Challenges and Responsibilities in Successful Management of Municipal Solid Wastes in India

Abstract

Management of Municipal Solid wastes (MSW) is a genuine problem to all Municipal Corporations irrespective to their size, population or financial condition in India. Scientific technologies are available for pollution free hygienic disposal of all biodegradable solid wastes by converting them to good quality compost and also for systematic recycling of non-biodegradable wastes for their beneficial utilization. Machineries are also available for converting Municipal solid wastes to energy for partial fulfillment of highly demanded electricity. But still all Municipal Corporation in India mainly depend on old open dumping of solid wastes in some low lying dump-yards creating known environmental pollution hazards. The Municipal authority, the district administration and the common citizens have to play a constructive role for overcoming this problem. Important challenges faced by Municipal authorities all over India are non-preparedness to handle huge quantity of MSW generated daily, lacking of awareness by common people on benefits of segregation of MSW at source, non-availability of infrastructure as well as expert / skilled manpower for scientific disposal of MSW, accurate forecasting about city wise MSW generation and proper encouragement to Public – private partnership (PPP) model for efficient management of MSW. Everyone is essential part of this management system. Citizens have to take the responsibility for segregating solid wastes at home before handing over to Municipal workers and for refraining themselves from throwing out any solid wastes. Municipal corporations have to consider MSW as important resource material, use it for beneficial purposes through vermicomposting and recycling, and to stop dumping of MSW at outskirt by unnecessary spending money on its transportation. It is mainly found that installation of costly machinery for mechanical composting and electricity generation have sometimes become not 2 much fruitful to Municipal authorities due to lack of their expertise as well as maintenance and repairing problem of machineries. Scientific disposal with the help of NGOs and Entrepreneurs are found more effective, employment generative and cheaper than adopting costly mechanical system. Paradigm shift in thought process of every citizen can change the situation of management of municipal solid waste successfully.