Environment › Waste and circular economy

Solid and plastic waste

Municipal and plastic waste: the rules that govern it, segregation and processing, landfills, the ban on single use plastic and the producer's duty for packaging, microplastics and the global plastics treaty. Prelims has asked about the Solid Waste Management Rules.

Showing 2 of 2 subjects, those that changed from 1 July to 15 September 2026.Show all

Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026

Prelims and Mains

Waste rules are read as instructions to a municipality, and that is the half a student remembers. The Rules of 2026 also bind the person who fills the bin, which is where segregation at source sits.

Municipal solid waste is the urban local body's charge, and the daily work of collecting, carrying and sorting it falls on sanitary workers.
The generator, whether a household or an institution, must separate its waste before handing it over, and nobody downstream can do that job for it.
Mixed waste cannot be unmixed at the far end, so what a household does with its bin decides how much of a city's waste can be composted or recycled at all.

What changed

20 Aug 2026
The Hindu, 20 Aug 2026: Supreme Court turns to Gen Z, Gen Alpha to educate elders on solid waste management (opens in a new tab)
20 Aug 2026
- The Supreme Court held on 18 August 2026 that managing solid waste is a duty every generator shares, not the sanitary worker's alone.
- It called for an audit and upgrade of waste infrastructure to bring it up to the Rules.
- Education departments are to carry practical waste management lessons into school teaching, to reach households through their children.
- District Collectors are to engage households and institutions directly.
The Hindu, 20 Aug 2026: Supreme Court turns to Gen Z, Gen Alpha to educate elders on solid waste management (opens in a new tab)
23 Jul 2026Update
- The rules replaced the 2016 rules from 1 April 2026 and require segregation at source into four streams: wet, dry, sanitary and special care waste.
- Bulk waste generators carry an extended responsibility to ensure their waste is collected and processed, and every stage is tracked on a central portal.
- Sanitary landfills must be audited by the State Pollution Control Board or a registered environment auditor. Of seven legacy dumpsites identified in Delhi NCR, four have been remediated.
PIB, 23 Jul 2026: PARLIAMENT QUESTION: EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT OF LANDFILLS IN DLEHI-NCR (opens in a new tab) · PIB, 23 Jul 2026: PARLIAMENT QUESTION: SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT AT MOUNTAIN TOURIST SITES (opens in a new tab)

UPSC has asked

Prelims 2019: the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016

Marine litter and microplastics

Prelims and Mains

Most marine plastic starts on land and reaches the sea through drains and rivers, and the National Centre for Coastal Research measures it on India's coast through a Clean Coast Index and surveys of microplastics.

What changed

29 Jul 2026Update
- A draft National Marine Litter Policy has been sent to the Environment Ministry.
- The National Centre for Coastal Research finds synthetic filaments to be the commonest microplastic, with river discharge and abandoned fishing gear the main sources, and has built a Clean Coast Index.
Mains: most marine plastic starts on land and arrives through drains and rivers.
PIB, 29 Jul 2026: PARLIAMENT QUESTION: NCCR Studies on Microplastic Pollution (opens in a new tab)
27 Jul 2026New subject
- More than 2,500 tonnes of waste washed back onto Mumbai's beaches after a week of rain, most of it at Juhu, where stormwater outfalls discharge into the sea.
The Indian Express, 27 Jul 2026: More than 2,500 tonnes of waste washed back onto Mumbai's beaches after a week of heavy rain (opens in a new tab)

Also filed elsewhere

Extended Producer Responsibility · on E-waste, battery and hazardous waste
The instrument that makes anyone pay for a product once it is thrown away is Extended Producer Responsibility, which moves that cost from the municipality to the producer.