105% rise in waste generated in Mumbai from 1999 to 2016: Study
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), however, claims that waste in the city has fallen over the past couple of years.
The daily waste generated across Mumbai has increased 105% — up to 11,000 tonnes per day (TPD) in 2016 from 5,355 TPD in 1999. What’s worse: Mumbai is also the largest waste generator among 46 cities in India over 17 years, revealed data from EnviStats 2018, a document published by the Central Statistics Office under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
Delhi, with 8,700 TPD, was the second biggest generator of trash, followed by Chennai (5,000TPD), Hyderabad and Kolkata (4,000 TPD each), Bangalore (3,700 TPD), and Ahmedabad (2,500 TPD).
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), however, claims that waste in the city has fallen over the past couple of years.
The civic body said the amount of waste in Mumbai had reduced to 8,722 TPD in 2017 and is currently 7,500 TPD, a 32% drop since 2016.
The BMC said data for 2015-16 was accurate as then organic waste (food and horticultural waste) was not segregated from the rest of the garbage.
“A significant drop has been witnessed since then, especially after the development of waste recycling systems, action on bulk generators, waste segregation centres, proper planning and processing of waste,” said Vishwas Shankarwar, deputy municipal commissioner, solid waste management (SWM) department, BMC. “With door-to-door collection, segregation and processing at source, only a small fraction of green waste is going to the dumping ground.”
Shankarwar said the primary reason for the considerable rise in waste over 17 years was the increase in population load (12.4 million in the BMC area, as per 2011 census) and the floating population that enters the city every day for work and other requirements. “Lack of awareness and generation of mixed waste was the other issue,” he said.
