Day 1 of segregation rollout: Not prepared, collection centres end up mixing dry and wet waste

NOIDA: After months of waiting, the city’s waste segregation system ended up merely being a symbolic gesture on Monday, thanks mainly to Noida Authority’s refusal to roll out a complete end-to-end waste management plan.
While residents were excited and NGOs ensured awareness, waste disposal remained a problem area. Even from sectors where segregated waste was collected, it turned into a travesty as it was all mixed at the compressing units before being sent to the remediation site in Sector 145.

“We have been working to get people to segregate. The vehicle is coming to collect waste separately. However, the worker is just putting it all together and the waste is dumped at one place from where the van is collecting it. We hope this will improve,” said P Prasad from Sector 48 RWA.
In some of the 20 RWAs where segregated waste was supposed to be collected, vans did not arrive on time, while at others, they did not keep it separate. The mixing of waste at collection centres meant that Noida Authority had little data to show for how much wet and dry waste was collected.
Sector 27 residents were angry as no van reached them till later in the day. “Even when it came at 11am it merely went through a few blocks,” said Rajiv Garg from the sector’s RWA.
According to Rajesh Kurup, GM (operations), AG Enviro Pvt. Ltd. (corporate development), the agency hired for the purpose, out of 20 sectors, segregated waste was collected from 16. Sectors 41 and 47 did not participate in the drive as they have managed to segregated waste at source and compost within their compounds, while a dumper placer bin of 500-800kg capacity was put in sectors 21 and 25 where residents managed segregated disposal with the help of RWAs.
According to Kurup, 800 kg dry waste was collected from 16 sectors while 2 tonnes wet waste was collected per sector.
While workshops had been held to sensitise residents, in Block C of Sector 44, helps were seen handing out a single stuffed garbage bags and single bins of trash — unsegregated and dumped into a truck.
In Sector 25, collectors carried their carts filled with unsegregated garbage to the green bins provided by the RWA. They separated it into e-waste, plastic and cartons. The rest was stuffed into the bins.
Ashwin, the operator of compressors at the Sector49 centre, said one machine is used for wet waste and the other for dry. However, the vans host both wet and dry waste. When the garbage is lowered into the compressors, the division is not taken care of. Some workers said they had not been told what to do, and had also not been paid since three months by the agency.
(With inputs from Dhriti Sharan and Kovida Mehra)