Urban waste disposal and the new waste rules

Detail

1. Why cities have a waste problem

• Indian cities are overcrowded and congested. Their facilities are not enough for the people who live there, and sanitation (safe removal of human waste and garbage) is poor.
• More people living close together and using more goods means more garbage. The city's systems cannot collect and treat all of it.

2. What solid waste is

• Solid waste means old and used articles that people throw away. Examples:
• small pieces of rusted metal scrap
• broken glass
• plastic containers and polythene bags
• ash

• floppies and CDs

• Other names for it are refuse, garbage and rubbish.

• Two sources:
• households
• industrial and commercial establishments (factories, shops, offices)

3. How urban waste is disposed of

Urban waste disposal means how a city gets rid of its garbage: where the garbage goes and what happens to it there.

Type of waste	Where it goes (NCERT)
Household waste	Dumped on public land or on land owned by private contractors
Industrial waste	Taken to municipal landfills in low-lying ground. Low ground is filled up with garbage.
Ash and debris	Come from industries, thermal power plants and building construction. They are dumped in the same way.

• A landfill is a piece of land, often low ground, where waste is dumped and buried.
• In most Indian towns these are open dumps. Nothing stops dirty liquid seeping into the soil, and nothing traps the gas that comes off the waste.

4. Health hazards

Uncollected waste turns into a health problem in steps:

• Waste lies in the open and gives off a very bad (obnoxious) smell.
• Flies and rodents (rats and mice) breed in it.
• They carry diseases such as typhoid, diphtheria, diarrhoea, malaria and cholera.
• Wind and rain carry the waste further, so the problem spreads to new areas.

5. The collection gap

City type	Share of waste collected (NCERT)	What happens to the rest
Metros: Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru	About 90%	A small share stays on the streets
Many other towns and cities	50–70% (30–50% left uncollected)	It piles up on streets, open spaces and wasteland

• Spatial pattern: big metros have money and machines, so they collect most of their waste. Smaller towns have weaker municipal bodies and miss a much larger share.

6. Waste as a resource, and how methane forms

• NCERT says waste should be treated as a resource, not as rubbish. It can be used to make:
• energy, by burning it or turning it into gas

• compost (natural manure made from rotting kitchen and garden waste)

• When waste is left untreated:

• It ferments slowly. Bacteria break it down where there is very little air.
• This releases methane, a strong greenhouse gas that also catches fire easily.

• Result: bad air nearby, fire risk at the dump and more global warming.

• Fig. 9.3 in NCERT shows a waste dump at Mahim, Mumbai (Maharashtra).

• NCERT's question box asks students to think about ragpickers. They are informal workers who collect and sort recyclable material from garbage without proper safety. They do much of the recycling in Indian cities but face serious health risks.

7. Legacy waste: the garbage mountains

• Legacy waste is old waste that has been piling up for years or decades at a dumpsite and was never treated.
• Main examples:

Dumpsite	City / State
Ghazipur	East Delhi
Bhalswa	North Delhi
Okhla	South Delhi
Deonar	Mumbai, Maharashtra

• Three dangers:
• Methane: the gas builds up inside the heap.
• Fires: methane and the summer heat cause dump fires and thick smoke.

• Leachate: a dark, toxic liquid that forms when rainwater seeps through garbage. It pollutes the groundwater and the soil.

• Bio-mining is digging up an old dump and sorting it into soil-like material, recyclables and fuel, so the land can be freed. Bio-remediation means cleaning up a dump with biological methods such as microbes.

• SBM-Urban 2.0 (Swachh Bharat Mission–Urban 2.0) was launched in 2021. Its aim is "Garbage Free" cities [4].

• It targets 100% waste processing and the bio-remediation of legacy dumpsites [3].

• Scale of the problem: 2,478 dumpsites holding 25.06 crore MT (million tonnes ×10) of legacy waste were identified [3].

• By late 2025, 15.37 crore MT (61%) had been remediated.

• This freed 8,027 acres of land (53%) [3].

• The Dumpsite Remediation Accelerator Programme (DRAP) began on 8 November 2025.

• It targets the top 214 dumpsites in 203 urban local bodies (ULBs) across 30 States/UTs.

• These sites hold nearly 80% of India's legacy waste [3].

• Model case: Rajkot (Gujarat) cleared a decades-old dump with 16 lakh tonnes of legacy waste. The site is now a 20-acre urban forest [7].

8. Solid Waste Management Rules 2026

• Notified: 27 January 2026 by the MoEFCC (Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change) [2].
• Parent law: the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 [2].
• In force: fully from 1 April 2026. They replace the SWM Rules 2016 [2].
• Four-stream segregation at source is now mandatory [2]. "At source" means the waste is sorted at home or in the office, before collection.

Stream	What goes in it
Wet waste	Kitchen and food waste, garden waste. It is biodegradable (rots naturally).
Dry waste	Paper, plastic, metal, glass
Sanitary waste	Used diapers, sanitary towels, tampons, condoms. These must be securely wrapped and stored separately [2].
Special care waste	Items such as paint cans and bulbs [2]

• Extended Bulk Waste Generator Responsibility (EBWGR) [2]:
• Bulk waste generators are large producers of waste, such as big housing societies, hotels and institutions. They produce nearly 30% of all solid waste [2].
• They must process wet waste on-site as far as possible.

• If they cannot, they must get an EBWGR certificate [2].

• Landfill only for residual waste: only waste that cannot be recycled or processed (the leftover or residual waste) may go to a landfill.

• Environmental compensation: polluters who break the rules can be made to pay a penalty under the "polluter pays" idea.
• Old vs new rules:

Feature	SWM Rules 2016	SWM Rules 2026
Segregation	Three streams: biodegradable, non-biodegradable, domestic hazardous	Four streams: wet, dry, sanitary, special care [2]
Bulk generators	Duties set by the rules	Clear accountability through EBWGR [2]
Landfill	"Zero waste to landfill" was a goal, with biomining of old dumps [3]	Landfill only for residual waste

9. Plastic waste and the single-use plastic ban

• Single-use plastic (SUP) means plastic items that are used once and thrown away. They are of low use and high littering potential [5].
• The Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules, 2021 were notified on 12 August 2021 [5].

• The manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale and use of identified SUP items was banned across India from 1 July 2022 [5].

• Carry bag thickness (step by step):

• 30 September 2021: bags thinner than 75 microns banned [5]
• 31 December 2022: bags thinner than 120 microns banned [5]
• A micron is one-thousandth of a millimetre. A thicker bag is more likely to be reused and is easier to recycle.

10. Extended producer responsibility (EPR)

• Extended producer responsibility (EPR) means the company that makes or sells a product is responsible for it even after use. Producers, importers and brand owners (PIBOs) must collect back and recycle what they put on the market.
• EPR covers plastic packaging, e-waste, batteries and tyres.
• EPR guidelines for plastic packaging were notified through the Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules, 2022 on 16 February 2022 [6].
• Centralised Online EPR Portal (status till December 2024) [8]:
• 50,131 PIBOs registered
• 2,840 plastic waste processors registered
• 103 lakh tonnes of waste processed

11. E-waste

• E-waste is thrown-away electrical and electronic goods, such as phones, computers, TVs and their batteries. It contains toxic metals like lead and mercury along with valuable metals.
• India is the third-largest e-waste generator in the world, after China and the USA.
• The E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022 were notified on 2 November 2022 [9].
• They replaced the 2016 Rules and took effect on 1 April 2023.

• They set up a new EPR system with recycling targets for producers [9].

• Data for FY 2023-24 (CPCB) [10]:

• E-waste generated: 12,54,286.55 MT
• Collected: 7,98,493 MT
• Recycled: 7,68,406 MT

• Share collected, dismantled and recycled or disposed: 61.94%

• Registered recyclers are in 19 states. The most are in Uttar Pradesh (74), Maharashtra (50) and Karnataka (41) (FY 2023-24) [10].

• The informal problem: much e-waste is still handled by informal workers. They burn wires and use acid baths to recover metal, which damages their lungs, the soil and the water.
• Hubs: Seelampur (Delhi) and Moradabad (Uttar Pradesh)

Prelims Hooks

• SWM Rules 2026 were notified on 27 January 2026 under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. They have been in force since 1 April 2026 and replace the 2016 Rules [2].
• The four streams are wet, dry, sanitary and special care. Trap: "hazardous" and "biodegradable" are not the names of the new streams [2].
• Paint cans and bulbs → special care waste. Diapers and sanitary towels → sanitary waste [2].
• EBWGR applies to bulk waste generators, who produce about 30% of solid waste [2].
• Identified SUP items were banned from 1 July 2022 under the PWM Amendment Rules, 2021. Carry bags under 120 microns were banned from 31 December 2022 (75 microns from 30 September 2021) [5].
• E-Waste (Management) Rules 2022 took effect on 1 April 2023. India generated 12.54 lakh MT of e-waste in FY 2023-24 [9][10].
• Dumpsite–city pairs: Ghazipur, Bhalswa and Okhla → Delhi. Deonar and Mahim (NCERT Fig. 9.3) → Mumbai.
• NCERT says metros (Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru) collect about 90% of their waste, while many other towns leave 30–50% uncollected.
• Untreated waste ferments → methane. Rainwater seeping through a dump → leachate.
• DRAP (8 November 2025) targets 214 dumpsites in 203 ULBs, which hold about 80% of legacy waste [3].

Mains Points

• Causes of the urban waste crisis:
• fast, unplanned urban growth
• weak finances in smaller ULBs, which leaves 30–50% of waste uncollected
• no segregation at source

• dependence on open dumps in low-lying land

• Effects:

• vector-borne and water-borne diseases
• methane emissions and dump fires that worsen city air (link to NCAP 2019)
• leachate pollution of groundwater

• land locked up under legacy waste: 25.06 crore MT across 2,478 dumpsites [3]

• Policy response:

• SBM-U 2.0 aims at garbage-free cities and has remediated 61% of legacy waste [3]
• SWM Rules 2026 bring four-stream segregation, EBWGR and landfill only for residual waste [2]

• the SUP ban and EPR for plastics, e-waste, batteries and tyres move responsibility "upstream" to the producer

• The way forward:

• treat waste as a resource through compost, waste-to-energy and recycling
• bring ragpickers and informal e-waste workers (Seelampur, Moradabad) into the formal system with safety gear and fair pay
• copy remediation models like Rajkot's 20-acre urban forest [7]