Unsegregated Municipal Solid Waste in India - Current Scenario, Challenges and Way Forward Prashant Shukla*†, Pankaj Kumar Sharma*, Shyam Pandey* and V. Chintala** *Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Petroleum & Energy Studies, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India **School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, National Railway Transportation Institute (Deemed to be University), Vadodara, Gujrat, India †Corresponding author: Prashant Shukla; prashantshukla1617@gmail.com ABSTRACT Solid waste management (SWM) is one of the most neglected aspects and becoming a challenge for India as well as other developing nations’ environment. India is one of the world’s large and fastest- growing economy. Based on the trends in different nations like the US, China and European countries, it is clear that a developing economy of the nation and population of the country is also playing a vital role in the increasing rate of solid waste generation. Unsegregated waste is the root cause of the inefficient municipal solid waste management (MSWM) systems in India. The existing approach to managing the MSW such as collection, transportation and treatment results in poor utilization of resources. This review paper addresses the current status of MSWM in India. In this paper, various issues and challenges to obtain 100 % source segregated municipal solid waste are also discussed through different cases of urban areas. A way forward through an overview of the municipal waste management policies and practices adopted is being presented in the paper. INTRODUCTION Unsegregated municipal solid waste has become a challeng- ing issue not only for India, but even for other developing countries. MSWM (municipal solid waste management) system suffers various problems related to the waste treatment options, i.e. composting or recycling or energy generation (Annepu 2012, Rajkumar & Sirajuddin 2016). If the existing MSWM system does not offer the solution to these problems, the entire municipal mixed waste will be ended up at dumpsites and therefore causing the MSWM system to be dependent upon landfll sites. A huge amount of dumped MSW (municipal solid waste) is becoming the main reason for groundwater pollution, soil contamination, and environmental pollution. The MSW typically includes domestic and commercial wastes generated in municipalities or notifed areas either in solid or semi-solid form (Table 1). It does not include industrial hazardous wastes but includes treated bio-medical wastes. According to data (Table 2), Metro cities are the major contributor in the process of waste generation and due to continuous infrastructure de- velopment the production of inert waste is also higher than other regions. Southern region produces larger quantity of compostable waste due to relying on coconut and banana leaves for wide range of applications (Karelia 2019, Priya 2019). Fig. 1 reveals that about 80% of the total generated waste is being collected by various means while the rest 20% is again mixed up and lost in the urban environment (Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs 2019). Out of total waste generated, about 50% waste is found segregated at the source which is suitable to process further. Hence, out of total generated waste, around 40% of waste is being processed in the existing MSWM system and the rest of the unsegregated waste is being dumped into landfll sites. Most of the time sorting of waste is done by unorganized sector and from time to time rehearsed by waste producers. Segregation and sorting process takes place in exceptionally dangerous and unsafe conditions and the viability of segregation is sensibly low as unorganized sector segregates just important disposed of constituents from the waste stream which can promise them similarly higher monetary return in the reusing market. Due to lack of space for inventory many waste process- ing industries are utilizing the waste from the dumpsite and essentially handle mixed waste which usually gets contaminated. It does not only increase the cost of waste processing but also produces poor quality products such as recyclable contents, compost etc. (Pandey & Malik 2015, Rawat et al. 2013). In India, recent solid waste management guidelines 2016 (Lavasa et al. 2016) have made it compulsory to the concerned authority of an area to undertake responsibility 2021 pp. 851-863 Vol. 20 p-ISSN: 0972-6268 (Print copies up to 2016) No. 2 Nature Environment and Pollution Technology An International Quarterly Scientifc Journal Original Research Paper e-ISSN: 2395-3454 Open Access Journal Nat. Env. & Poll. Tech. Website: www.neptjournal.com Received: 09-06-2020 Revised: 17-07-2020 Accepted: 27-08-2020 Key Words: Source segregation Mixed municipal solid waste Biodegradable waste Non-biodegradable waste Recyclable waste Original Research Paper https://doi.org/10.46488/NEPT.2021.v20i02.048