Municipal waste is put on land reserved for this purpose, but with the rise in municipal waste in urban India, there is no land to fill such an enormous amount of waste, the estimated the waste production being 165 million tonnes by 2031 and 436 million tonnes by 2050.Right now India generates 70 million tonnes of waste a year, of which 80 per cent is dumped without precaution in landfills. These landfills emit toxic gases such as dioxins and greenhouse gases such as methane. The second method of waste disposal is composting which has not worked as the waste has not been segregated due to several reasons. Since we cannot stop the generation of waste and other methods are found ineffective, in the short to medium term, an alternative is to use WTE plants to take care of what cannot be reused or composted. Waste that is organic and 50 per cent is organic, can be gasified or composted. The problem is non-organic waste or mixed waste.
Waste-to-Energy plants are essentially doing controlled burning or incineration of waste to convert it into energy. Waste-to-energy plants are resented as they spread foul smell and fly ash. In developed countries such plants are located in the heart of the city. There is no significant public opposition to them. The WTE plant if well run does not leave any ground for opposition. If not well-run,. it is very dangerous Smell mostly comes when waste is transported. Waste can be transported in closed containers or underground. That takes care of the smell part. Burning causes pollution but modern technology is used to make it minimal. At 850 degree centigrade, dioxins and furans which are cancer causing are not produced. There is a scrubber that prevents fly ash from going through the smoke-stack.The waste has low calorific value, especially Indian waste on account of its high moisture content. Some energy is utilised to remove water or moisture from the waste. Western technology is not suited to deal with this problem and hence Chinese technology is used by Indian WTE companies.
In India, several plants of WTE are operational. Ramky is one company that builds such plants. The Okhla Waste-to-Energy plant is located between Apollo Hospital and CSRI at Delhi.There are plants at Jabalpur, Pallavpuram, Surat, Jawaharnagar (Hyderabad). These plants produce energy ranging from 5 megawatts to 25 megawatts. There is significant reduction in pollution as compared to coal.
The plants are high-cost and have a long pay-back period. The monitoring of gas emission in real time is difficult. The regulation must be sound.The plants put many out of the job.