The notification of the Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2026, which integrates the circular economy and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), presents an opportunity for Northeastern states to bring the region’s fragile ecology to the centre stage of waste segregation and management. Municipal and other local bodies of the region overcoming their weakness in waste collection and processing will be critical to leveraging the revised rules. The new Rules provide for the levy of environmental compensation based on the ‘polluter pays’ principle for non-compliance, but the absence of strict enforcement against polluters risks rendering the revised rules toothless. Cases of non-compliance will include industrial units operating without registration, false reporting, submission of forged documents or improper solid waste management practices. The notification states that the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) will prepare the relevant guidelines, while State Pollution Control Boards and Pollution Control Committees will levy the environmental compensation. The revised SWM rules, which will come into effect on April 1, make segregating waste into wet waste, dry waste, sanitary waste and special care waste mandatory. Ground realities of waste management in cities like Guwahati, however, present a gloomy picture of the failure of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation to put in place an efficient system of waste segregation. Despite equipping waste collectors in some localities with special garbage-collecting vehicles with colour-coded compartments for segregated collection of dry and wet waste, these vehicles continuing to carry unsegregated waste reveal poor accountability in the system. The majority of residents fail to incorporate waste segregation into their daily routines, indicating a lack of civic awareness and a disinterest in waste management. The new rules mandate that solid waste management by local authorities, in their respective jurisdiction, shall include, among other things, environmentally sound management of solid waste such as dry waste, wet waste, special care waste, sanitary waste, and horticultural waste, as well as sanitary landfill management and existing or legacy waste dump site remediation. This calls for proper and regular segregation of wastes at sources – residential campuses or bulk waste generators’ compounds – so that segregated wastes go for processing and recycling at the nearest authorized and designated facility. Inclusion of central and state government departments, local bodies, public sector undertakings, institutions, commercial establishments and residential societies, among others, under the definition of Bulk Waste Generators brings more clarity to responsibilities of waste segregation and management. The revised rules define solid waste as solid or semi-solid domestic waste, sanitary waste, commercial waste, institutional waste, catering and market waste and other non-residential waste, street sweepings, silt removed or collected from the surface drains, horticultural waste, agricultural and dairy waste, treated biomedical waste (excluding industrial waste), biomedical waste and e-waste, battery waste, and radioactive waste generated in the area under the local authorities. The “special care waste” under these rules includes discarded paint drums, pesticide cans or containers, compact fluorescent lamps or bulbs, tube lights, expired medicines, broken mercury thermometers, waste batteries, used or waste needles and syringes, contaminated gauges, and any other waste notified by the CPCB from time to time, all of which are generated at the household level. Residents are reminded to practice waste segregation into four streams by using four separate bins to hand over the waste to authorized waste collectors. The current practice of selling such waste to informal waste collectors leads to processing of solid waste in hazardous conditions, which, apart from putting the waste collectors of the informal sector into serious health risks, also leads to polluting of water bodies and the environment. Collection of segregated wastes by an authorized agency for processing at a designated facility ensures circularity of the economy, with some materials being recycled for reuse in manufacturing. The revised rules mandate that all gated communities and institutions with more than 5,000 square metre area and all resident welfare associations, market associations, hotels, and restaurants shall, within one year from now and in partnership with the local body, ensure segregation of waste at source, facilitate collection of segregated waste in separate streams, and hand over recyclable material to either the authorized waste pickers or the authorised recyclers. The inclusion of special provisions for hilly areas, which allows cities and towns on hills to have location-specific methods evolved for final disposal of solid waste by the local body, has great significance for the northeast region. For hilly areas, the rules mandate setting up processing facilities for utilisation of biodegradable organic waste, storing and sending the non-biodegradable recyclable materials for recycling and using the inert non-biodegradable waste for building roads and filling up of appropriate areas on hills. Lessons must be learnt from failure to fully enforce the prohibition of the Single Use Plastics so that new SWM rules also do not remain on paper. Apart from whole-of-government approaches to enforce the new and revised rules, behavioural change on the part of waste generators, including individuals, will be crucial for desired transformation.