UIJRT | United International Journal for Research & Technology | Volume 02, Issue 07, 2021 | ISSN: 2582-6832 All rights are reserved by UIJRT.COM. 175 Waste Management in India – An Overview R. Dhana Raju Former (i) Associate Director, AMD, Dept. of Atomic Energy, Hyderabad-500 016 and (ii) Honorary Visiting Professor, Dept. of Applied Geochemistry, Osmania University, Hyderabad-500 007, India Email: dhanaraju.reddi@gmail.com Abstract— As the global generation of waste (i) is of the order of > 2 billion tons per year and is expected to reach ~ 3.5 billion tons annually by 2050 and (ii) has a critical bearing on the worldwide problems of pollution control (PC), global warming (GW) and climate change (CC), a government-aided and monitored, and people- participated waste management (WM) is desirable for a hygienic, healthy and sustainable society. Aiming this and targetting for zero-waste, the WM has been undertaken in India ̶ from the collection of waste at source to its minimal, safe and monitored disposal in a landfill, with intermediate stages of transportation, segregation and recycling for value-added products ̶ , under the Swatchh Bharat Ayojan (Clean India Mission) programme. All the above stages of WM have been adopted in various ways in both the urban and rural areas. Based on a yearly evaluation of the WM, some cities and states have been designated as “clean”. An account of the presently followed methods of WM and their results in some of these clean places as well as generation of many value-added products by recycling different types of waste material is presented in this article. In the light of the above information and data, and aiming zero-waste in the country’s WM, the following aspects are discussed: role of decentralised and centralised WM; integration of WM with PC, GW and CC; effluent and sewage treatment plants for WM; public awareness-commitment-participation for a monitored, efficient WM; reduce as an important tool for WM, especially to minimise the large-scale generation of food-waste, and its relevance, as per the Indian concept of Aparigraha (take only what one needs); and WM as a widely distributed, micro- to small-scale industry for generation of both wealth and employment. Keywords— Waste management, Swatchh Bharat Ayojan, clean cities-states-metros, India. 1. INTRODUCTION Waste is the discarded material, generated after its primary use. It is of various types and differently classified, based on specific parameters. Thus, based on its (i) nature, it is of two types – biodegradable (wet) and non-biodegradable (dry); (ii) source ̶ domestic, agricultural, industrial and commercial types; (iii) toxicity ̶ hazardous and non-hazardous types 1 ; and (iv) bearing on environmental pollution ̶ 5 types: solid (garbage, sludge and refuse; five major types of glass, ceramics, plastic, paper and metals), liquid (point [manufactured] and non-point [occurring naturally in the environment] source); organic (decomposes with time and turns into manure by micro-organisms), recyclable (metals, plastic, electronic [e-] waste, furniture etc.) and hazardous (inflammable, corrosive, toxic and reactive material) waste 2 . The processing of waste involves, sequentially, the collection, transportation, sorting, treatment, recycling for recovery of diverse value-added products (VAPs) and monitored/regulated final disposal in a landfill. There are different methods of disposal of waste, such as Incineration (controlled combustion of garbage to reduce the volume of waste by ~ 90% and is the most hygienic way of waste disposal); Waste compaction (waste materials such as cans and plastic compacted into blocks and sent for recycling, which prevents oxidation of metals); Biogas generation (biodegradable waste converted into biogas, using micro-organisms); Composting (burial of organic waste under soil and left to decay under the action of microorganisms, resulting in a nutrient-rich manure for agriculture); Vermicomposting (degradation of organic matter into manure by using worms); and Landfill (the waste that cannot be recycled or reused spreads as a thin layer in low-lying areas across human habitations) 3 . All these aspects come under the general term “Waste Management” (WM) that comprises five R’s, viz., reduce, reuse, recycle, recover and residual management 3 . In India, which is the second highest populated country (> 1.3 billion) and generating the highest amount of waste in the world (277.1 million tons in the year, 2016, as per the World Banks “What A Waste 2.0” report of 2018), the notable features of waste and WM scenario are as follows: (i) Generation of > 62 million tons of garbage per year, out of which < 70% being collected, with hardly 19% of the collected being treated and processed, and the rest being dumped in landfills; (ii) Urban India is the world’s third largest producer of garbage; (iii) 60% of the waste generated in the country comes from top 10 metropolitan cities; (iv) Waste generated is estimated to grow exponentially; (v) WM industry is estimated to grow at 7% annually; (vi) WM