Latest data on solid waste could be a statistician's nightmare
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) recently released a report on waste management titled 'Management of Municipal Solid Waste'. What makes the report interesting is that the current data differs erroneously from the data which it had published in 1995. Disputing the commonly-accepted fact that solid waste generation has increased, CPCB states that, for instance, in Delhi waste generation has fallen from 4,600 tonnes per day (tpd) in 1995 to 4,000 tpd in 2000. In Nagpur, it has fallen from 1,100 tpd to 443 tpd -- a drop of almost 50 per cent. "In the 1980s, a family's weekly garbage production used to be about 7 kilogramme (kg). Now it is 20-30 kg," says Iqbal Malik, director of Vatavaran, a Delhi-based organisation working on solid waste. It is obvious that the latest data is an underestimate, she says.
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