All apartments and gated communities with 10 or more units will soon have to put up a compost unit to handle their wet waste. The city’s civic body is devising a programme to buy the compost at the market rate.
At present, only apartment complexes with over 50 units are mandated to treat waste and water within their premises.
Apartments and gated communities with less than 50 units are considered bulk generators who give away their waste to a set of empanelled vendors. However, these vendors are believed to be the source of problems cropping up across the city.
“Most of these vendors don’t insist on segregation, which means they accept mixed waste. They recklessly dispose or burn this waste in lake beds or empty plots on the outskirts of the city,” said N.S. Ramakanth, member, Solid Waste Management Expert Committee, BBMP, adding that making in situ composting mandatory is the best way to effectively implement segregation at source.
BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad said that compost santhes are being held every Sunday. An array of compost equipment and technologies are on display as part of an awareness campaign for composting at home. “Solid Waste Management Rules 2016 have already mandated in situ composting for smaller apartments too. The rule will be strictly implemented from now on,” he said.
The civic body is in talks with the Agriculture and Horticulture departments to set up compost buying centres.
Viability
Vani Murthy of Swachagraha says that composting is viable at both small and large quantities, and can be easily scaled to any quantity. “Apartment owners need to do some research and choose the right technology to suit their needs. People can start with two large drums in the compound and go up to an Organic Waste Converter that requires more investment,” she says.
C.S.V. Prasad, president of the newly formed Federation of Apartment Associations, said that Bengaluru has over 135 apartment associations. Apartment owners are ready for composting at source. “The sewage treatment plant that the civic body is insisting on is mostly not viable. But many of us are already composting in our apartments and it is extremely viable,” he said.
