Deonar Dumping Ground Is the Key to Unlock Mumbai’s Climate Goals

Waste-to-energy technologies will only exacerbate the toxic emissions from the giant landfill. There’s another way.

A waste picker searches through garbage at the Deonar dumping ground in Mumbai, India.

The 125-plus-year-old Deonar dumping ground in Mumbai, covering over 300 American football fields, is more than a blight on the city’s landscape – it is a climate, health, and justice crisis. For residents living nearby, the toxic fumes, plastic-chocked drains, and poor air quality are a daily reality. The 2016 fire that blanketed the city in black smoke demonstrated the dangers: methane from decomposing organic waste is highly flammable and about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 20 years.

Despite multiple legal battles and calls for closure, the municipality continues to consider waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies, which residents rightly oppose due to potential toxic emissions. Diverting all dry waste to WTE risks undermining the city’s own climate targets and the Solid Waste Management Rules, which mandate four-way segregation. In fact, over 70 percent of Mumbai’s waste is organic and compostable if properly segregated. 

In fact, the organic waste at Deonar could actually help solve India’s energy crisis.

The ongoing conflict between Iran, the United States, and Israel has significantly affected India’s oil and gas sector. The impact is most visible and dire for Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), which is the main cooking fuel. As 60 percent of India’s LPG needs are met through imports via the Strait of Hormuz, the country is seeing the worst cooking fuel shortage in modern times. The cost of LPG cylinders is soaring, long queues are forming outside gas agencies, and local restaurants are shutting down while those with purchasing power are panic purchasing alternatives like induction stoves and cookers. 

On the flip side, the LPG crisis has pushed local governments to explore homemade innovations that do not depend on imports. One such solution is biomethane, a gas produced by anaerobic digestion of organic waste that can be piped to households for cooking needs. Mumbai’s municipal corporation has put on fast-track the biomethanation project at Deonar, which had been pending implementation for a while now, as a consequence of the LPG crisis. Another Indian metropolis, Bengaluru, has decided to multiply its biogas capacity to meet the city’s energy needs. 

This sort of creativity is sorely needed in Mumbai’s approach to Deonar. Mumbai’s Climate Action Plan, launched in 2022, aims to reduce waste sent to landfills by 40 percent by 2030. The city’s Clean Air Action plans show that the air quality improvement measures set up in Mumbai lack a focus on waste sector emissions, especially the methane emissions at landfills. At a panel during Mumbai Climate Week last month, the deputy commissioner for solid waste management shared the civic corporation’s plans to send all dry waste to WTE plants – a move that could counteract the city’s climate, clean air, and waste reduction goals.

Deonar landfill is one of the top methane hotspots in the country with 6,202 kg of methane produced every hour according to a 2024 report by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). The area consistently shows the worst air quality in Mumbai. A WTE plant will further worsen the quality of life for citizens living in the vicinity of Deonar. 

Community-led, decentralized waste management offers proven alternatives. Organizations like Stree Mukti Sanghatana and Green Communities Foundation are already composting organic waste, recycling dry waste, producing biogas, and supporting the livelihoods of waste pickers in Mumbai – all while reducing landfill dependence and greenhouse gas emissions.

India must explore climate-resilient, homegrown, and decentralized solutions such as biomethane and biogas that have the potential to provide energy independence, reduce carbon emissions, and provide clean energy, clean air and clean jobs to communities. 

If the city is serious about its intentions to close Deonar landfill, it must not do so by replacing one polluting system with another. The solution lies in scaling decentralized, community-driven models, enforcing segregation at source, and investing in bioremediation of legacy waste. These measures would protect public health, cut methane emissions, and align Mumbai with its climate commitments and clean air goals.

It is time for the city to recognize and support Zero Waste solutions already operating on the ground, rather than defaulting to high-risk technological fixes.

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The 125-plus-year-old Deonar dumping ground in Mumbai, covering over 300 American football fields, is more than a blight on the city’s landscape – it is a climate, health, and justice crisis. For residents living nearby, the toxic fumes, plastic-chocked drains, and poor air quality are a daily reality. The 2016 fire that blanketed the city in black smoke demonstrated the dangers: methane from decomposing organic waste is highly flammable and about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 20 years.

Despite multiple legal battles and calls for closure, the municipality continues to consider waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies, which residents rightly oppose due to potential toxic emissions. Diverting all dry waste to WTE risks undermining the city’s own climate targets and the Solid Waste Management Rules, which mandate four-way segregation. In fact, over 70 percent of Mumbai’s waste is organic and compostable if properly segregated. 

In fact, the organic waste at Deonar could actually help solve India’s energy crisis.

The ongoing conflict between Iran, the United States, and Israel has significantly affected India’s oil and gas sector. The impact is most visible and dire for Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), which is the main cooking fuel. As 60 percent of India’s LPG needs are met through imports via the Strait of Hormuz, the country is seeing the worst cooking fuel shortage in modern times. The cost of LPG cylinders is soaring, long queues are forming outside gas agencies, and local restaurants are shutting down while those with purchasing power are panic purchasing alternatives like induction stoves and cookers. 

On the flip side, the LPG crisis has pushed local governments to explore homemade innovations that do not depend on imports. One such solution is biomethane, a gas produced by anaerobic digestion of organic waste that can be piped to households for cooking needs. Mumbai’s municipal corporation has put on fast-track the biomethanation project at Deonar, which had been pending implementation for a while now, as a consequence of the LPG crisis. Another Indian metropolis, Bengaluru, has decided to multiply its biogas capacity to meet the city’s energy needs. 

This sort of creativity is sorely needed in Mumbai’s approach to Deonar. Mumbai’s Climate Action Plan, launched in 2022, aims to reduce waste sent to landfills by 40 percent by 2030. The city’s Clean Air Action plans show that the air quality improvement measures set up in Mumbai lack a focus on waste sector emissions, especially the methane emissions at landfills. At a panel during Mumbai Climate Week last month, the deputy commissioner for solid waste management shared the civic corporation’s plans to send all dry waste to WTE plants – a move that could counteract the city’s climate, clean air, and waste reduction goals.

Deonar landfill is one of the top methane hotspots in the country with 6,202 kg of methane produced every hour according to a 2024 report by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). The area consistently shows the worst air quality in Mumbai. A WTE plant will further worsen the quality of life for citizens living in the vicinity of Deonar. 

Community-led, decentralized waste management offers proven alternatives. Organizations like Stree Mukti Sanghatana and Green Communities Foundation are already composting organic waste, recycling dry waste, producing biogas, and supporting the livelihoods of waste pickers in Mumbai – all while reducing landfill dependence and greenhouse gas emissions.

India must explore climate-resilient, homegrown, and decentralized solutions such as biomethane and biogas that have the potential to provide energy independence, reduce carbon emissions, and provide clean energy, clean air and clean jobs to communities. 

If the city is serious about its intentions to close Deonar landfill, it must not do so by replacing one polluting system with another. The solution lies in scaling decentralized, community-driven models, enforcing segregation at source, and investing in bioremediation of legacy waste. These measures would protect public health, cut methane emissions, and align Mumbai with its climate commitments and clean air goals.

It is time for the city to recognize and support Zero Waste solutions already operating on the ground, rather than defaulting to high-risk technological fixes.

Arpita Bhagat is the plastic policy officer for Asia Pacific with the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA). In this role, she leads GAIA’s engagement on the Global Plastics Treaty for the region. She has been working in the climate and plastics campaigning and advocacy space for over 12 years.

India waste management

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