| Abstract: |
Urban centres across developing and developed economies face mounting pressure from expanding waste volumes, and the manner in which municipalities respond to that pressure shapes air quality, water quality, soil health and public health outcomes in ways that are only partially understood. This study examines the relationship between sustainable waste management practices source segregation, composting, recycling, waste-to-energy conversion and landfill engineering and measurable indicators of urban environmental quality across a sample of 120 municipal wards drawn from six Indian cities of varying population size. Primary data were collected through structured household surveys (n=480), municipal records review, and field-based environmental sampling of air particulate matter, groundwater quality near disposal sites, and soil contamination indices. Statistical treatment involved descriptive analysis, Pearson correlation, and multiple regressions to isolate the contribution of specific practices to environmental quality scores while controlling for population density and municipal budget allocation. Findings indicate a statistically significant positive association between source segregation adoption and reduced PM2.5 concentrations near collection points, and a moderate inverse relationship between composting coverage and groundwater nitrate contamination. Waste-to-energy infrastructure, though present in only 18 of 120 wards, showed the strongest single-practice bivariate correlation with overall environmental quality index scores. Wards lacking formal segregation infrastructure recorded environmental quality indices roughly 34 percent lower than wards with mature segregation systems. These results extend earlier single-city studies by offering cross-city comparative evidence and by quantifying the differential weight of individual practices rather than treating sustainable waste management as a monolithic variable. The paper concludes that policy interventions targeting decentralised segregation and composting yield disproportionate environmental returns relative to capital-intensive waste-to-energy investment, particularly in mid-sized cities with constrained municipal budgets. |
