The Indian Waste-to-Energy Failure

An investigative report by The New York Times has leveled major accusations against the operators of the Timarpur-Okhla waste-burning plant in India's National Capital Territory of Delhi as well as government officials regulating the country's burgeoning waste-to-energy sector. According to the article, the smoke emanating from the plant contains more than the legal amount of toxins by a long shot, while ashes produced by the burning of waste for electricity generation have been dumbed illegally close to homes in the city. Residents had protested the plant for years, complaining of respiratory issues and headaches, among other ailments, while accusations of increased miscarriage and birth defects were also leveled.

While up-to-date numbers of waste-burning plants in India are hard to come by and even the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has deleted this number from its most recent report, there are around 10 plants operational in the country burning waste for electricity. Four of them are located in Delhi, with Timarpur-Okhla being the oldest, having opened in 2012, and the Tehkhand plant only having started commercial operations last year. Delhi is also the city with the highest amount of general household waste generated in India by some margin due to its size but also lack of garbage sorting. The country's first waste-to-electricity plant also opened in Delhi in 1987 but shut down soon after, being plagued by issues.

According to NGO Centre for Financial Accountability - which estimated the number of waste-burning plants in the country at 10 in December 2022, same as the government did as of March 2023 - around as many plants as are operational in India have failed to operate commercially due to a myriad of problems associated with them. Yet, the Indian government keeps pushing for the technology to be expanded along with other waste-to-energy schemes. The number of plants under construction was put at around 10-15 as of FY 2022-23, with the number of proposed plants even higher.

This is despite the fact that issues with waste-burning plants in India are well known. As of 2019, the Centre for Science and Environment already pointed out that burning household waste and generating electricity in the process might have been seen as a quick and satisfying fix in a country that generates an increasing amount of waste and is struggling to sort and treat it accordingly. The centers report further states that additional to public pushback against this type of plant, India has issues due to the type of waste it produces. Countries successfully operating waste-to-energy burning usually separate and treat recyclables and organic waste at other plants. Indian waste is more mixed and therefore not as suitable for burning. Secondly, the CSE rates India's ability to enforce stringent emission standards and monitor plans accordingly as insufficient, especially as the need to do so rises as the quality of incinerated waste decreases.