The State government on Thursday approved the Karnataka State Urban Solid Waste Management (SWM) Policy-2020 and the Urban Solid Waste Management Strategy-2020. The new policy has an ambitious target of achieving 100% segregation at source of solid waste in all urban local bodies across the State. The new policy also aims to reduce waste going to landfills to less than 30% of the total waste generated by 2025.
The policy was prepared by the Directorate of Municipal Administration in compliance with the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, and is applicable to all ULBs in the State.
According to the policy, most of the ULBs in the State spent maximum portion of their overall budget for waste management on collection and transportation of solid waste.
“Often, less than 10% of the budget is spent on treatment, processing, and final disposal of solid waste. Proper processing, including recycling facilities, do not exist in most ULBs in Karnataka and therefore, majority of the waste is being taken to unscientific disposal sites for dumping,” the document stated.
The new policy calls for focus and effort on segregation of waste and proper processing of waste. However, biomedical waste, e-waste, faecal sludge and sewage, construction and demolition waste, and industrial waste have not been covered under the new policy as they do not fall under the scope of SWM Rules, 2016.
The zero-waste initiative, ‘Namma Kasa Namma Javabdhari’, will be implemented across the State along with awareness campaigns on the practice of reduce, reuse, recycle (3Rs).
