Press Release

Delhi’s Waste Management Plan aims to improve quality of life and foster a sustainable environment: Dr. K.S Jayachandran, Special Secretary

Delhi’s Waste Management Plan aims to improve quality of life and foster a sustainable environment: Dr. K.S Jayachandran, Special Secretary

11th Oct 2022, New Delhi:  There is a huge influx of population in Delhi and around 11,000 tonnes of waste are generated every day. With more than 50% of the waste being processed daily, the NCT of Delhi has taken various measures to ease the problems and challenges, said Dr. K.S Jayachandran, Special Secretary (Environment & Forest) & Member Secretary of Delhi Pollution Control Committee, The Environment Department, Govt. of NCT of Delhi at an ASSOCHAM event today.

The MCD has taken various measures to ease the problems and challenges of processing municipal solid waste on a daily basis. He added in the next 2-3 years, the waste management capacity will increase by another 6,500 tonnes, said Dr. Jayachandran at ASSOCHAM Delhi virtual session on ''Delhi Waste Management System-Challenges and Solutions''.  

He further addressed, "MCD is currently working on biomining the legacy waste to clean up the landfill sites and around 6 million tonnes of legacy garbage have been taken out of the landfill sites, the three sites still store around 200 lakh tonnes of waste that has accumulated over the last years''.

A huge challenge remains in legacy waste being converted into fractions. The dump sites’ timelines will be met as early as possible, and we are in focus to increase more land for solid waste management. We need to devise a new strategy of household segregation and making people more about the importance of household segregation to the overall solid waste management scenario in Delhi and it's very important to send this message across to citizens " he noted.

'Landfilling should be avoided according to Dr. Lakshmi Raghupathy, National Coordinator, NSWAI and former Director of MOEF &CC, Govt of India highlighting the dynamic change in the quantum of waste management. She emphasized that 'segregation at source is mandatory under the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016 and should be strictly followed. Door to Door waste collection wastes in Delhi is the need of the hour and segregated wastes should reach the designated facilities for processing without mixing them. It was also emphasized that Delhi Govt. should take steps to apply both centralized as well as decentralized methods or activities for processing wastes. She further continued that the Waste Management Hierarchy should be followed to reduce, reuse and recycle waste to convert it into resources or energy. Channelizing waste for recycling or energy production in the dedicated 'Waste to Energy' plants needs to be practiced as waste provides a resource and is also a good substitute for alternate energy. Industry members should support CSR activities and green initiatives for better waste management activities.  

Mr. Lovlesh Sharma, Sr. Water & Infrastructure Specialist, National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), MoHUA emphasized upon the formation of  "Zero Waste Localities" (ZWLs) which would be self-sufficient to take care of the wet waste locally. He also suggested a focused approach to improve the collection efficiency specifically from unauthorized settlements. Lovlesh raised the issue of large landfill sites and associated threats to the city. However, there are many action plans developed to tackle legacy waste in Delhi, but still, the progress is very slow. In such scenarios waste proceeds and recycled in the closest proximity would be a key factor to reduce the pressure on the SMW system and the landfill sites. He further mentioned that the proper system of health and financial support for informal waste pickers is also a need of the hour. The informal section of rag pickers is still a key driver of the waste collection system and hence a formal involvement of them in the SWM system would be really helpful.

Delhi residents must focus on the segregation of household waste into dry-wet components, instead of mixed unsegregated waste in order to avoid the pollution problems due to waste. If substantial parts of these funds are diverted towards waste minimization waste at source and enable reuse and recycling, the need for waste disposal will be enormously reduced, apart from reducing the dangers arising from incineration and landfills, said Mr. Neeraj Arora, Assistant Secretary General, ASSOCHAM