Barcode scanners outside Sector 38 houses to check waste segregation

Gurgaon: As part of a pilot project to fix the city’s waste management issues, the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) on Tuesday installed a barcode scanner system outside all houses in Sector 38 to monitor garbage collection.
Two vehicles will collect dry and wet waste separately, and it will be mandatory for residents in the area to segregate at source. Collectors will use the Swachh Nagar app installed on their phones to scan the barcodes outside the houses. They will put in details about dry, wet or mixed waste received.
After collecting garbage, the drivers will close the trip, which would automatically update the MCG portal.
Residents will get details about the vehicles and the drivers via SMS. They can use the app to complain if the garbage has not been collected.
“In case if a household is not segregating waste, the owner will be sent a message, failing which waste will not be collected from that house. The residents will be given one month to give segregated waste and if they fail, a challan would be issued,” an MCG official said, adding that the fine is yet to be decided.
Appreciating the efforts of the resident welfare association, mayor Madhu Azad said, “Garbage will be segregated at source and the corporation will also be able to keep a tab on its collection. I have appealed to residents to separate waste too.”
While Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, state that household waste must be segregated, with dry waste in one bin, wet in another and e-waste in a third bin, segregation remains a problem in Gurgaon.
Officials of Ecogreen Energy Limited, the waste management agency responsible for collecting and treating the city’s waste, had earlier told TOI that as per their contract with the government, they were not mandated to ask residents to segregate their garbage.
The other problem is that even if an individual segregates waste at the household level, it gets mixed while being transported to the Bandhwari waste treatment plant.
“Earlier our vehicles were not properly equipped to transport the segregated waste. They were vertically divided due to which drivers would have to go to one side and then the other. But now they are divided horizontally so that it’s convenient for drivers to put segregated waste. We have also ensured the vehicles are covered,” an MCG official said, adding that segregation at source was important, because even with a transport provision, if the collector receives mixed waste, the exercise would be pointless.