As of May 1, a month after the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules 2026 came into force and the amended Plastic Waste Management Rules were also notified, the big cities are off to a fitful start on the road to sustainable solutions. As this newspaper pointed out in an earlier editorial, the promise of the updated rules crucially depends on the community’s participation and monitoring of local bodies, bulk waste generators, pollution control boards (PCBs), and the bureaucracy. States have one year to get their act together and create the capacity needed to fully manage the estimated 185,000 tonnes of waste generated every day. But even the biggest cities are yet to roll out an effective plan to encourage the community to adopt four-way segregation of........

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