Demonstrating Wet Waste Composting as a Greening Society Initiative: A Step Towards Climate Resilient Societies

Cities And Climate Change Aspect In Indian Context

Cities are not only engines of growth for the economy but are also major contributors to climate change. Globally, cities produce about 70 percent of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. It is expected that the urban population will double by 2030 (World Bank, 2014), with 90 percent of that urban growth taking place in developing countries (World Bank, 2013). With regards to India 31 percent of its population lives in cities contributing up to 63 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP); it is projected that by 2030 this urban population will grow to 40 percent with commensurate GDP growth to 75 percent by 2030 (Ministry of Urban Development, 2015). Increasing population, increasing purchasing power and lifestyle changes have led to an increase of 357 percent in India’s GDP between 1990 to 2014, correspondingly leading to an increase of 180 percent increase in its GHG emissions. In 2014, India’s total GHG emission were 3,202 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO₂e) (6.55 percent of global GHG emissions) with 68.7 percent GHG emissions from the energy sector, followed by agriculture, industrial processes, land-use change and forestry, and waste contributing 19.6, 6.0, 3.8 and 1.9 percent respectively (USAID, 2018)

The growing urban population implies an increase in the cost for cities from increased energy use to over strained public services. The stark reality of growing poverty, water and energy crisis calls out for increasing our efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change and undertake the required shift to sustainable development. From being major contributors to climate change, cities should act as key players in low-carbon growth through innovative out of the box solutions and help their populations prepare for climate uncertainty and natural disasters.

Over the past decade, technological, economic and environmental changes including climate change, ageing populations, urban population growth and pressures on public finances have generated interest in smart cities. To improve the quality of living for an increasing urban population and to provide clean and sustainable environment through the application of innovative smart solutions, the Government of India (GoI) initiated Smart Cities Mission (SCM) in 2015. The SCM is an urban renewal and retrofitting program with the aim to make cities across the country citizen friendly and sustainable and in-turn develop them into smart cities.

The key approach of SCM is to target seven core sectors viz water, energy, waste, mobility, housing, education, healthcare and governance; collect and analyse vast quantities of data thus collected which could be used to improve quality of service, provide market signal feedback to users, automate processes and facilitate better decision-making (Ministry of Urban Development, 2015). However, the critical issue of waste management, its treatment and reduction are not one of the priority areas and has been much ignored.

A study by (Singh, Kumar, & Roy, 2018) suggests that 11 percent of all global methane (CH₄) emissions from Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) are generated by households and represent the third largest anthropogenic source of CH₄ emissions. India is the largest producer of MSW, where only 70–75 percent gets collected, of which only 20–25 percent of it is treated; the remaining waste goes to landfills untreated. MSW generated in India largely consists of 40–60 percent organic waste, 3–6 percent paper waste, and 30–40 percent ash and fine earth material waste, <1 percent of plastics, glass and metal wastes (Singh, Kumar, & Roy, 2018). A 2014 report by the Planning Gommission, GoI shows that the waste composition from 1996-2011 has changed rapidly with increasing proportion of high calorific value waste; paper and plastic waste increased by over 380 percent and 1650 percent respectively over the 15-year period (Planning Commission, 2014). This conspicious increase in consumption pattern indicates that a serious effort is needed to treat compostable and burnable waste by adopting both composting and waste to energy technologies.

Landfills are not only the third largest contributors to the total CH₄ emission in India, but also creates environment (air, water, soil) pollution, lead to leaching of ground water, and frequently catch fires. Such fires releases carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide, and carcinogenic hydrocarbons, apart from particulate matter into the air, resulting in India releasing 6 percent of CH₄ emissions only from garbage (compared to the global average of 3 percent) (Swaminathan, 2018)