India is rapidly shifting from agricultural-based nation to industrial and services-oriented country. About 31.2% population is now living in urban areas. Over 377 million urban people are living in 7,935 towns/cities. India is experiencing rapid urbanization while remaining a country with physical, climatic, geographical, ecological, social, cultural and linguistic diversity. Today India faces major environmental challenges related with the problem of waste management. “Waste Management” refers to the various schemes to manage and dispose of wastes. It can be by discarding, destroying, processing, recycling, reusing, or controlling wastes. The prime objective of waste management is to reduce the amount of unusable materials and to avert potential health and environmental hazards. Currently, India is generating heaps of waste material due to continuously increasing population, mismanagement of waste, lack of awareness, informal disposing off the waste.
This paper shows the two sides of waste management i.e. Challenges and opportunities. It has been shown in the paper real scenario of waste that has been generated per day in India. It highlights the four tiers of waste management to reduce its environmental impact: pollution prevention and source reduction; reuse or redistribution of unwanted, surplus materials; treatment, reclamation, and recycling of materials within the waste; and disposal through incineration, treatment, or land burial. With opportunities and challenges, innovation goes hand in hand. Waste management has given a wide scope for innovation. Most of the company’s choose a path of innovation to tackle wastes. The relationship will also be shown in the paper between waste management and innovation. The key to efficient waste management is to ensure proper segregation of waste at source and to ensure that the waste goes through different streams of recycling and resource recovery. To streamline these processes innovation is required for managing the stacks of waste.
Keywords: Waste Management, Opportunities, Innovation, Population Growth.
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