Valorising Sugarcane Waste in India: Production Pathways, Policy Architecture, and Sustainability Perspectives

Abstract

Sugarcane processing in India generates enormous volumes of bagasse, press mud, molasses-derived distillery effluent and field trash, and the disposal of these streams remains a persistent source of environmental pressure even as their potential as feedstocks for energy, materials and soil amendments has become increasingly well documented. This critical narrative review synthesises the peer-reviewed and institutional literature on the production, policy and sustainability dimensions of sugarcane waste valorisation in India, moving beyond a descriptive catalogue of individual studies to evaluate the strength, consistency and limitations of the evidence base. Literature was identified through structured searches of web-based academic indexes, institutional repositories and government sources, supplemented by citation tracking, with searches concluding on 23 May 2026. The review finds that bagasse-based cogeneration is a mature and widely deployed technology, whereas second-generation ethanol, lignin-derived chemicals and several construction-material applications remain constrained by cost, feedstock logistics and an underdeveloped policy interface. Press mud and vinasse are well established as soil amendments, but evidence on the long-term accumulation of heavy metals and organic contaminants under repeated application is comparatively thin. Field burning of sugarcane trash persists despite demonstrated air-quality and nutrient-loss costs, reflecting a gap between agronomic recommendations and on-farm incentives. India's ethanol-blending programme has driven substantial diversion of sugarcane products towards biofuel production and has become the dominant policy lever shaping the waste-valorisation landscape, yet its interaction with food security, groundwater-intensive cultivation and the pricing architecture governing cane procurement remains contested. The review identifies a need for longitudinal environmental monitoring, standardised techno-economic comparison across valorisation pathways, and closer integration between energy, agricultural and environmental policy instruments. Confidence in the overall direction of the literature, namely that sugarcane residues represent an underexploited resource whose fuller use would yield environmental and economic benefits, is reasonably high, but confidence in specific quantitative claims about scale, cost and net environmental benefit remains considerably more limited.