Management of Hotel Waste

There are a large number of Restaurants and Hotels in Mumbai. These hotels contribute substantially to the generation of waste in a ward. As per our study of a few wards, hotel and restaurant waste contributes to around 25-30 % of the total waste generated by the ward.

Types of Hotel waste: Hotel waste comprises of two components, Biodegradable (Wet) waste and Non biodegradable (Dry) waste. The wet waste comprises of food, vegetable and non veg waste whereas the dry waste comprises of plastic bottles, papers, plastic wrappers, HDPE, LLDPE bags etc. Present System of disposal of Hotel Waste :
At present Hotel waste generated by small restaurants is disposed off directly by the hotels at nearby collection spots. The substantial quantity of food waste dumped at these collection spots gets mixed with all the other kinds of dry and wet waste and gives an ugly look to the collection spots with lot of dirt and stink. In case of large four and 5 star hotels, the hotel waste is disposed off directly by the hotels through MCGM or through private contractors to the dumping ground. MCGM provides a service of directly lifting hotel waste from the small hotels in some wards such as A , B, H west, M West ward etc. MCGM charges Trade Refuse Charge (TRC) to the hotels for the waste generated by the hotels. The TRC is charged in multiples of license fees which is directly based on the area of the hotel and the grade. The grade one hotels are generally bars and permit rooms which do peak business during evening hours. The waste generated by the restaurants with bars and permit rooms is much less as compared to that generated by the food restaurants. However the TRC charged for the bars and restaurants is much higher than that charged for the ordinary restaurants which generate much more quantity of waste. As per our observations of the hotel waste generated by hotels in a few wards, around 70 to 75 % of the hotel waste is biodegradable and gets mixed with all the other type of waste when dumped at the collection spots. Also the waste which is collected directly by the MCGM/private contractors gets mixed with all the other type of non biodegradable waste at the dumping ground.

Suggested Action Points for MCGM Management of waste generated by all the 3,4 and 5 star hotels and restaurants generating over one tonne of waste by themselves : These hotels can look at options of insitu composting, installation of small biomethanation plants in the premises etc.
At present, hotel Orchid, Rhodas and Lotus suites are manging their waste quite well and can set an example for other hotels.. MCGM should enforce in-situ management of waste generated by these hotels.

Direct collection of waste generated by hotels my MCGM and its localized disposal : MCGM should look at direct collection of hotel waste and set up zone wise processing facilities (either composting or biomethanation. MEDC is evaluating various technologies for biomethanation and developing a business model. The report will be ready in a couple of months). This will substantially reduce the transport cost as well as the load on the dumping grounds. The public collection spots will also get less amount of garbage.

Some methods for management of Hotel Restaurant and Club food waste could be as follows :

Bio Sanitizer by Excel Industries : Excel Industries Ltd. supplies machines of capacity 500kg, per day, 1 tonne per day and 3 tonnes per day machines along with biosanitizer. This machines can crush the food waste to 1/3rd of the original volume and odourless compost produced can be used as manure after curing. (Details can be available with Excel Industries). Biomethanation : Biomethanation Plants of capacities 100 -500 kg per day can be installed in the premises of hotels if adequate space is available. Gas generated can be used for cooking.
Composting/ Vermicomposting Options of composting/vermicomposting could be explored.