In Photos: Too much for Earth or infrastructure to handle

As the world celebrates the 50th World Environment Day on Monday, 5 June 2023, National Herald captures people walking past a semi-dry drain, and piles of garbage in New Delhi's Taimoor Nagar.

Organised by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), this year's theme of 'Beat Plastic Pollution' is aimed at discussing and implementing solutions to the global problem of plastic pollution.

As per latest reports, India generates around 3.4 million tonnes of plastic waste and recycles only 30 per cent of it every year. According to UN data, globally more than 400 million tonnes of plastic is produced every year, of which only 10 per cent is recycled.

Speaking at the World Environment Day event organised by the rotary club, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal claimed that the city has made "remarkable progress" in combating the city's air pollution and solid waste management problem.

Earlier in March this year, Kejriwal also pledged to remove Delhi's three "mountains of garbage" — the city's three landfills at Ghazipur, Bhalswa and Okhla — by 2024. These landfills significantly adds to air and water pollution in Delhi; the city generates around 11,400 metric tonnes of garbage every days.

While nations such as Chile, Rwanda, Costa Rica, Domica, among others have banned plastic, plastic pollution along with open garbage disposal, inadequate waste management, and low level of environmental awareness continues to plague India.