solutions to Goa garbage
https://www.commonfloor.com/guide/what-is-waste-management-learn-from-apartments-in-bangalore-7274.html
Bangalore city generates almost 3,500 tons of waste daily
which is collected by the garbage collection vans and is taken to the landfill
sites around the city for garbage disposal. With time, the availability of
landfills for dumping waste is becoming difficult. Moreover, all the landfill
sites are reported to be contaminating the underground water, land and air and
thus are posing a challenge for the environment.
Over 75% of the total garbage is organic and can be
decomposed. Considering this, some responsible communities have made their move
towards zero waste by recycling kitchen waste themselves, instead of dumping it
in the bins or just giving it away to the garbage collection vans.
One such community is Sobha Bellandur that has 11
Societies with over 1700 Houses and around 7000 residents. This neighborhood in
South East Bangalore has a very comprehensive waste management system. The
residents are
provided with black, white and green re-usable bags to
separate their waste. The white bag is for paper and other related waste. The
Black bag is for Plastic and electronic waste and the Green bag is for Kitchen
waste. The green bags in which the organic waste is dumped gets collected by
the housekeeping members of the communities and taken to the Organic Waste
Converter (OWC) unit.
The OWC unit in this society has been installed by Excel
Industries Ltd. If the company’s claims are to be believed then 40% of the
waste comes segregated from apartments and the rest gets segregated manually.
An organization named Saahas Bangalore is dedicated to solve this problem of
solid waste. A team from Saahas performs the task of segregation of waste in
each block of Sobha community and takes away the plastic bottles, paper,
electronic waste etc. for the recycling. This is how these apartments are
producing zero waste. This clearly shows that there is a lack of awareness
among residents and they need to be educated about the importance of waste
segregation.
How the process works:
Once the segregation of the waste is done the compost
mixing machine is fed with feeder stock of compost along with a proportion of
garden and kitchen waste. After the components are well mixed the mixture is
kept in crates for fermentation and a little amount of water is added to the
mixture after every 3 hours. The process of fermentation takes place naturally
in almost 15 days to make the compost ready to be used in gardens of these
societies. At present they are processing 18,000 kilograms of organic waste and
producing almost 1,500 kilograms of compost every month.
A similar initiative is taken up by a group of
progressive women; residents of Shakarnagar. They are trying to establish an
Organic Waste Converter unit in there blocks and are going door to door to educate
the residents regarding organic waste separation and waste management.
It is blissful to visualize all the apartments and houses
in Bangalore taking such initiative of composting the organic waste and
creating a beautiful, garbage free and healthy Bangalore.
Making this dream come true is not very expensive. It
needs a mere one time investment of Rs. 2,000 per flat, to get one odorless
composting system and around Rs. 100 every month for maintaining it. With this
little investment you can remove almost 1500 dump trucks from the road, save
the wastage of about 25 million liters of diesel by dump trucks, prevent
contamination of water, land, air and get the pleasure of enriching the land
with chemical free fertilizer produced as compost.
It’s a win-win situation. If each one of us take this
initiative and make a sincere effort to wipe out these environmental hazards,
it will not take long for India to be a zero waste country.
Thank you for sharing
the experience of the Bengalorewallahs.
Since coming to Goa a
decade ago, and heeding the advice given by Klint at various fora,
we have composted our
green/wet waste successfully in a large wire cage which we keep wet during the
dry season to encourage the composting process. We also place fish/shrimp
waste and chicken leftovers in this compost pile We use it as fertilizer
for our plants.
Other in-organic
solid waste like tins and non-reusable glass bottles we have collected
and after a month or so, we put it in a deep pit that we have dug in a far
unused corner of our property. We place a layer of soil ever so
often, especially in the wet months to deny a habitat for
mosquitoes. At the current rate,of placing these items in the pit,
it will probably last for the rest of our lives. Future generations
will have to worry about it. Of course we try to avoid having this
problem in the first place by not buying things in glass bottles that cannot be
reused or in tins.
The problem that alludes
us though is plastics ! What is one supposed to do with plastic bags,
wrappers and bottles and the ubiquitous tetrapak containers. We are not
supposed to burn such items because it releases noxious fumes in the
environment. We do our utmost to avoid such packaging and plastic
bottles. I have resorted to carrying an old bottle of
Johnny Walker Scotch
whisky filled with home boiled and filtered water to quench my thirst.
But we still had a
sizeable selection of plastic items, until a friend alerted me to the
fact that rag pickers come to his house to collect these items. So I
unloaded it on him for disposal.
I guess rag pickers take
these items to a re-cycler ? Are there places in Goa where one can tiake
such items for recycling ?
I would appreciate the
advice of fellow recyclers and environmentalists. I have asked this
question on public fora
before and did not get specific responses. Judging from the trash strewn
by the wayside and dumped in water bodies, this problem exists all over
Goa ?
Here’ what you could do
with the non biodegradables:
1. Old cell phones,
chargers- even toy chargers and other accessories can be deposited at the Nokia
recycle centre at Panaji, off 18th June road opp. The side
facade of Directorate of Education.
2. All plastic carry bags,
wrappers, etc can be given to the rag pickers or Panaji has a collection point
at St Inez. This is baled and sent to the ACC factory where it is incenarated/
used as fuel with pollution norms!
3. Tetra packs are recycled
to make roofing sheets at a factory in Gujarat. Check with Clinton for details.
4. Batteries too can be
collected and deposited at many collection centres in Panaji (CCP), Vasco.
5. Milk plastic packets can
be washed and returned at any Govt Milk Booth and in lieu of 60-100 nos you’ll
get a 500lt milk packet free!
6. News papers can be given
to recyclers at many collection points in the city or to fruit and vegetable
vendors.
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