ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION Municipal Solid Waste Management and its Energy Potential in Roorkee City, Uttarakhand, India Tabish Alam 1 • Kishore Kulkarni 1 Received: 29 July 2015 / Accepted: 10 February 2016 Ó The Institution of Engineers (India) 2016 Abstract Energy plays a vital role in the development of any country. With rapid economic growth and multifold urbanization, India faces the problem of municipal solid waste management and disposal. This problem can be mitigate through adoption of environment friendly tech- nologies for treatment and processing of waste before it is disposed off. Currently, urban and industrial wastes throughout India receive partial treatment before its final disposal, except in few exceptional cases. This practice leads to severe environmental pollution problems including major threat to human health. There is an absolute need to provide adequate waste collection and treatment before its disposal. Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is getting impor- tance in recent years. The MSW management involves collection, transportation, handling and conversion to energy by biological and thermal routes. Based on the energy potential available, the energy conversion through biogas production using available waste is being carried out. Waste-to-energy is now a clean, renewable, sustain- able source of energy. The estimation of energy content of MSW in Roorkee city is discussed in this paper. Further- more this paper also takes into account the benefits of carbon credits. Keywords Municipal solid waste Á Waste managements Á Carbon credit Á Power generation Á Waste-to-energy Introduction An exponentially increasing population, rapid urbaniza- tion and worldwide industrialization in developing Asian countries has led to migration of people from villages to cities, which generate thousand tonnes of MSW daily. The MSW amount is expected to increase significantly in the near future as the country strives to attain an industrialized nation status by the year 2020 [1]. More than 90 % of the MSW generated in India is directly disposed on land in an unsatisfactory manner [2]. MSWM is the major problem being faced by munici- palities because it involves a huge expenditure and receives scant attention [3]. More than 2920 TPD of solid waste is generated in Kolkata Municipal Corpora- tion area and around Rs. 1590 million have been allo- cated for MSWM in 2007–2008. This expenditure remains in sufficient for providing adequate MSWM services [4]. Poor collection and inadequate transporta- tion are responsible for accumulation of MSW at every nook and corner. MSWM, like most of other infras- tructural services has come under great stress, consider low priority areas, solid waste management was never taken up seriously either by public or by concerned agency or authorities and now the piled up waste is threatening our heath, environment and well being [5]. Jain and Sharma has presented the results of physical, proximate and TGA/DTA analysis, to select the most appropriate energy conversion method along with the cost benefits analysis with CDM projects. The key issues involved in the solid waste management are growth in population, increasing garbage generation, waste col- lection system, segregation of waste at source in as many categories as practical, scientific processing of waste material depending on nature. & Tabish Alam tabish.iitr@gmail.com 1 Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, India 123 J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. A DOI 10.1007/s40030-016-0146-2