In its effort to segregate organic waste from solid waste at source, the Mangalore City Corporation has planned to collect waste from hotels, bar and restaurants and non-vegetarian stalls separately by imposing user fee on owners. It will use radio frequency identification devices (RFID) to monitor the collection of waste through trucks fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS) equipment, according to its Commissioner Harish Kumar K.
As a first step to this effect, the corporation officials conducted a meeting with the owners on Thursday. None opposed the corporation’s move. Some participants suggested that the civic body could fix slabs of monthly user fee to be collected. A participant suggested that the corporation could fix the slabs of Rs. 600, Rs. 900, and Rs. 1,800.
Mr. Kumar told The Hindu that the corporation would use at least nine vehicles to collect the waste. Of the vehicles, three would be exclusively used to collect non-vegetarian waste.
He said that vegetarian waste would be used for manufacturing vermi-compost at Pachchanady. A private party had approached the corporation to extract fat and oil from non-vegetarian waste. About seven tons of non-vegetarian waste was being generated in the city daily.
Mr. Kumar said that the civic body would collect the waste at no-loss no-profit basis.
Madhu S. Manohar, an Environment Engineer at the corporation, said there were 681 licensed hotels, 320 canteens, 206 juice centres, 154 lodges, 131 fast food counters, and 63 bar and restaurants (totally 1,555) in the city. They generated about 26 tons of waste daily.
Manjunath R. Shetty, also Environment Engineer at the civic body, said that there were 295 licensed non-vegetarian stalls, 180 chicken stalls, 52 mutton stalls, 39 beef stalls, and 24 pork stalls (totally 590) in the city.
Referring to RFID, Mr. Manohar said that a device with a chip would be fitted in each of the establishments. It would connect software of the corporation through a reading meter and an antenna at the city corporation building. Each vehicle would have a reading meter.
After collecting the waste from a hotel or a canteen, the corporation staff in the vehicle would record it using the reading meter.
When the meter was taken near the device with chip fitted in the hotel or a canteen the data got transmitted to software in the city corporation building.
Date, time, and venue of the waste collected got recorded in the website of the corporation. The website would show whether the waste had been collected or not. The movement of the vehicles which would be allotted selected routes would be monitored through the GPS equipment.
Mr. Manohar said that users’ fee would not be new to the owners as they were already paying it to some private parties who transported organic waste produced at their establishments.
