Article
Sustainable Management of Green Waste in India through Waste-to-Energy Technologies: A Circular Economy Approach
India faces an escalating environmental challenge in managing rapidly increasing volumes of municipal solid waste (MSW), driven by urbanization, population growth, and economic development. Organic or green waste constitutes roughly 50% of the waste stream, and its mismanagement has contributed to landfill saturation, elevated methane emissions, and extensive ecological degradation. This paper critically examines sustainable green waste management options, with a specific focus on Waste-to-Energy (WtE) technologies such as anaerobic digestion, composting, incineration, and gasification. Using a comparative framework that integrates Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), techno-economic analysis, and carbon emission benchmarking, the study evaluates key governmental interventions, including the GOBARdhan scheme and urban WtE initiatives. The analysis indicates that decentralized biogas and composting systems deliver superior environmental performance, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and higher economic viability than conventional landfilling and most centralized thermal WtE solutions. The paper argues that embedding circular economy principles into policy and infrastructure—combined with targeted technological innovation—can help shift India’s waste management system from a linear, disposal-oriented model to a resource-efficient, energy-generating ecosystem.
