JOIN USResidents of Dwarka to segregate household waste
Residents of Dwarka will now have to segregate their households’ waste into biodegradable, non-biodegradable and hazardous at their homes only. Non compliance could attract penalty of up to Rs 5,000, said official of South Delhi Municipal Corporation.
“Members of resident welfare association (RWA) of Dwarka had been asking it for some time. We have now formally notified the project and in the near future this will be implemented in other areas falling under our ambit also,” said Umed Singh, Assistant Engineer, South Delhi Municipal Corporation.
Even the people who organize an event or gathering of more than 100 people at an unlicensed place will have to inform the local body three days in advance and also have to ensure that the segregation of waste takes place in a proper way, stated MCD in a notification.
With a population of 1.5 lakh, Dwarka is a city within a city, comprising 29 sectors which include 350 housing societies.
The person behind this “pilot project”, Madhuri, told Deccan Herald that they had been trying to make Dwarka a zero waste city for some time now for which they had started an awareness programme about segregation of household waste.
“We realised if it goes through MCD, the impact would be greater. So I met several MCD officials and discussed with them about the importance of waste segregation,” said Madhuri, president of Dwarka RWA forum.
Main aim
The main goal behind the waste segregation is to ensure that only recyclable waste reaches at the landfill sites, with biodegradable waste like kitchen and hazardous one which includes all kinds of electronic waste to get segregated at homes only.
“Presently, the waste which comes out of households is a mix of biodegradable, recyclable, and hazardous one, which the rag pickers segregate from their bare hands. While doing it, they expose themselves to several harmful items like computer battery, bulbs etc.,” Madhuri said.
System not concrete
Terming the current system of waste management as not “concrete”, Madhuri said the final waste which reaches at the landfill sites in Delhi include biodegradable waste also, which ideally should have been recycled before reaching there.
For the project, Dwarka RWA forum, took the help of a bunch of IIT-Delhi’s students, who had already been doing a waste management project in Vasant Kunj.
“I have got a compost bin at my house, where if we put the bio-degradable waste it makes it into manure,” added Madhuri.
MCD is in the process of identifying certain parks in Dwarka where the composte sites where the biodegradable waste collected from the households could be turned into manure, said an MCD official.
“We have selected some areas and waiting for the NOC of the RWAs,” said Umed Singh.