Waste not, want not: On garbage segregation

Waste segregation is one of the many answers to being part of a greener environment. Waste sorting needs to be a collective effort by citizens... this is in order to reduce the pressure on the city's dumping ground. The four strata of society – the corporation, citizens, private corporate companies and the political clan – need to work together to make this step a reality. It is high time these four major stakeholders get together to benefit the environment. There are a number of people practising waste segregation in the city; currently, 617 ALMs (advanced locality managements) in the city are effectively sorting waste in their neighbourhood, and around 40 locations witness activities like composting. We need to scale this up by active participation.

Mumbaikars need to understand segregation needs to be conducted from the source, i.e. from each household, hotels, commercial complexes among others. What is lacking, I feel, is awareness and publicity about the benefits as well as the necessity of this process. A lot of civic bodies (like the ones of Thane and Pune) allow rebate on property tax if the societies conduct waste segregation. I feel all corporations should adopt such pro-people and eco-friendly policies.

I have been working with the slums for more than two decades now and it is surprising that the awareness level here is higher than the societies. On average, a person living in a society generates a kilo of waste per person per day, while a slumdweller would (probably) generate around 250gm. Also, slumdwellers recycle more than us (mostly due to their financial needs). They sell emptied milk sachets, metal scrap, newspapers (that are later recycled or reused) in exchange for other household items.

We need to change how we store garbage in waste bins. Usually, most houses use plastic waste bin liners to stock garbage. It is important that we replace these plastic liners with bags that are compostable, which are corn or starch-based. Though these are not 100 per cent environment friendly, they do less harm than plastic bags. We need to understand that the environment is a chain, where production only ends with going back to nature. But this is not happening… now, we only add to the pollution.

We need private industries that can create a market for recycled material, where products such as products are recycled. These private industries can also help in managing commercial waste like rexine from leather industries, cloth waste from textile industries and others. Along with this, we need public-private partnerships. I don't see another way for managing waste.

Finally, change yourself and society will change.
 

—As told to Pooja Patel