Delhi is turning municipal waste into compost for agriculture and fuel to substitute for local use of coal, while also limiting CO2 emissions and severe air pollution.
The dense Indian city of Delhi generates over 9,000 tons of waste every day, most of which ends up in waste disposal sites resulting in a number of detrimental environmental consequences. To limit these negative impacts, Delhi’s municipality collaborated with the company IL&FS to reopen a composting plant to process waste and produce compost and resource-derived fuel, which is fuel produced by shredding and dehydrating solid waste. The plant currently handles 200 tons of waste per day, but is undergoing upgrades in order to handle 500 tons per day by 2016.
To successfully generate valuable compost, the plant carefully handles the waste by, for example, turning the waste weekly to ensure an appropriate supply of oxygen. The city has teamed up with the company Mother Dairy to sell the compost to farmers. The resource-derived fuel generated at the plant is sold to cement manufacturing plants, thus limiting their need to burn coal.
500,000 tons CO2 emissions avoided yearly
The challenge
With thousands of tons of municipal waste generated daily, Delhi was suffering from increased greenhouse gas emissions from anaerobic decomposing waste, contamination of groundwater, and air pollution in the vicinity of waste disposal sites. To combat this, a composting plant was reopened to produce compost and resource-derived fuel from the city’s municipal waste.
Co-benefits
Economic As a composting plant requires much less land for managing waste than landfills do, land is freed for sustainable urban development which can financially benefit the city.
Environmental Every 250,000 tons of waste processed at the plant reduces greenhouse gas emissions by the same amount as removing one million cars from the streets of Delhi for 10 days.
Health With greater amounts of waste handled at the composting plant, toxic gasses from open burning of waste at dumpsites are reduced, which limits air pollution that harms the health of citizens in Delhi.
About Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory of Delhi or NCT, is a city and a union territory of India. According to 2011 census, Delhi’s city population was about 11 million, the second highest in India after Mumbai, while the whole NCT population was about 16.8 million, making it the world’s 3rd largest city proper by population.
