Agra, globally renowned for its historical architectural marvels and UNESCO World Heritage Sites — Taj Mahal and Agra Fort — is facing a growing challenge in managing plastic waste.
As a riverine city with deep historical roots, Agra struggles with inefficient waste collection, unauthorised dumping in drains and waste disposal on vacant plots or open lands leading to formation of Garbage Vulnerable Points (GVPs).
This mismanagement of waste leads to significant plastic leakage into the Yamuna river. A network of minor and major drains crisscrosses the city, carrying stormwater and wastewater, eventually discharging into the Yamuna.
The India–Norway Marine Pollution Initiative (INMPI) is a key bilateral effort by the governments of India and Norway to address marine litter and microplastics (MPs).
Multiple projects have been undertaken to reduce marine plastic pollution from land based sources.
As part of this initiative, five organisations are working on distinct projects, with Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) leading efforts to mainstream the circular economy in India's waste management sector.
Agra was selected as one of the partner cities and CSE has been providing technical support to Agra Municipal Corporation (AMC) since 2020.
As part of this collaboration, three key studies were planned for Agra. Two of these — on Petha waste management and pre-consumer footwear waste management — have been successfully completed and the learnings have been shared with AMC.
CSE provided the AMC with a detailed roadmap and strategies to minimise the extent of mismanagement by diverting these waste fractions away from drains, GVPs and dumpsites were communicated in a closed door meeting with key government officials and relevant stakeholders.
In response, AMC has taken significant steps to manage Petha waste – this includes deploying a dedicated collection and transportation fleet to collect waste from Petha manufacturing units.
Starting July 2022, every day close to nine tonnes of petha waste is being sent to AMC Gaushalas in Tedi Baghiya.
Petha waste serves as supplementary nutrition for cows, as it contains various vitamins and minerals.
The cow dung generated in these Gaushalas is managed onsite through a third-party vendor. India Agro Pvt Ltd., converts the cow dung into compost. It is then transported to Kuberpur dumpsite where it is processed and packaged in a centralised facility to be sold as an organic manure to Krishak Bharati Cooperative Limited (KRIBHCO) at a rate of Rs. 3 per kg including transporting compost to agreed locations.
Similarly, AMC has earmarked collection and transportation fleet for footwear waste, specifically targeting more than 6,000 informal household based businesses (HBBs) of footwear manufacturing or parts of footwear manufacturing in different wards spread across Agra.
Close to seven tonnes per day (TPD) of footwear waste from such settlements is collected.
It is then transported to the centralised facility at Kuberpur dumpsite. Agra Municipal Corporation plans to use this high calorific value waste in its upcoming Waste-to-Energy plant, which is anticipated to be operational in 2026.
Additionally, AMC has taken initiatives by involving SHG’s and private players in exploring avenues for recovery, reuse and recycling of pre-consumer footwear waste.
The third and most critical requirement for AMC was to understand the pathways, sinks, and hotspots of plastic leakage into the Yamuna river. To achieve this, CSE conducted an in-depth study across Agra city. This study aimed to assess plastic leakage from major & minor drains and Garbage Vulnerable Points (GVPs).
To initiate the study, four reconnaissance surveys were conducted to determine the scope of the study. Based on these surveys, the CSE team identified critical drains (major and minor) and GVPs that needed to be considered for the study. A methodology was developed to understand the scale and extent of leakage from the identified drains and GVPs.
For major and minor drain assessments, net trapping method was used to capture plastic waste leaking into the Yamuna over specified durations.
The captured plastic waste extrapolated to estimate the quantum of plastic waste leakage from major and minor drains. Captured waste was further characterised into different polymer types, such as PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate), HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene), LDPE (Low-Density Polyethylene), PP (Polypropylene), PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride), PS (Polystyrene), and Multi-Layered Plastics (MLPs) to understand the extent of polymer leakage in Yamuna.
In addition to polymer categorisation, a detailed brand audit was conducted to distinguish between branded and non-branded plastic waste found in drainage systems, similar brand audit studies were followed for GVPs.
At GVPs, plastic waste was collected, and its weight, volume, and density were analysed to estimate the quantity of plastic that could be lying at GVPs and could potentially be washed away during light to heavy rainfall. This is particularly critical during the monsoon season when increased water levels in the Yamuna carry away with it anything that comes in its way.
During monsoons, GVPs act as hotspots as well as sinks of plastic waste, while major and minor drains serve as pathways transporting plastic into the river. Additionally, various sinks were identified in major drains where plastic waste gets trapped on piers or other obstructions before eventually being washed into the Yamuna. To carry out this study almost 20 local workers were hired for a period of about a month. The field study concluded in the month of July 2024, and the collected data is currently being analysed by researchers at CSE. The final results will be presented in a report and will be released in a workshop in June 2025.
To assess the MP load in the Yamuna River, CSE collaborated with the National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), a government research agency under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
NCCR officials conducted fieldwork in Agra, collecting water and sediment samples in triplicates. Water samples were obtained using surface trawling, where a plankton net, integrated with a sampling container was towed horizontally from a boat to skim the water surface for a specified period. A flowmeter was used to record the volume of water that passed through the net in the sampling period.
Sediment samples were collected from the riverbed and banks using the coning and quartering technique. The water samples were transferred to clean glass bottles while the sediment samples were stored in aluminum containers for analysis in the laboratory.
The findings from this study will contribute significantly to understanding plastic waste leakage in Agra, informing future policy interventions, and strengthening waste management practices to mitigate environmental pollution.
India, with its 7,500 km long coastline and high degree of waste mismanagement is in dire need for development of simple yet effective methodologies. Such low cost interventions can help local governments in coastal and riverine cities to create baselines for plastic waste leakage. This will help the country measure and take effective actions to reduce marine litter.