Picture in NICA/ Pg-3 top/
Suryapet municipal administration in Telangana is adopting the best practices in solid waste management in the country where handling does not mix wet and dry wastes, said Member, Supreme Court Committee for Solid Waste Management, Almitra H. Patel, said.
Ms. Patel, a national expert, Swachh Bharat Mission, said that problems faced by most of the cities in solid waste managent is the failure to keep the wet and dry wastes. Stating that Suryapet municipal administration has shown the way, Ms. Patel said that right from door-to-door collection, transporting and disposal the wet and dry wastes are handled separately throughout.
She was here to inaugurate green skill development programme by Environmental Information System (ENVIS) Centre at the Thiagarajar College of Engineering.
Among the 196 cities she had visited, Suryapet city has zero-land filling. Over and above, the city was making ₹45,000 out of the compost yard used for disposing wet waste and ₹55,000 out of recycling dry waste every month, she said.
Tracing the menace of solid waste management taking a perilous proportion in the urban regions, she said the advent of plastic and unmindful disposal of plastic waste in open led to the problem.
Traditionally, the wet wastes were taken by the farmers as manure for their agricultural operations. However, when plastic wastes got mixed with the wet waste, the farmers stopped taking them as the plastic materials spoiled the soil. AS a result, people started dumping the wastes on streets. Later, the local bodies found the road margins, which was a no-man’s land a better place for disposing off the wastes collected in the towns and cities.
However, the break-out of plague in Gujarat in 1994 revealed to the world the disproportionate adverse impact of lack of proper solid waste management. As the plastic wastes choked the rat holes in drains, the rodents came out and led to break out of plague, he said.
“This environmental pollution led to Indian produce rejected and burnt by foreign countries. Businessmen incurred huge loss and Indian economy suffered, she said.
Ms. Patel advocated for the two bins, one bag concept of waste segregation where in green bin for kitchen and garden waste that could be used for composting, the red bin for sanitary waste, bio-waste and the bag for recyclable wastes like plastic, metal and glass.
“With regard to glass materials, the residents could use collect them for one year in a bucket and the local bodies could have a particular day to collect such materials,” she said.
K. Hari Thiagarajan, Executive director, Thiagarajar Mills in his presidential address, said that waste management could produce six lakh jobs in the country. He warned that several rivers in the country were getting polluted. The pollution caused in Noyal river by dyeing units have their impact in the drinking water in Chennai, he said. It is the price paid for overlooking of waste management, he said.
TCE Principal, V. Abhaikumar, Head of Department of Chemistry, M. Kottaisamy, spoke.
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