ANNOUNCEMENTS
Environmental stress and waste production are increasing at an exponential rate due to population growth and climate change. Stubble burning and the management of agricultural residues are also major problems across the world. Farmers in India often burn leftover crops to prepare the soil for the following harvest. Air pollution is exacerbated and the environment is harmed by this behaviour. One potentially effective approach to these problems is a bio-based circular economy. Producing biogas from agricultural waste is a viable renewable energy option. Systems that might be minimising environmental effect and encouraging sustainable development concurrently in India could be developed by employing renewable biological resources like agricultural waste, into a waste-to-energy system such as decentralised biogas plants well linked to the agricultural mills. Using the principles of the circular economy, agri-waste may be turned into useful biogas. The research is meant to evaluate biogas's viability as a waste-to-energy technology in India. To this end, efforts are being made to develop a circular economy for biomass waste via collaboration between the food and agricultural sector and the energy sector. Case studies of other nations' efforts to develop biogas generation via industrial symbiosis and the lessons India might learn from them will be explored for the research. The research investigates a potential win-win situation in which decarbonizing the energy industry helps strengthen national energy security and garbage is managed as a natural resource. According to the research, India has a great deal of untapped potential for turning waste into biogas, which can then be utilised to power and heat buildings. But only a tiny fraction of that potential is being used at the moment; on average, approximately less than five percent. This promise cannot be realised without further funding and development for the biogas industry.
Keywords: Biogas; Industrial Symbiosis; Agricultural Waste; Waste-to-Energy; Circular Economy; Decarbonisation and Just Transition.
