Mangaluru: Apartments, hospital develop easy-to-do solid waste models

A few apartments and a hospital have set their sights on achieving zero waste with their easy-to-do models.

At Sai Prem Apartment with 16 flats in Mannagudda, where MCC Commissioner Ajith Kumar Hegde Shanady resides, two bins had been installed (each of 400 litres capacity) to convert wet waste into manure.

Sudheendra Kumar, who resides in the apartment, said the microbes sprinkled on the wet waste convert waste into compost within a fortnight. Liquid waste generated from the waste is used to water plants in the apartment premises.

Kavitha Shenoy, who resides in the same apartment, said the apartment’s security guard collects wet waste from each flat and dumps it into the bin for converting it into compost. Daily, 20 kg of waste is generated in the apartment. The dry waste is segregated and handed over to Antony Waste Handling Cell Private Limited, the private firm engaged in door-to-door garbage collection and transportation in Mangaluru.

At Maurishka Palace on Kadri Kambala, there are 330 apartments with 250 occupied flats. Five bins had been installed, each with a capacity of 200 kg.

Maurishka Palace Residents Association President Subodh Shetty said that coconut shells and watermelons took considerable time to convert into compost. Thus the association purchased a crusher to crush the waste before dumping it inside the bins. The compost will be ready after a month of a bin getting filled.

Dr Ravi Kiran, highlighting the process of waste management at Maurishka Palace, said that waste is divided into wet, dry and sanitary waste and collected by the housekeeping unit of the apartment.

Wet waste is used to prepare compost while the dry waste is handed over to the vendor twice a week and sanitary waste is disposed of according to the guidelines of MCC by covering it in a newspaper and marking red over it before handing it over to the agency fixed by the MCC. The association gets Rs 6,000 to Rs 7,000 per month by selling dry waste to the vendor, he explained.

“We are slowly moving towards segregating hazardous waste like mosquito coil, batteries, bulb in the future,” added Dr Kiran.

At Fr Muller Charitable Institutions in Kankanady, the authorities had installed six bins of 3,000 litres each at three different locations in the campus, to convert wet waste into compost. The hospital and six hostels in the institution premises generate a minimum of 1,200 kg waste daily, informed Jeeth Milan Roche who has been installing green bins at different institutions in Mangaluru.

The microbes would cost Rs 50 per month for waste generated by a family of four persons, said Jeeth Roche.