New Delhi - disposing of the cities solid waste


New Delhi is said to generate more rubbish or garbage per day than any other capital city. How is the city coping with disposing of all its Solid Waste - Creating a Clean Capital - New Delhi tells the story. 

Creating a Clean Capital - New Delhi

As the world's population grows so do the ever growing mountains of rubbish we produce. Thus compounding the detrimental effect we are having on the environment, human health and wellbeing. 


A continuing global trend sees more and more people moving from rural areas to the big cities in search of a better lifestyle, and for many cities this migration and change in lifestyle are adding fuel to the fire in terms of rubbish and how to dispose of it.

Landfill sites are filling rapidly which now finds many cities with the dilemma of solving the solution of the best means of disposing of their cities rubbish.

New Delhi, India's capital city is no exception as this feature reveals.

New Delhi has a vast population which as one might expect everyday generates an enormous amount of rubbish.

Thousands of tonnes of solid waste (rubbish) are generated per day. All of which has to be disposed of.

This vast metropolis has now introduced a Solid Waste Management (SWM) programme with its goal being to make New Delhi a 'clean city'.

But his SWM programme is impacting on New Delhi's Waste Pickers.

Waste Pickers are the most marginalised, living at the lowest end of society, in India.

They operate in the city's informal waste collection and recycling sector which is quite a complex business. Basically it operates by a tiered structure through which the recycled materials are bought and sold.

Those operating at the very lowest level are the Waste Pickers who have been working collecting New Delhi's rubbish for decades.

'As much as 15% of waste is reduced by the informal system - the Waste Picker. Not only does this save the municipalities hundreds of thousand of rupees it is also helping reduce the impact on the environment - almost for free'.

Now New Delhi's SWM programme threatens their livelihood.

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