TEHRAN – Municipal waste generation in Tehran is twice as other megacities in the world, Tehran City Council Chairman Mohsen Hashemi said on Thursday as he visited the Aradkuh landfill in southern Tehran.

Pointing to the fact that Tehraners produce some 9,000 tons of municipal waste on a daily basis, Hashemi said, “We should move towards modifying our consumption patterns.”

Referring to the fact that per capita municipal waste generation is 800 grams in southern Tehran and 1,200 grams in northern Tehran, he noted that the rich produce more waste compared to lower income families.

Removing the waste costs some 8 trillion rials (nearly $178 million) for the municipality each year, the senior councilor highlighted.

Reducing the costs is one the priorities of urban management, he said, adding, “Our view is to turn waste into a source of income.”

These amount of waste can be processed to produce 50 megawatt electricity and 3,000 tons of compost, Hashemi highlighted. 

According to Reza Abdoli, head of waste management organization at the Tehran Municipality, currently near 200 tons of waste is processed in waste-to-energy units per day, producing 3 megawatts of electricity which is far from the city’s real potential.

Converting municipal waste to energy and compost through standard methods will prevent damage to the environment by burying them in the landfills.

However, lack of citizens’ awareness and cooperation coupled with limited resources at the municipality to provide the citizens with proper guidelines concerning waste sorting, and install litter bins for waste segregation in all neighborhoods are what impeding the proper waste segregation in the country to some extent.

As per a report published by United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), in October 2016 waste generation per capita in Iran’s urban areas is about 658 grams per day. Iranian waste generation per capita in rural areas is about 220-340 grams per day. Average Iranian waste generation per capita amounts to some 240 kilograms per year. 

Each Tehrani citizen generates about 270-450 kilograms of waste per year.

Of the 20 million tons of waste being produced in the country per annum, merely 3.2 million tons are recycled and the rest end up in landfills which results in production of 10 million cubic meters of leachates. 

MAH/MQ/PA