Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation needs to reduce the burden on its dumping grounds. With its move to make segregation at source mandatory, it is moving in that direction, and says it is doing much more by way of awareness.
How is the BMC helping citizens comply?
The civic body says it is serious about the deadline. Kiran Dighavkar, Assistant Municipal Commissioner (Solid Waste Management), is clear that there will be no exemptions: a temporary extension to set up machinery or a composting unit doesn’t mean exemption. (Ajoy Mehta, Municipal Commissioner, has said that housing societies can apply for a three-month grace period, but must do so in writing with a valid reason.)
The civic body is deploying two officials from the SWM Department in each of city’s 24 wards and has circulated helpline numbers manned by personnel trained to provide guidance on waste composting and segregation. Mr. Dighavkar says the BMC is also using social media to create awareness about the drive and to disseminate the helpline numbers. There is also direct outreach: “In some areas, our officials are approaching these bulk generators informing them about waste segregation.”
There are also exhibitions in each ward where citizens can learn more about things like different methods of composting. “We are trying to provide as much expertise as possible,” Mr. Dighavkar says. “Through these exhibitions, participants can get to know about the how-why-when-what of waste management. The aim is to create awareness among citizens to reduce the burden on our dump yards.” He recently had a meeting with restaurant associations in A Ward to understand their waste management problems, and is planning to conduct similar city-level meetings too.
Asked whether the BMC will be making provisions to help citizens such as making available different coloured bin liner bags, an official who did not want to be named said, “The authority will be dealing with societies and not individuals. It is up to an individual, how to separate waste at home. We cannot give dustbins to every household.”
To counter unsegregated garbage being dumped in open spaces or disposed of in dustbins, there are no plans for visibly different public bins for wet and other waste. The BMC hopes that improving house-to-house collection will prevent refuse being disposed of in public spaces. “We are in the process of eliminating all open dump spaces,” Mr. Dighavkar says. “BMC has already achieved 96% house-to-house garbage collection, and are striving for 100% by December this year.”
As to infrastructure, the BMC is upgrading 32 dry waste management centres across the city. While initially requiring citizens to only segregate garbage into wet and dry, the plan is to further segregate dry waste. The dry waste centres will have separate processing units for sanitary pads, paper products, plastic (including plastic bottle crushers), and so on. Mr. Dighavkar says that provisions for funds have been made — the budget for 2017-18 allocated ₹3.80 crore for segregation centres and ₹2.85 crore for processing centres — and wards are at different stages of upgradation.