Integrated waste management

Contribution to climate protection on the example of Indian cities

Autor*innen: Regine Vogt, Anja Schwetje, Claus-André Radde, K. Vijaya Lakshmi, Kavya Arora, K P Pravinjith

Müll und Abfall 04/2019 A recent study conducted by ifeu Heidelberg, Development Alternatives and Ecoparadigm and commissioned by the German Environment Agency describes the greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation potential of integrated waste management and circular economy in emerging and developing countries on the example of the Indian cities Bangalore, Bhopal and Haridwar. This article presents selected results for Bhopal and Haridwar and illustrates that especially diversion of waste from landfill has the potential to contribute significantly to climate protection. An extrapolation shows that not only major cities, but also the large number of smaller cities contribute decisively to national GHG reduction and could therefore be taken into account in national waste and climate protection concepts. The GHG balances are prepared in accordance with the LCA method in waste management. The respective status quo was determined and compared with two optimally realistic optimization scenarios. Since many required data are not available at the local level, they had to be supplemented by secondary data, site visits, interviews and assumptions. Although the results are inaccurate due to the difficult data situation, the magnitude of the determined reduction is robust. However, valid data are crucial for planning and implementing integrated waste management. In addition, input data have a significant influence on the GHG result, as shown by the example of landfill.