Civic body begins waste segregation in suburbs….Bhavika Jain
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has begun waste segregation in residential buildings in the suburbs. The BMC initially aims to include areas in the suburbs where the Advanced Locality Management (ALM) is active or there is a fine network of NGOs. The BMC has been segregating waste in these wards for the last one week and the progress report says that three metric tonne from each ward has been segregated, which makes an estimated 40 metric tones in all.
The city generates 6,500 metric tones of garbage every day. Civic officials say they first want to stabilise this practice of segregation and then they will insist on 100 % compliance.
The civic body will send separate vehicles to these wards to collect the dry waste and small compactors will make two trips in the entire ward daily to collect wet waste.
The dry waste collected is taken to sorting centres that have been created in these wards and rag pickers that have been appointed will sort the waste and sell it to recyclers. The wet waste will be taken to the dumping grounds.
Earlier, since there was only one compactor that would collect both the dry and wet waste, it would get mixed up defeating the purpose of the exercise.
Segregating will be our prime focus because it will help reduce the pressure on the existing dumping grounds, which are crumbling, said chief engineer, solid waste management, Bhalchandra Patil.
He also added in a weeks time, even buildings in the island city will have to segregate waste.
There is a provision for a minimum penalty of Rs1,000 in the municipal solid waste rules. There is also a penalty of Rs2,000 for those who dont comply, but the BMC does not want to apply this as yet because the project is still in its nascent stages.