91
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Rukhsana et al. (eds.), Habitat, Ecology and Ekistics, Advances in Asian
Human-Environmental Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49115-4_5
Chapter 5
Environmental Pollution and Municipal
Solid Waste Management in India
Mithun Ray, Avaya Chandra Mohapatra, Suman Das, Asraful Alam,
and Biman Ghosh
5.1 Introduction
Solid wastes are wastes arise from human and animal activities that are normally
solid or semi-solid in form and are discarded as worthless or unwanted. It includes
non-liquid, non-soluble materials ranging from municipal garbage to industrial
wastes that contain complex and sometimes hazardous substances. These are the
unavoidable byproduct of human activities. In earlier days, the disposal of human
waste did not pose significant difficulties since the population was small and the
availability of land for assimilation of waste was large (Ray and Rahaman 2016). In
addition, the amount of waste generated was also small and not diversified as the
consumption was at a basic level. But with increasing and diversified wastes resulting from rapid economic growth and overpopulation, management of wastes has
become one of the arduous jobs for many Urban Authorities in developed as well as
in developing countries, particularly for the responsibility of supervising public
health and sanitation (Siddiqui et al. 2013). There are potential risks to environment
and health from improper handling of solid wastes. The most obvious environmental damage caused by municipal solid wastes is aesthetic, the ugliness of street litter
M. Ray
Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Malda College, Malda, West Bengal, India
A. C. Mohapatra
Department of Geography, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya, India
S. Das
Department of Geography, Ramkrishna Mahavidyalaya, Kailashahar, Tripura, India
A. Alam (*)
Department of Geography, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
B. Ghosh
Department of Geography, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, West Bengal, India
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Rukhsana et al. (eds.), Habitat, Ecology and Ekistics, Advances in Asian
Human-Environmental Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49115-4_5
Chapter 5
Environmental Pollution and Municipal
Solid Waste Management in India
Mithun Ray, Avaya Chandra Mohapatra, Suman Das, Asraful Alam,
and Biman Ghosh
5.1 Introduction
Solid wastes are wastes arise from human and animal activities that are normally
solid or semi-solid in form and are discarded as worthless or unwanted. It includes
non-liquid, non-soluble materials ranging from municipal garbage to industrial
wastes that contain complex and sometimes hazardous substances. These are the
unavoidable byproduct of human activities. In earlier days, the disposal of human
waste did not pose significant difficulties since the population was small and the
availability of land for assimilation of waste was large (Ray and Rahaman 2016). In
addition, the amount of waste generated was also small and not diversified as the
consumption was at a basic level. But with increasing and diversified wastes resulting from rapid economic growth and overpopulation, management of wastes has
become one of the arduous jobs for many Urban Authorities in developed as well as
in developing countries, particularly for the responsibility of supervising public
health and sanitation (Siddiqui et al. 2013). There are potential risks to environment
and health from improper handling of solid wastes. The most obvious environmental damage caused by municipal solid wastes is aesthetic, the ugliness of street litter
M. Ray
Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Malda College, Malda, West Bengal, India
A. C. Mohapatra
Department of Geography, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya, India
S. Das
Department of Geography, Ramkrishna Mahavidyalaya, Kailashahar, Tripura, India
A. Alam (*)
Department of Geography, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
B. Ghosh
Department of Geography, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, West Bengal, India