NEW DELHI: The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is planning to achieve 100% daily processing of the city’s municipal solid waste by 2028 by creating processing capacity equal to the waste generated each day. Until then, it will rely on a network of interim fresh waste segregation facilities to prevent newly generated waste from adding to the city’s mounting waste burden.
According to an official aware of the plan, the interim facilities will bridge the gap between Delhi’s existing processing capacity and the larger infrastructure planned over the next few years.
Delhi generates around 13,500 tonnes of municipal solid waste every day but can process only about 7,500 tonnes, leaving a daily gap of nearly 6,000 tonnes. To eliminate this deficit, the MCD plans to add around 8,000 tonnes per day (TPD) of processing capacity by 2028.
Explaining the interim strategy, the official said that if the city continues to generate around 13,500 tonnes of waste every day while processing only about half of it, unprocessed waste will continue to accumulate until the permanent facilities become operational.
To avoid this build-up, the MCD plans to establish fresh waste segregation facilities with a combined capacity of around 6,000 TPD at locations including Singhola and Narela. The facilities, reported earlier by this newspaper, will segregate freshly collected waste before disposal until the planned processing infrastructure is commissioned.
The official said the civic body’s long-term objective is to ensure that all waste generated each day is processed without leaving any fresh accumulation of waste.
“What is being generated is being processed. Nothing is being left behind. If I leave even 10% of waste behind, it will be accumulated. Even a small daily backlog can eventually lead to a large volume of accumulated waste,” said the MCD official. The planned capacity expansion also factors in an estimated annual increase of around 3.9 per cent in waste generation driven by population growth and rising economic activity.
The official, however, said that apart from expanding the waste mangement infrastructure, improving door-to-door collection and segregation at source in line with the Solid Waste Management Rules was “extremely crucial”.
The corporation is also working to improve compliance with the rules, strengthen public awareness and inforation campaigns, and encourage more residential colonies to adopt better waste segregation practices.
