CASE 3.2 Waste Management in Mumbai
Mumbai, the largest city in India, with a population of 13 million, covers a coastal stretch of 603 sq km.
It can be divided into three sections, viz., the island city (or main city), the western suburbs and the
eastern suburbs. Such a huge population obviously generates a huge amount of waste. Managing such waste
becomes a critical and massive task for the local administration. The Municipal Corporation of Greater
Mumbai (MCGM) is in charge of the management of waste in the city. On a daily basis, Mumbai
generates waste amounting to nearly 9000 tons comprising biodegradable and recyclable materials, debris,
and silt. The biodegradable waste is made up of vegetable and fruit remainders, leaves, spoiled food,
eggshells, cotton, and so on. Newspapers, plastic, battery cells, wires, iron sheets, glass comprises
recyclable waste. Debris includes construction waste, renovation waste, demolition waste and the like. Earth
and clay from drains and road comers make up the silt.
The prevailing approach to waste management has been one of collection and disposal that is, garbage
is collected from communities by the municipal authorities and disposed of at various dumping sites that
are currently servicing the city, Garbage collectors manually collect the waste generated at the household
level and dumps them in the garbage bin at specified street comers. There are about 6000 community bins
in the city. This largely manual operation involves 35,000 personnel employed by the MCGM and is
collected by a fleet of 800 vehicles, including vehicles hired from private contractors, that work in shifis
every day. For collecting and transporting garbage and debris, municipal and private vehicles need to make
close to 2,000 trips every day.
Community participation in waste management is being promoted by MCGM. Under a joint project
started by the Government of India and MCGM in collaboration with United Nations Center for Human
Settlements community participation is waste management is being encouraged. This program is called
“Advanced Locality Management” (ALM). It is a community-based approach for effective management of
civic services. Under ALM communities with help from NGOs make arrangements for the waste to be
collected by ragpickers and then process biodegradable wastes and sell the recyclable material. MCGM pro-
vides subsidy and technical help to construct composting pits in these localities. NGOs play an
important role in this set-up by organizing the ragpickers and providing them the necessary training for col-
lecting and composting the waste.
MCGM also partners with Excel industries in converting the organic component of solid wastes into
manure through mechanical aerobic composting. Excel Industry Limited is one of the India’s largest
agrochemical companies. They are leaders in the field of solid waste management that help in sustainable
management of urban environment. The Biotech division of the company looks after the conversion of the
urban solid waste into useful organic manure through controlled aerobic composting. This process consists
of two stages: (i) biological process for decomposition of organic matter and (ii) mechanical process for
screening the decomposed organic matter, Waste is collected by MCGM and supplied to the different
compost plants of Excel Industries and then the waste is processed through aerobic composting. Composting
provides a sustainable recycling procedure through which the organic and biodegradable portion of solid
waste is converted to produce fertilizers that can be used for soil enhancement.
Paresh Shinde has been working in MCGM for the past ten years. Recently he has been assigned the
charge of waste management for wards A, B, C, D and E of greater Mumbai. Previously waste generated
from these wards was being dumped at landfills. But now with rising concerns about these open dumps that
threat public health and environmental quality, the focus is shifting towards more environment-friendly
options such as composting. Paresh has been assigned the job of preparing a schedule for transporting the
waste generated at these wards to three compost plants located at Deonar, Mulund and Gorai which are
operated by Excel Industries, At these plants, the waste will be converted to compost by aerobic
composting. Waste generated from each of the wards is given in Table 1 and the distance from the wards
to the compost plants are given in Table 2.Waste generated (tons) Distance in km
225 Wards | Deonar Mulund Goral
135
so Rov lino ararear ie
Pe c 23 31 44
a D 2 29 40
— 25 35 42
‘The transportation cost per ton of waste per km is Rs.10 and the operating costs per ton of waste at the
Deonar, Mulund and Gorai plants are Rs, 12, Rs. 11.5 and Rs. 7, respectively. The capacity of the Deonar
plant is 400 tons whereas those of Mulund and Gorai plants are 300 and 630 tons respectively, Paresh needs
to determine how much waste from each ward should be sent to each of the three compost plants so that
the total cost of transporting as well as the operating cost of composting the waste is minimized.
Paresh tries to remember the different tools that he learnt in college, as an applied mathematics major,
that could help him solve the above problem. Suddenly the models taught by Prof. Kulkarni in the linear
programming class come to his mind. Help Paresh formulate the above problem as a linear programming
model.
(i) What is the minimum cost that MCGM incurs for the above waste management initiative?
Gi) MCGM is considering setting up an ALM program in wards A & B for community participation in
waste management. This would require an initial investment of Rs. 300000 on the part of MCGM and
the processing cost of the waste generated in wards A and B will increase to Rs. 50, Paresh has been
asked to do a cost-benefit analysis for this alternative initiative. Does it make economic sense on
MCGM’s part to go ahead with the ALM project?
(iii) If the transportation cost per ton per km can be reduced by Re 1, will setting up an ALM program for
waste management in wards A and B still make economic sense?
(iv) An NGO has approached Paresh with a project through which they will train local ragpickers to
separate recyclable materials from solid waste. On an average 25% of the waste generated contains
recyclable materials such as newspapers, plastic, iron sheets, glass and the like. The recyclable materials
can be sold at Rs. 50 per ton. After separation of the recyclable materials, MCGM would have to
transport the rest of the solid waste to the compost plants. The NGO would need financial support from
MCGM and they estimate that organizing the ragpickers and providing them initial training would cost
Rs, 25,000. What would be the total cost of waste management incurred by MCGM under this new
initiative’?