In its bid to make Udupi a litter-free city, the Udupi City Municipal Council (CMC) will be introducing waste segregation at source in 3,500 houses shortly.
The city generates about 55 tonnes of garbage daily. Now, there is a provision of door-to-door collection of waste in the city. There are about 32,000 households in the city and door-to-door waste collection is being done in 70 per cent of these houses. The waste is being collected by self-help groups (SHGs). A fee of Rs. 30 per house per month is charged.
Waste from the remaining 30 per cent of houses is not being collected as they are scattered, while some residents dispose the garbage in their own gardens. The garbage collected is being disposed of at the solid waste management plant, located on 22 acres of land at Karvalu in Alevoor about 8 km from the city.
To promote waste segregation at source, the CMC has decided to select 100 houses in each of the 35 municipal wards in the city. These houses would be given two buckets – of green and red colours. Wet waste will be collected in green buckets while dry waste (minus plastic waste) will be collected in red buckets. The capacity of both these buckets will be 16 litres.
According to M.K. Subrahmanya, Environment Engineer at Udupi CMC, the CMC would undertake an awareness programme in all the 3,500 houses and the residents would be told how to segregate waste in the green and red buckets.
Vermi-compost Plant
In the initial phase, waste from these houses would be collected under the present mechanism. A Rs. 27-lakh vermin-compost plant of the CMC would become operational at Alevoor in two months and would require at least two tonnes of wet waste per day.
The CMC would be printing handbills to inform the targeted households about the scheme.
“We will involve councillors and go to every house and tell people about this scheme. We will also form local committees with councillors to monitor the scheme. Some SHGs, which are not performing effectively, will be told to pull up their socks,” said P. Yuvaraj, president of Udupi CMC.
Two biomethanation plants
Later, the CMC plans to extend the waste-segregation scheme to all houses in the city. When the waste segregation is extended to all houses, the wet waste collected would be used for two biomethanation plants, each requiring two tonnes of wet waste. The State government had given its nod for the two biomethanation plants, each expected to cost Rs. 34 lakh.
Methane generated will be passed into a generator, which will produce 15 kV of power per day. A separate power line will be drawn from this generator and the power generated will be used to light 60 street lamps.
“One plant will come up in Beedinagudde; we are yet to identify the area for the second plant,” Mr. Subrahmanya said.
Plastic waste
In addition, the CMC intends to tell people to keep plastic waste separate from dry waste. “The plastic waste would be collected once a week. This would make the process of segregation easier. It may take a year to make the entire city litter-free,” said K. Srikanth Rao, CMC Commissioner.
However, a CMC official said that it would have been better if two municipal wards were chosen for the segregation scheme instead of 3,500 houses spread across 35 wards as it would be easier to transport the waste.
