Soon, Chandigarh MC to name and shame waste segregation defaulters
City Beautiful’s Swachh rankings had seen a sharp decline last year, and one of the major reasons for this was its poor record in waste segregation. The city had also failed to properly process its wet waste, the reason for which was attributed to lack of segregation.
Come January 27 and Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC) will go all out to get residents to segregate dry and wet waste.
First, a massive awareness campaign will be run to encourage people to segregate waste at source, and then, MC will start penalising violators on a “mission mode”.
City Beautiful’s Swachh rankings had seen a sharp decline last year, and one of the major reasons for this was its poor record in waste segregation. The city had also failed to properly process its wet waste, the reason for which was attributed to lack of segregation.
Reaching 2.5 lakh units
Under the sensitisation campaign, the MC will endeavour to reach more than 2.5 lakh households and establishments in the city from which it collects the door-to-door garbage.
“We have charted out an action plan under which we will be distributing four-coloured stickers to households. Each colour will represent a different type of waste like solid, wet and hazardous. These stickers will also have details of what all garbage comes under a certain category of waste. People will be given stickers to be pasted in their kitchen or a place where a type of waste is generally generated,” said MC commissioner Anindita Mitra.
In the sensitisation drive, the MC will involve not only its employees but also councillors and other stakeholders.
“We have detailed point-wise charts for our employees too which delineate their duties as well as inform them about the types of waste, and how to go about their segregation,” said Mitra.
The MC had taken over the door-to-door garbage collection last year through its two-bin vehicles. Earlier this year, these were converted into four-bins. In addition to dry, wet and hazardous waste, the MC will also collect sanitary waste in these vehicles.
Zeroing in on defaulting houses
From area-based approach, the MC will now shift to making individual establishments and houses accountable for not giving segregated waste.
It had earlier identified eight such localities - Hallomajra, Bapu Dham Colony, Sanjay Colony (Industrial Area), Indira Colony (Manimajra), Maloya, EWS Colony (Maloya), Mauli Jagran, and Vikas Nagar (Mauli Jagran), where segregation was not up-to-the-mark.
“We had earlier identified localities and areas from where we were not getting segregated waste. Now, we are zeroing in on individual houses, which are still giving us mixed waste. If there are 20 houses in a lane, and even one doesn’t give us segregated waste, then the whole waste becomes mixed,” said Mitra.
The MC is preparing a list of repeat offenders, who even after requests and warnings continue to flout the mandate of segregation of waste at source.
“We are penalising people even now for not segregating waste, but after the awareness campaign, it will be done on a mission mode,” said Mitra.
Revving up the wet waste processing
The MC plans to increase the wet waste processing capacity of the solid waste processing plant, Sector 25. Currently, the plant is only processing around 100 MT per day against its full capacity of 300 MT per day. The MC plans to clear up around 300 MT of legacy waste lying at the plant to have more space to dry the wet waste for its full processing. After removal of legacy waste, the plant is expected to double the processing of the wet waste.
For dry waste processing, the MC is planning to spend around ₹3 crore for overhauling of the machinery at the existing plant, and another ₹3 crore for running and maintenance costs.