Factors Impacting Solid Waste Generation in India: A City-wise Econometric Analysis

Abstract: This paper operationalized three constructs, viz., globalization, urbanization, and inequality, identified as development factors and attempted to examine their influence on solid waste generation in city regions of India using city-wise data. The decadal population change was used as a measure of urbanization. In contrast, the variation in the percentage of formal and informal jobs was considered a sign of firms expanding their business in various cities in India as an offshoot of increasing globalization. Literacy rate and sanitation facilities are portrayed as a consequence of inequality reflected in the cities as basic minimum access. Regression analysis shows the importance of development factors, viz., globalization, urbanization, and inequality in solid waste generation. Further, a frontier analysis was carried out to identify the better-performing and poor-performing cities in terms of SWM. The paper then discusses how these development factors have played an important role in the solid waste generation performance of some of the better and poor-performing cities. Our finding suggests that the problems of solid waste generation can hardly be addressed ignoring the important development factors that city regions in a developing economy grapple with. Keywords: Solid waste, city regions, globalization, urbanization, inequality, Regression Analysis, India JEL Classification Number: C20, C61