Waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration and urban heat in Delhi.
Heatwaves, which are a period of unusually high temperatures as compared to what is normally expected over a region, are increasingly posing a serious threat to health, especially in the Indian subcontinent. It progresses gradually and causes harm and fatalities among people, animals, crops and other biodiversity across the country. 10,635 deaths occured in India between 2013-2022 due to heat or sunstroke, disproportionately impacting the elderly, children, individuals working in outdoor settings, and those with existing health issues or medical conditions. Delhi is one of the most vulnerable cities to the effects of a heat wave because of its inland location, dense urban environment, and rapid urbanisation. Though the Delhi government has brought out the “heat wave action plan” to take necessary mitigative and response actions, there is little attention given to “urban heat islands” (UHIs), the phenomenon where urban areas experience higher temperatures than their surrounding rural areas. Several factors contribute to UHIs in Delhi, including land surface changes, vehicle emissions, industrial activities, waste burning and climate variability. As Delhi grapples with the mounting waste problem, Waste-to-Energy (WTE) incineration has emerged as a prominent, quick fix “solution” among the policy makers. While several studies have looked into the environmental, health and livelihood impacts of WTEs, its contribution to urban heat has been neglected. Moreover, there has been no study on the contribution of waste to energy (WTE) incinerators, which currently burn about 7,250 tons of waste to Delhi’s urban heat.
This report investigates the impacts of waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration to the urban heat in Delhi and how it creates “urban heat islands” where residents are exposed to higher and nocturnally sustained temperatures impacting their health. WTE operations involve centralised, large-scale, high-temperature processes that inevitably release heat into the environment. This report analyzes the sources of heat emissions from WTE plants and uses community interaction to estimate the potential thermal contribution of WTEs to Delhi’s warming. While the government ramps up its WTE infrastructure to burn 14,250 tons of garbage by 2027, Delhi may be trading for a much bigger problem because of the chemical pollution, greenhouse gases and heat generation from WTEs.
Read and Download the Report here: Burning Waste, Warming cities