ANNOUNCEMENTS
Mismanagement of plastic waste can have ecosystem-wide impacts. With growing urbanization and plastic consumption, it becomes crucial to identify risk of leakage of plastic waste based on use of multicriteria approaches that integrate natural and anthropogenic drivers. Employing prioritised interventions by policy-makers in high-risk areas, can help in checking plastic waste contamination. Mismanaged PW for Dehradun city was quantified at 6,281 tonnes per annum, which is 44% of the city’s total plastic waste generated. This study also used GIS-fuzzy based models to categorize leakage risk in Dehradun Around 10% of the city’s area was categorized as high risk and very high risk by fuzzy-AND, while a weighted linear combination fuzzy overlay classified 48%. Incorporating flood risk with ‘hotspot’ wards identified that 14 of the city wards are at high risk of both plastic waste leakage and flooding. Finally, this study used an AHP based Technological-Economic-Sustainability (Social and Environmental) analysis to choose a suitable plastic waste management approach for Dehradun. Mechanical recycling was identified as the most feasible approach (with 42.2% score) followed by pyrolysis (19.7%). As a comparison to Dehradun, Pune city, which ranks 10th in Swacch Survekshan (2023), was used to assess the impact of better PW management practices on feasibility outcomes of PWM approaches.
Keywords: Mismanaged plastic waste; Fuzzy logic; River plastic pollution; Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP); Technological, Economic, Sustainability feasibility assessment.
