Potential for the first WTE Facility in Mumbai, India

The city of Mumbai (Bombay), India is facing a solid waste management crisis. The infrastructure has been unable to keep pace with economic development and population growth, resulting in insufficient collection of municipal solid waste (MSW) and over-burdened dumps.

by Perinaz Bhada, Nickolas J. Themelis

 Improper disposal of solid wastes over several decades and open burning of garbage have led to serious environmental pollution and health problems. This study examined the solid waste management process in Mumbai and the potential for implementation of
waste-to-energy facilities. Mumbai’s average per capita waste generation rate is 0.18 tonnes per person. Although the reported collection efficiency of MSW is 90%, almost half of the city’s 12 million people live in slums, some of which do not have access to solid waste services. The most pressing problem is the acute shortage of space for landfilling. When the present waste dumps were constructed they were at the outskirts of the city, but now they are surrounded by housing colonies, thus exposing millions of People to daily inconveniences such as odors, traffic congestion, and to more serious problems associated with air, land, and water pollution and the spread of diseases from rodents and mosquitoes.

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published: Earth Engineering Center (EEC) of Columbia University, 5|2008
Keywords: India