Won't let it go waste! Nikol housing society paves way for 100% segregated waste collection

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation's (AMC) struggle to implement segregated waste collection process has finally started showing results. A residential apartment of 40 units in Nikol has achieved 100% segregated waste collection.

The society bagged the second prize when the civic body announced Swachh Society competition during Kankaria Carnival 2016. elaborating the effort to maintain the tag and make the residential unit ideal, society chairman Nandlal Dhanani said it was hard for them to train adults at the initial level.

"We don't realise the complexity of waste and its management. We think waste is something which should be discarded. It makes things more difficult for the city administration. They have given us dustbins of different colours for dry and wet waste. We have been using them for last eighteen months," said Dhanani.

"It took us five months to get habituated to dump waste separately. Now, we are 100% waste segregated. Even the kids know about the segregation process," said Dhanani.

Dr Bhavin Solanki, the in-charge medical officer of health, was informed about the segregation and the practice followed by this society by a teenager. "I was impressed to see that even a five-year-old knows which bin should chocolate wrappers and fruit peels are put. This how the residents are nurturing themselves and their kids. It makes the unit to dump 100% segregated waste," claimed Dr Solanki.

This can be termed as a model society as no other residential unit has achieved 100 per cent segregated waste in more than a year, said Dr Solanki.

Interestingly, the civic body has not yet distributed different colour bins: blue for wet and green for dry waste. "We are in the process of distributing the bins. We will distribute the blue bins shortly. The green ones have been distributed already," said Dinesh Desai, chairman of the health and solid waste committee, AMC.