Waste Management Issues in India and health challenges

India’s waste management predicament creates significant social and environmental challenges and needs to be controlled to prevent it from affecting the health and livelihoods of Indian citizens. Waste management in the country falls under the domain of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. This ministry is in charge of overseeing the efficient disposal of waste disposal. In 2016, it released the Solid Waste Management (SWM) rules to facilitate a change in the waste management strategies used in the country.  The rules include; firstly, making waste segregation compulsory, secondly, employing waste pickers, thirdly, making it mandatory for FMCG companies that use non-biodegradable packaging to implement a strategy of collecting the packaging waste used for their products and, prohibiting the dumping of non-recyclable waste that has a calorific value of 1,500Kcal/kg and above.