Municipal Solid Waste: A Major Footprint in Urban Environment of Siliguri

Siliguri is the largest and fastest growing urban centers in North Bengal, as being Gateway of North-east India and break of bulk point it is most commercially active and always act as center of attraction. The urbanization trends of Siliguri can be understood by its continuously increasing population from only 738 in 1901 to 513264 in 2011. As increasing urbanization trends it has close-packed relationship with solid waste whose management must be carried in sustainable way. According to A Status Report on various scheme & project of Siliguri municipality corporation (SMC) 2013, Siliguri produce solid waste of 300 tons/day which rose to 313 tons/day according to June & July survey 2015 and 335 tons/day by 2017 according to SMC report. An analysis made by CRIS (CRISIL Risk and Infrastructure Solutions Limited) they projected solid waste generation of urban Siliguri should be 360 tons/day by 2021, to 455 tons/day by 2031, to 573 tons/day by 2041 which should be huge impact over environment. Thus, in this paper we endeavor to find major specification of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) and its trend analysis, to review about daily generation of solid waste, its types and constituents, process of waste collection by SMC, major issues related to solid waste and its impact over urban environment of Siliguri and also its management practices. We conduct our study based on both primary and secondary data after which we analyze and represent it through various cartographic and statistic techniques. As we discover some of major environmental constraints due to solid waste mainly near dumping sites like suffocating odor and toxic gases, leaching, filthy dirt, vectors and stray animals spreading the solid waste causing the environment more harmful etc. The study concludes about the recent measures and proposal taken by SMC to restrain solid waste and also some findings and recommendation by us.