This work presents an estimate of the air pollution from municipal solid waste transport haulage sector for the city of Kolkata. About 3000 MT/day of solid waste are generated in the city presuming generation rate of 450-500 gm/capita resident/day. On an average, 205 private carriers transport 60% of daily generated garbage (responsible for 44% of total air pollutants from municipal solid waste transport), while around 109 nos. of departmental vehicles transport the remaining 40% of waste (responsible for 56% of total pollution emission from waste transport).

A study of automobile pollution in Kolkata has been made using CALINE 4 model. This model was selected as it offered several advantages over other models. It has been first used as the base model to develop the correction factors for the application of this model for the city of Kolkata, and then the modified model with the correction factors has been validated. Carbon Monoxide was chosen for the model because it is principally emitted from vehicular sources and daily background concentration data of this gas were available for a year for comparative studies.