From smart bins to waste-to-energy: An IoT-enabled framework for energy-efficient urban solid waste management in India

Municipal solid waste (MSW) generation rate and the growth of urban energy demand are particularly high in fast-growing economies like India, where high organic and moisture content, low collection-to-treatment ratio, and saturated landfills are intermingled with a huge but largely unexplored waste-to-energy (WTE) opportunity. However, a critical review of the smart-waste literature shows that the limiting factor is not technological but architectural: the Internet-of-Things (IoTs) collection systems and WTE conversion plants are optimized as weakly coupled subsystems, so that the quality of the waste feedstock (the most important parameter governing energy yield) rarely cascades from upstream sensing to downstream conversion. This paper proposes an integrated solution that brings together all the above elements into a single data and control fabric, using real-time compositional data for allocating conversion pathways (anaerobic digestion, refuse-derived fuel or gasification). The collection problem is formulated as an energy-aware capacitated vehicle-routing problem, and carbon performance and techno-economic feasibility are directly included as co-optimization goals, not as post-processing assessments. A hypothetical scenario analysis, parameterized on Indian urban conditions for a reference city of approximately two million residents generating 1000 t/day, projects a net energy gain of approximately +3343 GJ/day (energy recovery ratio approximately 2:1); a simple payback period of approximately 5.6 years and a discounted payback of approximately 8.7 years at a 10% discount rate; a net present value of approximately USD 11 million over a 15-year horizon; and a reduction of approximately 188 kt CO2-eq/yr relative to conventional landfill-based management, of which avoided landfill methane is the dominant contributor. These are projected values derived from literature-benchmarked parameters rather than measured results, and the full calculation trail is provided in Supplementary S1. The framework is presented as a municipal reference architecture, aligned with the principles of the circular economy, that supports the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals 7, 11, 12 and 13, and that explicitly stipulates that validation of the framework on the ground is the key next step.