Waste segregation, collection picking up in apartments

Civic body holds meeting with builders’ association

July 08, 2019 12:12 am | Updated 12:12 am IST - COIMBATORE

Coimbatore Corporation has started asking apartments to manage their waste as they fall under the ‘bulk waste’ generator category.

Coimbatore Corporation has started asking apartments to manage their waste as they fall under the ‘bulk waste’ generator category.

In Shriram Vijaya Hyde Park apartment in Peelamedu, residents of almost all the 272 flats are segregating waste.

The residents segregate the waste into wet kitchen waste, dry recyclable waste, and sanitary waste, wrap the latter and handover the segregated waste in separate containers to the housekeeping staff who then hand it over to the waste collection service provider, says the residents’ welfare association’s treasurer V. Anitha.

The apartment is segregating waste for three to four years as a follow-up to a a discussion among the women residents. “The ‘why not we do something good for the society’ thought led to the initiative,” recalls Ms. Anitha adding that a few women residents volunteering for the initiative made it easy to implement.

The volunteers at two each an apartment block talked to residents, maid, and housekeeping staff telling them why they needed to segregate waste, how to go about it and how much they – the residents – will have to spend.

“A good number of residents adopted the new system. A few others did not and had excuses, which we were able to easily overcome because the volunteers were also neighbours to those who did not and, therefore, it did not require much convincing.”

After a month of ground work, the apartment now hands over the waste to the ‘No Dumping’ organisation which collects and disposes of waste after charging ₹ 100 a flat.

In Mayflower Palmgrove Apartment on Central Studio Road, it was not as easy for the residents’ welfare association office-bearers as it was for the women volunteers in the Shriram Vijaya Hyde Park.

It took a bit of coercion and that included placing a CCTV camera to capture residents, who dumped waste out in the open, says treasurer J. Saileswaran.

The Right House Apartment in Mullai Nagar, near Vadavalli, joined six months ago the bandwagon of apartments segregating and handling their waste.

The apartment residents had help from the Corporation in that the sanitary officer of the area, K.V. Thirumal, worked with the residents to bring about a change.

Mr. Thirumal says he removed the bin near the apartment and also posted two conservancy workers to monitor open dumping of waste.

These apartments are among the nearly 60 apartments in the city that are segregating and handling their waste, as mandated under the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016.

Suresh Bhandari of No Dumping says his organisation collects 4.70 tonnes waste a day from over 6,700 households in the 60 apartments.

But the 60 apartments are less than even 10% of the total apartments in the city. An estimate shows that there are 630-plus apartments and gated communities within the Corporation limits and they generate around 21 tonnes waste a day. For apartment residents to not segregate waste there is no real excuse, says No Dumping organisation volunteer N.R. Rajalaksmi. “In fact, segregation is not the right word for there is no necessity to segregate the waste unless households dump wet and dry waste together.”

The issue that a few apartments face in processing waste is the cost involved in operating the waste processing machine installed by the builder. After considering the cost, the apartments stop operating the machines after a few months. Such apartments can consider alternatives, she adds.

Apartment residents cite the monthly user charges as an excuse to not segregate waste or engage a third party and argue why they should spend on handling waste when they can easily dump those in roadside bins or on roads, says R. Raveendran of Residents Awareness Association of Coimbatore.

For those apartment residents it is necessary to realise that it has become mandatory under law to handle their waste and the cost of waste management, an essential service, is far less compared to what they spend on luxuries in their apartments.

For those apartments that do not handle their waste, it is the Corporation that collects waste and most of the waste is mixed, say Corporation officials, adding that in the coming months the civic body will strictly enforce in the apartments and gated communities to segregate and handle their waste.

Officials quote the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, which categorises apartments along with hotels, restaurants and others that generate over 100 kg waste a day as bulk waste generators and mandates them to handle their waste.

The Corporation officials say that apartments should go in for processing of wet degradable waste within the premises, prepare either compost or generate biogas, handover only the dry waste to it or a third party it has authorised and handover domestic hazardous waste to an authorised agency.

And, after preparing compost, the apartments should use it within their premises as manure.

Apartments that do not have the space for either preparing compost or generating biogas may well handover the waste after segregation to a Corporation-recognised third party, they add.

Corporation Commissioner Sravan Kumar Jatavath says the civic body has held a meeting with the builders’ association, CREDAI, a few days ago and helped its members interact with their counterparts in Kochi, where some best waste management practices are available. In the next few days, the Corporation will prepare a list of apartments and gated communities and cross-check with a list from CREDAI to prepare a master list and then go about sending notices to those apartments and gated communities that do not segregate waste.

As part of its efforts, the Corporation will also share a list of dry, recyclable waste handlers category-wise for apartments to tie-up with them for handing over dry waste.

The Corporation is also planning to hold a meeting with builders, apartment and gated community residents to help them comply with the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, he adds.

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