Review on Indian Municipal Solid Waste Management practices for reduction of environmental impacts to achieve sustainable development goals

Abstract

Open dumping is a common practice for MSW disposal in most of the Indian cities, apart from the metro-cities. This practice poses significant environmental and health risks due to toxic and greenhouse gases (GHGs) emission through direct combustion and/or decay of wastes. Therefore, integrated solid waste management (ISWM) using different methods viz., incineration, composting, anaerobic digestions, refuse derived fuel, material recovery facility and sanitary landfilling, is much needed. Accordingly, three waste management case scenarios were studied for year 2001-2051 by keeping weightage of sustainable development goals 2030 of India. Case I depicts Indian present scenario of waste management where 164-735 tonnes/year of wastes would be generated for year 2001-2051. Further, 60% of waste can be treated in case II that help in reducing the land requirement up to 40% from estimated conditions of 2031 i.e., 83.8 × 10⁷ m³. The case III is most ideal waste management condition for year 2031 to reduce 80% waste hence landfill requirement would minimize up to 16.76 × 10⁷ m³ where population is at controlled conditions. This article concludes the formal handling and treatment of ISWM would minimize the landfilling, where LCA can be an antidote to achieve sustainable development goals.

Keywords: Environmental impact; Life cycle assessment; Municipal solid waste; Sustainability; Waste-to-energy.