Solid Waste Management

India is the second largest country in the world in terms of population and is rapidly catching up to the People’s Republic of China. A rapidly increasing population, coupled with sustained economic growth and urbanization, has led to an uncontrolled increase in waste generation in the country. Even within cities, there is a variation in service provision with wealthier neighborhoods receiving more frequent municipal solid waste (MSW) collection services and street sweeping compared to poorer areas and slums that receive no services.

Within the framework of environmental sustainability and the processes of urbanization, privatization and decentralization, the integral management of urban solid waste is today a concern of singular importance due to its direct and indirect impacts, some of them irreversible and permanent, both on the environment (air, water, land, landscape) and the health of the population.

To achieve an adequate management of hazardous waste, it must be taken into account that the environmental management of waste has multiple aspects and cannot be approached exclusively from a technical and environmental point of view, but will have to consider the social and economic dimension, as well as the factors of current waste management, the diversity of actors involved and the wide variety of types of waste that comprise it. Waste management systems must be viewed as dynamic systems, evolving with the incorporation of continuous improvements.

This guide aims at establishing national policies and strategies for concrete actions at the local level. The objective is to improve the operating system for the management of urban solid waste, which is the responsibility of local governments. It is the faculty of each municipality, within its territorial jurisdiction, to ensure the provision of efficient public cleaning services to all its inhabitants, protecting human health and avoiding procedures and methods that may affect the environment.

The management of hazardous waste is a fundamental part of the proper management of waste in general, which allows to prevent risks to human health and the environment. In the first instance, it is necessary to know which are these dangerous wastes that are generated, as well as their classification. Subsequently, the amounts that are generated in the country to adopt prevention, minimization measures and incentivize the infrastructure to manage these and, finally, what adverse effects they can cause to health in work areas.

The objective of this guide is to establish the instruments for the development of a characterization study of urban solid waste, in residential and non-residential buildings. Said instruments constitute a series of basic procedures that describe the steps to follow to obtain the information corresponding to the characteristics of the MSW, such as: generation per capita, weight, volume, apparent density and humidity; Also, it describes how to obtain the samples and their distribution.

This report guides the actions within these, with the aim of incorporating the concept of management and the best practices related to waste management from the purchase of inputs to their final disposal. In addition, the guide establishes criteria and guidelines to implement actions that promote the recovery of waste, reducing the amount of waste that finally reaches final disposal sites.