Garbage generated daily by a metro city
Per-capita physical rates — and the non-household half people miss.
Estimate the tonnes of municipal solid waste a 12-million metro generates daily. Anchor on a per-capita physical rate, then remember the half most candidates forget: commercial, market, and construction waste isn't in anyone's kitchen bin.
Household rate
Indian urban per-capita ≈ 0.3 kg (low-income) to 0.7 kg (high-income, more packaging); blended ~0.45 kg → 12M × 0.45 = 5,400 t/day.
Commercial
Restaurants, hotels, vegetable markets (huge wet-waste generators) ≈ +1,800 t.
Institutional + streets
Offices, schools, hospitals ~900 t; street sweeping, drain silt, small construction debris ~1,200 t.
Total
≈ 9,300 tonnes/day — matching the reported 8–11K range for Indian megacities.
How to defend it
Per-capita waste scales with income (packaging, food delivery), not just population — stating the 0.3–0.7 kg gradient shows real understanding. The truck-trips conversion makes the number tangible and sets up any follow-on question about waste-management economics.