MUMBAI, May 24 -- Even as the BMC is pushing for greater segregation of garbage and has mandated large housing societies to process their own waste, it is struggling to deal with kitchen waste, which constitutes the biggest chunk of garbage collected from the city. Currently, of the estimated 7,000 metric tonnes of garbage generated in the city, over 72% comprises kitchen waste or wet waste. While the BMC has already signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Mahanagar Gas Limited (MGL) to convert kitchen waste to compressed bio gas (CBG), it faces operational challenges here. "For the conversion of the wet waste into CBG, MGL has demanded pure organic kitchen waste," said deputy municipal commissioner (solid waste management) Kiran Dighavkar. "Due to this criterion, the BMC hopes to send its kitchen waste per day only from restaurants and its 96 markets (an estimated 400 to 500 tonnes per day). The quality of the household-segregated wet garbage may not have the requisite organic quality and will continue to get sent to the Kanjur processing facility." Dighavkar told HT that MGL was in the process of setting up the CBG project on an eight-acre space within the Deonar dumping site, which is expected to be operational by December 2027. As per the MoU, the CBG plant with a capacity of 1,000 tonnes per day will be operational in two phases, with the development of a plant capable of processing 500 tonnes per day (TPD) in the first phase. Currently, the BMC has committed to send 350 metric tonnes of kitchen waste to MGL but eventually hopes to increase it to 1,000 metric tonnes. It intends to procure 44 compactors dedicated to collecting kitchen waste in the city. Currently, the BMC turns in its wet waste to the Kanjur waste-processing plant, where it is turned into compost and converted into power. As of March 2026, of the 189 metric tonnes of garbage processed at Kanjur produce 16.29 million units of power along with 91,434 of compost, which is sold. The BMC has already set up a municipal solid waste (MSW) processing facility at the Kanjur landfill site. The facility, which has been operational since February 2011, has the capacity to process 1,000 TPD of MSW with composting technology and 3,000 to 6,500 TPD with bioreactor technology for a period of 25 years. Presently, around 5,900 TPD (4,900 TPD by bio-reactor technology and 1,000 TPD by compost) is being processed. "The thumb rule is that it requires 20 to 25 tonnes of organic kitchen waste to produce one tonne of CBG while 100 kg of wet garbage could produce 12 to 18 kg of compost," said Zulkif Shaikh, an MTech in green technology from UDCT and director of Sanjeevni S3, an enterprise that helps in solid waste management. "With the tightening of the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026, we are hoping that citizens' enthusiasm will return."...