 15% of plastic waste is collected and recycled.
I reiterate that Mumbai generates 6400 tonnes of waste every day of which 73% is wet or food waste. The remaining 27% comprises of all kinds of solid waste including 3.2% of plastic.
The generation of waste by individuals has been calculated depending on their socio-economic circumstances with a rich family generating approx. 4 to 5 kgs of mixed waste per day and a slum family accounting for close to 500 gm. per day. As per a Teri research article published in 2018, households generate the maximum plastic waste of which water and soft drink bottles form a large proportion. On average, Indians consume 11 kg of plastic every year, which for a household of 4 would account for 44 kg and 121 gm. of plastic per household per day.
In 2017, the BMC made waste segregation compulsory for large societies (more than 20,000 sq. feet area), bulk generators (more than 100 kg of waste per day) and new buildings built after 2007. With awareness campaigns being conducted, many complexes started waste segregation building composting units on their premises. To give their campaign a boost, BMC even declared a tax rebate for these societies in 2019. But this was mainly to handle wet waste.
However, post lockdown almost every society has stopped waste segregation. While areas like D Ward are focussing on the problem through awareness campaigns and through instituting a fee for non-segregation, the percentage of Mumbai that segregates its waste today is still well below the 50% mark and an area that needs urgent attention.
The second step in the urban waste management value chain is the collection and transportation of waste from the homes to various transfer points across the city from where the non-recyclable parts are transported to the dumping sites - Deonar (2350 TPD), Mulund (2400 TPD) and Kanjur Marg (7500 TPD). Gorai has been closed as it was situated in the high population density area and proving to be environmentally hazardous. The total capacity then of these 3 sites is 12,250 tons a day.
While garbage is collected across all 24 administrative wards of the city, there are only 45 designated routes for collection and only certain housing societies that have been included in the collection rounds. What happens to the garbage generated by the rest of the city?
There is an urgent need to induct more garbage collection routes to cover the currently uncovered localities and communities. This will require BMC to either deploy its own resources to do so or contract the work to 3rd party providers who would do the work and charge the BMC for it.
The BMC does have a detailed plan for garbage collection across all the wards of the city, however, this needs to be extended across the entire ward and not just select collection points.
In the case of South Mumbai, trucks collect garbage from the garbage bins and transport it to a transfer station which is located in Mahalakshmi. A transfer station is one where MSW is collected from nearby wards and brought in small vans to the station. Once sorted, the non-recyclable waste is transported to the dumping grounds for final disposal. The Mahalakshmi transfer station, which was modernised recently, allows for compacting of the garbage prior to its transportation to the dumping grounds. This means that instead of several small vehicles transporting from 1.5 to 2.5 MT of garbage, the station would collect the waste in a hopper and compress it prior to transferring it to a compactor. 25 tonnes of compressed waste can be carried by 1 compactor to the dumping site.
A separate transport is arranged for transferring the garbage from Mahalakshmi to the northern part of Mumbai where the dumping grounds are situated. Similarly, from transfer stations at Kurla (700 MT) and Versova (400 MT), garbage is sent to the dumping grounds making it approximately 2350 MTs of waste that is transported to the dumping grounds of Deonar, Mulund and Kanjurmarg, which have a total processing capacity of approx. 2350 MTs per day of all kinds of waste.
And this is where the second challenge lies. The need for additional transfer stations! The 4 refuse transfer stations have a capacity to handle approx. 2350 MT per day – Mahalaxmi (750 MT), Kurla (700 MT), Versova (400 MT) and Gorai (500 MT). Is this enough capacity to segregate all Mumbai’s waste into recyclable and non-recyclable and do the transfer stations have standardised and mechanised processes being operated at optimal use? Apart from these 4 transfer stations, Mumbai has overall 43 Waste Collection Centers which are in various stages of neglect and need urgent rehabilitation to be brought up to the level of the earlier mentioned transfer stations.
In short, Mumbai generates 11,000 MT of waste per day and the total capacity of the 4 transfer stations is only 2350 MT. The balance 8650 MT goes directly to the dumping sites where there are no segregation facilities as of now. This is the biggest challenge.
The Opportunity It feels strange to talk about waste and opportunity in the same breath, however the following pointers make sense of this contradiction:
So why is waste recycling not becoming the industry of choice to invest in for the future? The roadblocks are many. Poor policies for collection, disposal and recycling coupled with the lack of proper infrastructure acerbated by historic issues linked to societal norms as to who collects waste and the government’s desire to ensure that they are included in the final solution – all these form for a fairly toxic mix the likes of which India has been struggling with since Independence.
The good news is that with several technological breakthroughs that are helping to provide mechanised solutions for the various process steps, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel and India’s waste is again beginning to take on a golden hue. Moving back to Mumbai, what then needs to be done?
The government cannot do all this by itself. The potential to extract the commercial value from waste is faster done if under Public Private Partnership (PPP) and through a proper understanding of what the government will support from a policy perspective. Mumbai needs to set up a framework for its overall waste management considering the financial potential, what kind of support it requires, and whether industry is willing to provide the same on a sustainable basis.
Blog writer: Natasha Patel, CEO, India Sanitation Coalition