An overview of municipal solid waste-to-energy application in Indian scenario

Municipal solid waste management is creating serious environmental issues for both developing and developed countries. Proper waste management solutions should be adopted to meet technological feasibility, and it should be financially and environmentally sustainable as well as socially and legally acceptable. Developing countries like India have introduced new policy frameworks for the proper management of municipal solid waste resources along with waste-to-energy recovery and material recycling. This paper gives a deep insight into municipal waste management systems and examines the energy and environmental policy issues to identify weak points in selection criteria for suitable technology. India is facing serious issues in the management of municipal solid waste and is trying to introduce better management solutions. From a technical perspective, both gasification and anaerobic digestion seem to be attractive when compared to traditional management approaches, but the economic feasibility of these technologies needs to be verified.