Though the most neglected lot, slum dwellers understand the need for a clean environment and the costs of ill health, and are therefore the most willing to cooperate in improved waste management efforts.
Waste collection is easiest in slums:
Slum dwellers are always the most neglected sector for waste collection. They desire and understand the need for a clean environment and the costs of ill health. They are the most willing to cooperate in improved waste management efforts.
Five easy proven methods for waste collection and treatment:
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Lorry at the slum entrance
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Door-to-door collection in handcarts
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Take-away bins in narrow lanes
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Shared bio-bins
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Community bio-bins
Lorry at slum entrance:
Slum lanes are usually kept clean, but waste usually lies uncollected in large heaps just outside the slum entrance. It takes a lorry 15-20 minutes to load this. Instead, a lorry waits at slum entrance at a fixed time, while helper moves through slum with whistle to announce its arrival.Slum-dwellers come to lorry with their waste. Lorry pickup time and frequency unchanged. So no extra payment is required.
Door-to-door collection in handcarts:
This is done in Calcutta’s upgraded slums where lanes are paved and wide enough for movement. Waste is collected in the usual way in hand-carts at a fixed time of day. No payment is required as this replaces earlier lane-sweeping practices.
Take-away bins in narrow lanes:
In Mumbai, slum associations appoint youths for cleaning work, before going to college or jobs. First a mass clean-up drive is undertaken. Then the new system is immediately started on the following schedule:
7-8 am: Narrow open drains are swept clean.
8 am: 50-litre bins given by city corporation are placed at path crossings, one per 25 homes or so.
8-10am: Waste is carried from each home to nearest bin at residents’ convenience
10-11am: All bins are removed and unloaded directly into waiting trucks outside the slum, and stacked till next day.
(In this, the civic corporation’s cooperation in regular and punctual presence of lorry at 10-11am is vital. Residents too willingly pay Re1 per head or Rs5 per family. It is more for shops outside the slums.)
Shared Bio-Bins: The Dhaka Model
Waste Concern NGO provides 5-6 families a perforated barrel on a raised base, with compost layer at bottom as a starter bed. Residents must fill only kitchen waste daily in layers not more than ~50mm, for mulch-composting in the barrel. NGO buys the ready compost when barrel is full after 3 months or so. Demand is good and cooperation too, as residents see their waste as valuable.
Community Bio-Bins:
This bio-bin replaced a dirty overflowing waste container. It serves 125 families at Diamond Garden Chembur (Mumbai), who pay for the programme. Segregated waste is loaded daily by door-to-door collectors, bio-culture is added & waste is turned. After 15 days, a similar bio-bin is used while the compost in the first bin matures in 15 more days. Compost is not sold but used in flowerbeds for street beautification. 3 people get employed, for an hour a day for door-to-door collection, street and drain cleaning, gardening + composting.
Fourteen such bio-bins are in use at Kochi on Rupee-A-Day scheme, in good demand for cleanliness in middle-income areas. Residents groups pay for installation of bio-bins. Kudumbashree womens’ self-help groups collect waste door-to-door, put kitchen waste in bio-bin, add culture and turn it. Sale of compost adds to their income.
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