Mangalore City Corporation (MCC) will launch door-to-door collection of solid waste in the city from December 1, according to its Commissioner Harish Kumar K.
He told The Hindu on Friday that there would be eight packages for handling solid waste in the city covering 60 wards. Contractors for four packages had been selected and for the rest would be selected by November-end, he said.
Mr. Kumar said that segregated bio-degradable and non-degradable waste would be collected at Mannagudda and Court wards. These two would be made model wards for segregation of solid waste. The focus of the civic body in the remaining wards would be on collecting solid waste from doorsteps without segregating them till door-to-door collection stabilised.
The Commissioner said that if the civic body went for segregation of solid waste in all wards from December 1, door-to-door collection might prove a failure. Hence, initially people would be made to get accustomed to it. Later, they would be asked to segregate waste in phases. Once the segregation practice stabilised in Mannagudda and Court wards, it would be extended to neighbouring wards in a phased manner. Solid waste dumping bins in wards would be removed in a phased manner once the door-to-door collection picked up, Mr. Kumar said.
Environment engineer of the corporation Manjunath R. Shetty said that there were 1.9 lakh properties in 60 wards. Of them, about 4,000 were in Mannagudda and Court wards. Each house in the two wards would be given two bins of 10-litre capacity. The green one would be for storing biodegradable waste and the red one for non-degradable waste. Each apartment in the two wards would be given two bins of 150-litre capacity for the purpose. Each ward would be given two pushcarts and a vehicle for collecting solid waste.
Mr. Kumar said that the corporation would spend Rs. 6 lakh on each of the two wards for making segregation of solid waste and door-to-door waste collection a success.
He said that under the renewed eight-package scheme, it was mandatory on the part of contractors to collect solid waste from doorsteps. Earlier, the mandatory part was limited to only 40 per cent.